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The Mystery of the Boule Cabinet: A Detective Story

by Burton Egbert Stevenson · English · Gutenberg #10067 · 395,830 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Mystery of the Boule Cabinet: A Detective Story

Author: Burton Egbert Stevenson


        
Release date: November 1, 2003 [eBook #10067]
                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MYSTERY OF THE BOULE CABINET: A DETECTIVE STORY ***

THE MYSTERY OF THE BOULE CABINET

_A Detective Story_


BY

BURTON E. STEVENSON


With Illustrations by THOMAS FOGARTY

1911


To

A.B.M.
Fellow-Sherlockian




CONTENTS


      I A CONNOISSEUR'S VAGARY
     II THE FIRST TRAGEDY
    III THE WOUNDED HAND
     IV THE THUNDERBOLT
      V GRADY TAKES A HAND
     VI THE WOMAN IN THE CASE
    VII ROGERS GETS A SHOCK
   VIII PRECAUTIONS
     IX GUESSES AT THE RIDDLE
      X PREPARATIONS
     XI THE BURNING EYES
    XII GODFREY IS FRIGHTENED
   XIII A DISTINGUISHED CALLER
    XIV THE VEILED LADY
     XV THE SECRET OF THE UNKNOWN FRENCHMAN
    XVI PHILIP VANTINE'S CALLER
   XVII ENTER M. ARMAND
  XVIII I PART WITH THE BOULE CABINET
    XIX "LA MORT!"
     XX THE ESCAPE
    XXI GODFREY WEAVES A ROMANCE
   XXII "CROCHARD, L'INVINCIBLE!"
  XXIII WE MEET M. PIGOT
   XXIV THE SECRET OF THE CABINET
    XXV THE MICHAELOVITCH DIAMONDS
   XXVI THE FATE OF M. PIGOT
  XXVII THE LAST ACT OF THE DRAMA
 XXVIII CROCHARD WRITES AN EPILOGUE




ILLUSTRATIONS


CLUTCHING AT HIS THROAT, HE HALF-TURNED AND FELL

"I GRABBED HER AGAIN, AND JUST THEN MR. VANTINE OPENED THE DOOR AND
CAME OUT INTO THE HALL."

"A MOMENT LATER M. FÉLIX ARMAND WAS SHOWN IN"

WITH HIS BACK TO THE DOOR, STOOD A MAN RIPPING SAVAGELY AWAY THE
STRIPS OF BURLAP




CHAPTER I

A CONNOISSEUR'S VAGARY


"Hello!" I said, as I took down the receiver of my desk 'phone, in
answer to the call.

"Mr. Vantine wishes to speak to you, sir," said the office-boy.

"All right," and I heard the snap of the connection.

"Is that you, Lester?" asked Philip Vantine's voice.

"Yes. So you're back again?"

"Got in yesterday. Can you come up to the house and lunch with me
to-day?"

"I'll be glad to," I said, and meant it, for I liked Philip Vantine.

"I'll look for you, then, about one-thirty."

And that is how it happened that, an hour later, I was walking over
toward Washington Square, just above which, on the Avenue, the old
Vantine mansion stood. It was almost the last survival of the old
régime; for the tide of business had long since overflowed from the
neighbouring streets into the Avenue and swept its fashionable folk
far uptown. Tall office and loft buildings had replaced the
brownstone houses; only here and there did some old family hold on,
like a sullen and desperate rear-guard defying the advancing enemy.

Philip Vantine was one of these. He had been born in the house where
he still lived, and declared that he would die there. He had no one
but himself to please in the matter, since he was unmarried and lived
alone, and he mitigated the increasing roar and dust of the
neighbourhood by long absences abroad. It was from one of these that
he had just returned.

I may as well complete this pencil-sketch. Vantine was about fifty
years of age, the possessor of a comfortable fortune, something of a
connoisseur in art matters, a collector of old furniture, a little
eccentric--though now that I have written the word, I find that I
must qualify it, for his only eccentricity was that he persisted, in
spite of many temptations, in remaining a bachelor. Marriageable
women had long since ceased to consider him; mothers with maturing
daughters dismissed him with a significant shake of the head. It was
from them that he got the reputation of being an eccentric. But his
reasons for remaining single in no way concerned his lawyers--a
position which our firm had held for many years, and the active work
of which had come gradually into my hands.

It was not very arduous work, consisting for the most part of the
drawing of leases, the collecting of rents, the reinvestment of
funds, and the adjustment of minor differences with tenants--all of
which were left to our discretion. But occasionally it was necessary
to consult our client on some matter of unusual importance, or to get
his signature to some paper, and, at such times, I always enjoyed the
talk which followed the completion of the business; for Vantine was a
good talker, with a knowledge of men and of the world gained by much
travel and by a detached, humourous and penetrating habit of mind.

He came forward to meet me, as I gave his man my hat and stick, and
we shook hands heartily. I was glad to see him, and I think he was
glad to see me. He was looking in excellent health, and brown from
the voyage over.

"It's plain to see that the trip did you good," I said.

"Yes," he agreed; "I never felt more fit. But come along; we can talk
at table. There's a little difficulty I want you to untangle for me."
I followed him upstairs to his study, where a table laid for two had
been placed near a low window.

"I had lunch served up here," Vantine explained, as we sat down,
"because this is the only really pleasant room left in the house. If
I didn't own that plot of ground next door, this place would be
impossible. As it is, I can keep the sky-scrapers far enough away to
get a little sunshine now and then. I've had to put in an air filter,
too; and double windows in the bedrooms to keep out the noise; but I
dare say I can manage to hang on."

"I can understand how you'd hate to move into a new house," I said.

Vantine made a grimace.

"I couldn't endure a new house. I'm used to this one--I can find my
way about in it; I know where things are. I've grown up here, you
know; and, as a man gets older, he values such associations more and
more. Besides, a new house would mean new fittings, new furniture--"

He paused and glanced about the room. Every piece of furniture in it
was the work of a master.

"I suppose you found some new things while you were away?" I said.
"You always do. Your luck's proverbial."

"Yes--and it's that I wanted to talk to you about, I brought back six
or eight pieces; I'll show them to you presently. They are all pretty
good, and one is a thing of beauty. It's more than that--it's an
absolutely unique work of art. Only, unfortunately, it isn't mine."

"It isn't yours?"

"No; and I don't know whose it is. If I did, I'd go buy it. That's
what I want you to do for me. It's a Boule cabinet--the most
exquisite I ever saw."

"Where did it come from?" I questioned, more and more surprised.

"It came from Paris, and it was addressed to me. The only explanation
I can think of is that my shippers at Paris made a mistake, sent me a
cabinet belonging to some one else, and sent mine to the other
person."

"You had bought one, then?"

"Yes; and it hasn't turned up. But beside this one, it's a mere daub.
My man Parks got it through the customs yesterday. As there was a
Boule cabinet on my manifest, the mistake wasn't discovered until the
whole lot was brought up here and uncrated this morning."

"Weren't they uncrated in the customs?"

"No; I've been bringing things in for a good many years, and the
customs people know I'm not a thief."

"That's quite a compliment," I pointed out. "They've been tearing
things wide open lately."

"They've had a tip of some sort, I suppose. Come in," he added,
answering a tap at the door.

The door opened and Vantine's man came in.

"A gentleman to see you, sir," he said, and handed Vantine a card.

Vantine looked at it a little blankly.

"I don't know him," he said. "What does he want?"

"He wants to see you, sir; very bad, I should say."

"What about?"

"Well, I couldn't just make out, sir; but it seems to be important."

"Couldn't make out? What do you mean, Parks?"

"I think he's a Frenchman, sir; anyway, he don't know much English.
He ain't much of a looker, sir--I've seen hundreds like him sitting
out in front of the cafés along the boulevards, taking all afternoon
to drink a bock."

Vantine seemed struck by a sudden idea, and he looked at the card
again. Then he tapped it meditatively on the table.

"Shall I show him out, sir?" asked Parks, at last.

"No," said Vantine, after an instant's hesitation. "Tell him to
wait," and he dropped the card on the table beside his plate.

"I tell you, Lester," he went on, as Parks withdrew, "when I went
downstairs this morning and saw that cabinet, I could hardly believe
my eyes. I thought I knew furniture, but I hadn't any idea such a
cabinet existed. The most beautiful I had ever seen is at the Louvre.
It stands in the Salle Louis Fourteenth, to the left as you enter. It
belonged to Louis himself. Of course I can't be certain without a
careful examination, but I believe that cabinet, beautiful as it is,
is merely the counterpart of this one."

He paused and looked at me, his eyes bright with the enthusiasm of
the connoisseur.

"I'm not sure I understand your jargon," I said. "What do you mean by
'counterpart?'"

"Boule furniture," he explained, "is usually of ebony inlaid with
tortoise-shell, and incrusted with arabesques in metals of various
kinds. The incrustation had to be very exact, and to get it so, the
artist clamped together two plates of equal size and thickness, one
of metal, the other of tortoise-shell, traced his design on the top
one, and then cut them both out together. The result was two
combinations, the original, with a tortoise-shell ground and metal
applications; and the counterpart, appliqué metal with tortoise-shell
arabesques. The original was really the one which the artist designed
and whose effects he studied; the counterpart was merely a resultant
accident with which he was not especially concerned. Understand?"

"Yes, I think so," I said. "It's a good deal as though Michael
Angelo, when he made one of his sketches, white on black, put a sheet
of carbon under his paper and made a copy at the same time, black on
white."

"Precisely. And it's the original which has the real artistic value.
Of course, the counterpart is often beautiful, too, but in a much
lower degree."

"I can understand that," I said.

"And now, Lester," Vantine went on, his eyes shining more and more,
"if my supposition is correct--if the Grand Louis was content with
the counterpart of this cabinet for the long gallery at Versailles,
who do you suppose owned the original?"

I saw what he was driving at.

"You mean one of his mistresses?"

"Yes, and I think I know which one--it belonged to Madame de
Montespan."

I stared at him in astonishment, as he sat back in his chair, smiling
across at me.

"But," I objected, "you can't be sure--"

"Of course I'm not sure," he agreed quickly. "That is to say, I
couldn't prove it. But there is some--ah--contributory evidence, I
think you lawyers call it Boule and the Montespan were in their glory
at the same time, and I can imagine that flamboyant creature
commissioning the flamboyant artist to build her just such a
cabinet."

"Really, Vantine," I exclaimed, "I didn't know you were so romantic.
You quite take my breath away."

He flushed a little at the words, and I saw how deeply in earnest he
was.

"The craze of the collector takes him a long way sometimes," he said.
"But I believe I know what I'm talking about. I am going to make a
careful examination of the cabinet as soon as I can. Perhaps I'll
find something--there ought to be a monogram on it somewhere. What I
want you to do is to cable my shippers, Armand et Fils, Rue du
Temple, find out who owns this cabinet, and buy it for me."

"Perhaps the owner won't sell," I suggested.

"Oh yes, he will. Anything can be bought--for a price."

"You mean you're going to have this cabinet, whatever the cost?"

"I mean just that."

"But, surely, there's a limit."

"No, there isn't."

"At least you'll tell me where to begin," I said. "I don't know
anything of the value of such things."

"Well," said Vantine, "suppose you begin at ten thousand francs. We
mustn't seem too eager. It's because I'm so eager, I want you to
carry it through for me. I can't trust myself."

"And the other end?"

"There isn't any other end. Of course, strictly speaking, there is,
because my money isn't unlimited; but I don't believe you will have
to go over five hundred thousand francs."

I gasped.

"You mean you're willing to give a hundred thousand dollars for this
cabinet?"

Vantine nodded.

"Maybe a little more. If the owner won't accept that, you must let me
know before you break off negotiations. I'm a little mad about it, I
fancy--all collectors are a little mad. But I want that cabinet, and
I'm going to have it."

I did not reply. I only looked at him. And he laughed as he caught my
glance.

"I can see you share that opinion, Lester," he said. "You fear for
me. I don't blame you--but come and see it."

He led the way out of the room and down the stairs; but when we
reached the lower hall, he paused.

"Perhaps I'd better see my visitor first," he said. "You'll find a
new picture or two over there in the music-room--I'll be with you in
a minute."

I started on, and he turned through a doorway at the left.

An instant later, I heard a sharp exclamation; then his voice calling
me.

"Lester! Come here!" he cried.

I ran back along the hall, into the room which he had entered. He was
standing just inside the door.

"Look there," he said, with a queer catch in his voice, and pointed
with a trembling hand to a dark object on the floor.

I moved aside to see it better. Then my heart gave a sickening throb;
for the object on the floor was the body of a man.




CHAPTER II

THE FIRST TRAGEDY


It needed but a glance to tell me that the man was dead. There could
be no life in that livid face, in those glassy eyes.

"Don't touch him," I said, for Vantine had started forward. "It's too
late."

I drew him back, and we stood for a moment shaken as one always is by
sudden and unexpected contact with death.

"Who is he?" I asked, at last.

"I don't know," answered Vantine hoarsely. "I never saw him before."
Then he strode to the bell and rang it violently. "Parks," he went on
sternly, as that worthy appeared at the door, "what has been going on
in here?"

"Going on, sir?" repeated Parks, with a look of amazement, not only
at the words, but at the tone in which they were uttered. "I'm sure I
don't know what--"

Then his glance fell upon the huddled body, and he stopped short, his
eyes staring, his mouth open.

"Well," said his master, sharply. "Who is he? What is he doing here?"

"Why--why," stammered Parks, thickly, "that's the man who was waiting
to see you, sir."

"You mean he has been killed in this house?" demanded Vantine.

"He was certainly alive when he came in, sir," said Parks, recovering
something of his self-possession. "Maybe he was just looking for a
quiet place where he could kill himself. He seemed kind of excited."

"Of course," agreed Vantine, with a sigh of relief, "that's the
explanation. Only I wish he had chosen some place else. I suppose we
shall have to call the police, Lester?"

"Yes," I said, "and the coroner. Suppose you leave it to me. We'll
lock up this room, and nobody must leave the house until the police
arrive."

"Very well," assented Vantine, visibly relieved, "I'll see to that,"
and he hastened away, while I went to the 'phone, called up police
headquarters, and told briefly what had happened.

Twenty minutes later, there was a ring at the bell, and Parks opened
the door and admitted four men.

"Why, hello, Simmonds," I said, recognising in the first one the
detective-sergeant who had assisted in clearing up the Marathon
mystery. And back of him was Coroner Goldberger, whom I had met in
two previous cases; while the third countenance, looking at me with a
quizzical smile, was that of Jim Godfrey, the _Record's_ star
reporter. The fourth man was a policeman in uniform, who, at a word
from Simmonds, took his station at the door.

"Yes," said Godfrey, as we shook hands, "I happened to be talking to
Simmonds when the call came in, and I thought I might as well come
along. What is it?"

"Just a suicide, I think," and I unlocked the door into the room
where the dead man lay.

Simmonds, Goldberger and Godfrey stepped inside. I followed and
closed the door.

"Nothing has been disturbed," I said. "No one has touched the body."

Simmonds nodded, and glanced inquiringly about the room; but
Godfrey's eyes, I noticed, were on the face of the dead man.
Goldberger dropped to his knees beside the body, looked into the eyes
and touched his fingers to the left wrist. Then he stood erect again
and looked down at the body, and as I followed his gaze, I noted its
attitude more accurately than I had done in the first shock of
discovering it.

It was lying on its right side, half on its stomach, with its right
arm doubled under it, and its left hand clutching at the floor above
its head. The knees were drawn up as though in a convulsion, and the
face was horribly contorted, with a sort of purple tinge under the
skin, as though the blood had been suddenly congealed. The eyes were
wide open, and their glassy stare added not a little to the apparent
terror and suffering of the face. It was not a pleasant sight, and
after a moment, I turned my eyes away with a shiver of repugnance.

The coroner glanced at Simmonds.

"Not much question as to the cause," he said. "Poison of course."

"Of course," nodded Simmonds.

"But what kind?" asked Godfrey.

"It will take a post-mortem to tell that," and Goldberger bent for
another close look at the distorted face. "I'm free to admit the
symptoms aren't the usual ones."

Godfrey shrugged his shoulders.

"I should say not," he agreed, and turned away to an inspection of
the room.

"What can you tell us about it, Mr. Lester?" Goldberger questioned.

I told all I knew--how Parks had announced a man's arrival, how
Vantine and I had come downstairs together, how Vantine had called
me, and finally how Parks had identified the body as that of the
strange caller.

"Have you any theory about it?" Goldberger asked.

"Only that the call was merely a pretext--that what the man was
really looking for was a place where he could kill himself
unobserved."

"How long a time elapsed after Parks announced the man before you and
Mr. Vantine came downstairs?"

"Half an hour, perhaps."

Goldberger nodded.

"Let's have Parks in," he said.

I opened the door and called to Parks, who was sitting on the bottom
step of the stair.

Goldberger looked him over carefully as he stepped into the room; but
there could be no two opinions about Parks. He had been with Vantine
for eight or ten years, and the earmarks of the competent and
faithful servant were apparent all over him.

"Do you know this man?" Goldberger asked, with a gesture toward the
body.

"No, sir," said Parks. "I never saw him till about an hour ago, when
Rogers called me downstairs and said there was a man to see Mr.
Vantine."

"Who is Rogers?"

"He's the footman, sir. He answered the door when the man rang."

"Well, and then what happened?"

"I took his card up to Mr. Vantine, sir."

"Did Mr. Vantine know him?"

"No, sir; he wanted to know what he wanted."

"What _did_ he want?"

"I don't know, sir; he couldn't speak English hardly at all--he was
French, I think."

Goldberger looked down at the body again and nodded.

"Go ahead," he said.

"And he was so excited," Parks added, "that he couldn't remember what
little English he did know."

"What made you think he was excited?"

"The way he stuttered, and the way his eyes glinted. That's what
makes me think he just come in here to kill hisself quiet like--I
shouldn't be surprised if you found that he'd escaped from
somewhere. I had a notion to put him out without bothering Mr.
Vantine--I wish now I had--but I took his card up, and Mr. Vantine
said for him to wait; so I come downstairs again, and showed the man
in here, and said Mr. Vantine would see him presently, and then
Rogers and me went back to our lunch and we sat there eating till the
bell rang, and I came in and found Mr. Vantine here."

"Do you mean to say that you and Rogers went away and left this
stranger here by himself?"

"The servants' dining-room is right at the end of the hall, sir. We
left the door open so that we could see right along the hall, clear
to the front door. If he'd come out into the hall, we'd have seen
him."

"And he didn't come out into the hall while you were there?"

"No, sir."

"Did anybody come in?"

"Oh, no, sir; the front door has a snap-lock. It can't be opened from
the outside without a key."

"So you are perfectly sure that no one either entered or left the
house by the front door while you and Rogers were sitting there?"

"Nor by the back door either, sir; to get out the back way, you have
to pass through the room where we were."

"Where were the other servants?"

"The cook was in the kitchen, sir. This is the housemaid's afternoon
out."

The coroner paused. Godfrey and Simmonds had both listened to this
interrogation, but neither had been idle. They had walked softly
about the room, had looked through a door opening into another room
beyond, had examined the fastenings of the windows, and had ended by
looking minutely over the carpet.

"What is the room yonder used for?" asked Godfrey, pointing to the
connecting door.

"It's a sort of store-room just now, sir," said Parks. "Mr. Vantine
is just back from Europe, and we've been unpacking in there some of
the things he bought while abroad."

"I guess that's all," said Goldberger, after a moment. "Send in Mr.
Vantine, please."

Parks went out, and Vantine came in a moment later. He corroborated
exactly the story told by Parks and myself, but he added one detail.

"Here is the man's card," he said, and held out a square of
pasteboard.

Goldberger took the card, glanced at it, and passed it on to
Simmonds.

"That don't tell us much," said the latter, and gave the card to
Godfrey. I looked over his shoulder and saw that it contained a
single engraved line:

     M. THÉOPHILE D'AURELLE

"Except that he's French, as Parks suggested," said Godfrey. "That's
evident, too, from the cut of his clothes."

"Yes, and from the cut of his hair," added Goldberger. "You say you
didn't know him, Mr. Vantine?"

"I never before saw him, to my knowledge," answered Vantine. "The
name is wholly unknown to me."

"Well," said Goldberger, taking possession of the card again and
slipping it into his pocket, "suppose we lift him onto that couch by
the window and take a look through his clothes."

The man was slightly built, so that Simmonds and Goldberger raised
the body between them without difficulty and placed it on the couch.
I saw Godfrey's eyes searching the carpet.

"What I should like to know," he said, after a moment, "is this: if
this fellow took poison, what did he take it out of? Where's the
paper, or bottle, or whatever it was?"

"Maybe it's in his hand," suggested Simmonds, and lifted the right
hand, which hung trailing over the side of the couch.

Then, as he raised it into the light, a sharp cry burst from him.

"Look here," he said, and held the hand so that we all could see.

It was swollen and darkly discoloured.

"See there," said Simmonds, "something bit him," and he pointed to
two deep incisions on the back of the hand, just above the knuckles,
from which a few drops of blood had oozed and dried.

With a little exclamation of surprise and excitement, Godfrey bent
for an instant above the injured hand. Then he turned and looked at
us.

"This man didn't take poison," he said, in a low voice. "He was
killed!"




CHAPTER III

THE WOUNDED HAND


"He was killed!" repeated Godfrey, with conviction; and, at the
words, we drew together a little, with a shiver of repulsion. Death
is awesome enough at any time; suicide adds to its horror; murder
gives it the final touch.

So we all stood silent, staring as though fascinated at the hand
which Simmonds held up to us; at those tiny wounds, encircled by
discoloured flesh and with a sinister dash of clotted blood running
away from them. Then Goldberger, taking a deep breath, voiced the
thought which had sprung into my own brain.

"Why, it looks like a snake-bite!" he said, his voice sharp with
astonishment.

And, indeed, it did. Those two tiny incisions, scarcely half an inch
apart, might well have been made by a serpent's fangs.

The quick glance which all of us cast about the room was, of course,
as involuntary as the chill which ran up our spines; yet Godfrey and
I--yes, and Simmonds--had the excuse that, once upon a time, we had
had an encounter with a deadly snake which none of us was likely ever
to forget. We all smiled a little sheepishly as we caught each
other's eyes.

"No, I don't think it was a snake," said Godfrey, and again bent
close above the hand. "Smell it, Mr. Goldberger," he added.

The coroner put his nose close to the hand and sniffed.

"Bitter almonds!" he said.

"Which means prussic acid," said Godfrey, "and not snake poison." He
fell silent a moment, his eyes on the swollen hand. The rest of us
stared at it too; and I suppose all the others were labouring as I
was with the effort to find some thread of theory amid this chaos.
"It might, of course, have been self-inflicted," Godfrey added, quite
to himself.

Goldberger sneered a little. No doubt he found the
incomprehensibility of the problem rather trying to his temper.

"A man doesn't usually commit suicide by sticking himself in the hand
with a fork," he said.

"No," agreed Godfrey, blandly; "but I would point out that we don't
know as yet that it _is_ a case of suicide; and I'm quite sure that,
whatever it may be, it isn't usual."

Goldberger's sneer deepened.

"Did any reporter for the _Record_ ever find a case that _was_
usual?" he queried.

It was a shrewd thrust, and one that Godfrey might well have winced
under. For the _Record_ theory was that nothing was news unless it
was strange and startling, and the inevitable result was that the
_Record_ reporters endeavoured to make everything strange and
startling, to play up the outré details at the expense of the rest of
the story, and even, I fear, to invent such details when none
existed.

Godfrey himself had been accused more than once of a too-luxuriant
imagination. It was, perhaps, a realisation of this which had
persuaded him, years before, to quit the detective force and take
service with the _Record_. What might have been a weakness in the
first position, was a mighty asset in the latter one, and he had won
an immense success.

Please understand that I set this down in no spirit of criticism. I
had known Godfrey rather intimately ever since the days when we were
thrown together in solving the Holladay case, and I admired sincerely
his ready wit, his quick insight, and his unshakable aplomb. He used
his imagination in a way which often caused me to reflect that the
police would be far more efficient if they possessed a dash of the
same quality; and I had noticed that they were usually glad of his
assistance, while his former connection with the force and his
careful maintenance of the friendships formed at that time gave him
an entrée to places denied to less-fortunate reporters. I had never
known him to do a dishonourable thing--to fight for a cause he
thought unjust, to print a fact given to him in confidence, or to
make a statement which he knew to be untrue. Moreover, a lively sense
of humour made him an admirable companion, and it was this quality,
perhaps, which enabled him to receive Goldberger's thrust with a
good-natured smile.

"We've got our living to make, you know," he said. "We make it as
honestly as we can. What do _you_ think, Simmonds?"

"I think," said Simmonds, who, if he possessed an imagination, never
permitted it to be suspected, "that those little cuts on the hand are
merely an accident. They might have been caused in half a dozen ways.
Maybe he hit his hand on something when he fell; maybe he jabbed it
on a buckle; maybe he had a boil on his hand and lanced it with his
knife."

"What killed him, then?" Godfrey demanded.

"Poison--and it's in his stomach. We'll find it there."

"How about the odour?" Godfrey persisted.

"He spilled some of the poison on his hand as he lifted it to his
mouth. Maybe he had those cuts on his hand and the poison inflamed
them. Or maybe he's got some kind of blood disease."

Goldberger nodded his approval, and Godfrey smiled as he looked at
him.

"It's easy to find explanations, isn't it?" he queried.

"It's a blamed sight easier to find a natural and simple
explanation," retorted Goldberger hotly, "than it is to find an
unnatural and far-fetched one--such as how one man could kill another
by scratching him on the hand. I suppose you think this fellow was
murdered? That's what you said a minute ago."

"Perhaps I was a little hasty," Godfrey admitted, and I suspected
that, whatever his thoughts, he had made up his mind to keep them to
himself. "I'm not going to theorise until I've got something to start
with. The facts seem to point to suicide; but if he swallowed prussic
acid, where's the bottle? He didn't swallow that too, did he?"

"Maybe we'll find it in his clothes," suggested Simmonds.

Thus reminded, Goldberger fell to work looking through the dead man's
pockets. The clothes were of a cheap material and not very new, so
that, in life, he must have presented an appearance somewhat shabby.
There was a purse in the inside coat pocket containing two bills, one
for ten dollars and one for five, and there were two or three dollars
in silver and four five-centime pieces in a small coin purse which he
carried in his trousers' pocket. The larger purse had four or five
calling cards in one of its compartments, each bearing a different
name, none of them his. On the back of one of them, Vantine's address
was written in pencil.

There were no letters, no papers, no written documents of any kind in
the pockets, the remainder of whose contents consisted of such odds
and ends as any man might carry about with him--a cheap watch, a
pen-knife, a half-empty packet of French tobacco, a sheaf of
cigarette paper, four or five keys on a ring, a silk handkerchief,
and perhaps some other articles which I have forgotten--but not a
thing to assist in establishing his identity.

"We'll have to cable over to Paris," remarked Simmonds. "He's French,
all right--that silk handkerchief proves it."

"Yes--and his best girl proves it, too," put in Godfrey.

"His best girl?"

For answer, Godfrey held up the watch, which he had been examining.
He had opened the case, and inside it was a photograph--the
photograph of a woman with bold, dark eyes and full lips and oval
face--a face so typically French that it was not to be mistaken.

"A lady's-maid, I should say," added Godfrey, looking at it again.
"Rather good-looking at one time, but past her first youth, and so
compelled perhaps to bestow her affections on a man a little beneath
her--no doubt compelled also to contribute to his support in order to
retain him. A woman with many pasts and no future--"

"Oh, come," broke in Goldberger impatiently, "keep your second-hand
epigrams for the _Record_. What we want are facts."

Godfrey flushed a little at the words and laid down the watch.

"There is one fact which you have apparently overlooked," he said
quietly, "but it proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that this fellow
didn't drift in here by accident. He came here of intention, and the
intention wasn't to kill himself, either."

"How do you know that?" demanded Goldberger, incredulously.

Godfrey picked up the purse, opened it, and took out one of the
cards.

"By this," he said, and held it up. "You have already seen what is
written on the back of it--Mr. Vantine's name and the number of this
house. That proves, doesn't it, that this fellow came to New York
expressly to see Mr. Vantine?"

"Perhaps you think Mr. Vantine killed him," suggested Goldberger,
sarcastically.

"No," said Godfrey; "he didn't have time. You understand, Mr.
Vantine," he added, smiling at that gentleman, who was listening to
all this with perplexed countenance, "we are simply talking now about
possibilities. You couldn't possibly have killed this fellow because
Lester has testified that he was with you constantly from the moment
this man entered the house until his body was found, with the
exception of the few seconds which elapsed between the time you
entered this room and the time he joined you here, summoned by your
cry. So you are out of the running."

"Thanks," said Vantine, drily.

"I suppose, then, you think it was Parks," said Goldberger.

"It may quite possibly have been Parks," agreed Godfrey, gravely.

"Nonsense!" broke in Vantine, impatiently. "Parks is as straight as a
string--he's been with me for eight years."

"Of course it's nonsense," assented Goldberger. "It's nonsense to say
that he was killed by anybody. He killed himself. We'll learn the
cause when we identify him--jealousy maybe, or maybe just hard luck
--he doesn't look affluent."

"I'll cable to Paris," said Simmonds. "If he belongs there, we'll soon
find out who he is."

"You'd better call an ambulance and have him taken to the morgue,"
went on Goldberger. "Somebody may identify him there. There'll be a
crowd to-morrow, for, of course, the papers will be full of this
affair--"

"The _Record_, at least, will have a very full account," Godfrey
assured him.

"And I'll call the inquest for the day after," Goldberger continued.
"I'll send my physician down to make a post-mortem right away. If
there's any poison in this fellow's stomach, we'll find it."

Godfrey did not speak; but I knew what was in his mind. He was
thinking that, if such poison existed, the vessel which had contained
it had not yet been found. The same thought, no doubt, occurred to
Simmonds, for, after ordering the policeman in the hall to call the
ambulance, he returned and began a careful search of the room, using
his electric torch to illumine every shadowed corner. Godfrey devoted
himself to a similar search; but both were without result. Then
Godfrey made a minute inspection of the injured hand, while
Goldberger looked on with ill-concealed impatience; and finally he
moved toward the door.

"I think I'll be going," he said. "But I'm interested in what your
physician will find, Mr. Coroner."

"He'll find poison, all right," asserted Goldberger, with decision.

"Perhaps he will," admitted Godfrey. "Strange things happen in this
world. Will you be at home to-night, Lester?"

"Yes, I expect to be," I answered.

"You're still at the Marathon?"

"Yes," I said; "suite fourteen."

"Perhaps I'll drop around to see you," he said, and a moment later we
heard the door close behind him as Parks let him out.

"Godfrey's a good man," said Goldberger, "but he's too romantic. He
looks for a mystery in every crime, whereas most crimes are merely
plain, downright brutalities. Take this case. Here's a man kills
himself, and Godfrey wants us to believe that death resulted from a
scratch on the hand. Why, there's no poison on earth would kill a man
as quick as that--for he must have dropped dead before he could get
out of the room to summon help. If it was prussic acid, he swallowed
it. Remember, he wasn't in this room more than fifteen or twenty
minutes, and he was quite dead when Mr. Vantine found him. Men don't
die as easily as all that--not from a scratch on the hand. They don't
die easily at all. It's astonishing how much it takes to kill a man
--how the spirit, or whatever you choose to call it, clings to
life."

"How do you explain the address on the card, Mr. Goldberger?" I
asked.

"My theory is that this fellow really had some business with Mr.
Vantine; probably he wanted to borrow some money, or ask for help;
and then, while he was waiting, he suddenly gave the thing up and
killed himself. The address has no bearing whatever, that I can see,
on the question of suicide. And I'll say this, Mr. Lester, if this
isn't suicide, it's the strangest case I ever had anything to do
with."

"Yes," I agreed, "if it isn't suicide, we come to a blank wall right
away."

"That's it," and Goldberger nodded emphatically. "Here's the
ambulance," he added, as the bell rang.

The bearers entered with the stretcher, placed the body on it, and
carried it away. Goldberger paused to gather up the articles he had
taken from the dead man's pockets.

"You gentlemen will have to give your testimony at the inquest," he
said. "So will Parks and Rogers. It will be day after to-morrow,
probably at ten o'clock, but I'll notify you of the hour."

"Very well," I said; "we'll be there," and Goldberger bade us
good-bye, and left the house. "And now," I added, to Vantine, "I must
be getting back to the office. They'll be asking the police to look
for me next. Man alive!" and I glanced at my watch, "it's after four
o'clock."

"Too late for the office," said Vantine. "Better come upstairs and
have a drink. Besides, I want to talk with you."

"At least, I'll let them know I'm still alive," I said, and I called
up the office and allayed any anxiety that may have been felt there
concerning me. I must admit that it did not seem acute.

"I feel the need of a bracer after all this excitement," Vantine
remarked, as he opened the cellarette. "Help yourself. I dare say
you're used to this sort of thing--"

"Finding dead men lying around?" I queried, with a smile. "No--it's
not so common as you seem to think."

"Tell me, Lester," and he looked at me earnestly, "do you think that
poor devil came in here just to get a chance to kill himself
quietly?"

"No, I don't," I said.

"Then what did he come in for?"

"I think Goldberger's theory a pretty good one--that he had heard of
you as a generous fellow and came in here to ask help; and while he
was waiting, suddenly gave it up--"

"And killed himself?" Vantine completed.

I hesitated. I was astonished to find, at the back of my mind, a
growing doubt.

"See here, Lester," Vantine demanded, "if he didn't kill himself,
what happened to him?"

"Heaven only knows," I answered, in despair. "I've been asking myself
the same question, without finding a reasonable answer to it. As I
said to Goldberger, it's a blank wall. But if anybody can see through
it, Jim Godfrey can."

Vantine seemed deeply perturbed. He took a turn or two up and down
the room, then stopped in front of me and looked me earnestly in the
eye.

"Tell me, Lester," he said, "do you believe that theory of Godfrey's
--that that insignificant wound on the hand caused death?"

"It seems absurd, doesn't it? But Godfrey is a sort of genius at
divining such things."

"Then you _do_ believe it?"

I asked myself the same question before I answered.

"Yes, I do," I said, finally.

Vantine walked up and down the room again, his eyes on the floor, his
brows contracted.

"Lester," he said, at last, "I have a queer feeling that the business
which brought this man here in some way concerned the Boule cabinet I
was telling you about. Perhaps it belonged to him."

"Hardly," I protested, recalling his shabby appearance.

"At any rate, I remember, as I was looking at his card, that some
such thought occurred to me. It was for that reason I told Parks to
ask him to wait."

"It's possible, of course," I admitted. "But that wouldn't explain
his excitement. And that reminds me," I added, "I haven't sent off
that cable."

"Any time to-night will do. It will be delivered in the morning. But
you haven't seen the cabinet yet. Come down and look at it."

He led the way down the stair. Parks met us in the lower hall.

"There's a delegation of reporters outside, sir," he said. "They say
they've got to see you."

Vantine made a movement of impatience.

"Tell them," he said, "that I positively refuse to see them or to
allow my servants to see them. Let them get their information from
the police."

"Very well, sir," said Parks, and turned away grinning.

Vantine passed on through the ante-room in which we had found the
body of the unfortunate Frenchman, and into the room beyond. Five or
six pieces of furniture, evidently just unpacked, stood there, but,
ignorant as I am of such things, he did not have to point out to me
the Boule cabinet. It dominated the room, much as Madame de
Montespan, no doubt, dominated the court at Versailles.

I looked at it for some moments, for it was certainly a beautiful
piece of work, with a wealth of inlay and incrustation little short
of marvellous. But I may as well say here that I never really
appreciated it. The florid style of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth
Louis is not at all to my taste; and I am too little of a connoisseur
to admire a beauty which has no personal appeal for me. So I am
afraid that Vantine found me a little cold.

Certainly there was nothing cold about the way he regarded it. His
eyes gleamed with a strange fire as he looked at it; he ran his
fingers over the inlay with a touch almost reverent; he pulled out
for me the little drawers with much the same air that another friend
of mine takes down his Kilmarnock Burns from his bookshelves; he
pointed out to me the grace of its curves in the same tone that one
uses to discuss the masterpiece of a great artist. And then, finding
no echo to his enthusiasm, he suddenly stopped.

"You don't seem to care for it," he said, looking at me.

"That's my fault and not the fault of the cabinet," I pointed out.
"I'm not educated up to it; I'm too little of an artist, perhaps."

He was flushed, as a man might be should another make a disparaging
remark about his wife, and he led the way from the room at once.

"Remember, Lester," he said, a little sternly, pausing with his hand
on the front door, "there is to be no foolishness about securing that
cabinet for me. Don't you let it get away. I'm in deadly earnest."

"I won't let it get away," I promised. "Perhaps it's just as well I'm
not over-enthusiastic about it."

"Let me know as soon as you have any news," he said, and opened the
door for me.

I had intended walking home, but as I turned up the Avenue, I met
sweeping down it a flood of girls just released from the workshops of
the neighbourhood. I struggled against it for a few moments, then
gave it up, hailed a cab, and settled back against the cushions with
a sigh of relief. I was glad to be out of Vantine's house; something
there oppressed me and left me ill at ease. Was Vantine quite normal,
I wondered? Could any man be normal who was willing to pay a hundred
thousand dollars for a piece of furniture? Especially a man who could
not afford such extravagance? I knew the size of Vantine's fortune;
it was large, but a hundred thousand dollars represented more than a
year's income. And then I smiled to myself. Of course Vantine had
been merely jesting when he named that limit. The cabinet could be
bought for a tenth of it, at the most. And, still smiling, I left the
cab, paid the driver, and mounted to my rooms.




CHAPTER IV

THE THUNDERBOLT


It was about eight o'clock that evening that Godfrey tapped at my
door, and when I let him in, I could tell by the way his eyes were
shining that he had some news.

"I can't stay long," he said. "I've got to get down to the office and
put the finishing touches on that story;" but nevertheless he took
the cigar I proffered him and sank into the chair opposite my own.

I knew Godfrey, so I waited patiently until the cigar was going
nicely, then--

"Well?" I asked.

"It's like old times, isn't it, Lester?" and he smiled across at me.
"How many conferences have we had in this room? How many of your
cigars have I made away with?"

"Not half enough recently," I said. "You haven't been here for
months."

"I'm sure to drift back, sooner or later, because you seem to have a
knack of getting in on the interesting cases. And I want to say this,
Lester, that of all I ever had, not one has promised better than
this one does. If it only keeps up--but one mustn't expect too much!"

"You've been working on it, of course?"

"I haven't been idle, and just now I'm feeling rather pleased with
myself. The coroner's physician finished his post-mortem half an hour
or so ago."

"Well?" I said again.

"The stomach was absolutely normal. It showed no trace of poison of
any kind."

He stretched himself, lay back in his chair, sent a smoke-ring
circling toward the ceiling, and watched it, smiling absently.

"Rather a facer for our friend Goldberger," he added, after a minute.

"What's the matter with Goldberger? He seemed rather peeved with you
this afternoon."

"No wonder. He's Grady's man, and we're after Grady. Grady isn't fit
to head the detective bureau--he got the job through his pull with
Tammany--he's stupid, and I suspect he's crooked. The _Record_ says
he has got to go."

"So, of course, he _will_ go," I commented, smiling.

"He certainly will," assented Godfrey seriously, "and that before
long. But meanwhile it's a little difficult for me, because his
people don't know which way to jump. Once he's out, everything will
be serene again."

I wasn't interested in Grady, so I came back to the case in hand.

"Look here, Godfrey," I said, "if it wasn't poison, what was it?"

"But it _was_ poison."

"Inserted at the hand?"

He nodded.

"Goldberger says there's no poison known which could be used that way
and which would act so quickly."

"Goldberger is right in that," agreed Godfrey; "but there's a poison
unknown that will--because it did."

"It wasn't a snake bite?"

"Oh, no; snake poison wouldn't kill a man that quickly--not even a
fer-de-lance. That fellow practically dropped where he was struck."

"Then what was it?"

Godfrey was sitting erect again. He was not smiling now. His face was
very stern.

"That is what I am going to find out, Lester," he said; "that is the
problem I've set myself to solve--and it's a pretty one. There is one
thing certain--that fellow was killed by some agency outside himself.
In some way, a drop or two of poison was introduced into his blood by
an instrument something like a hypodermic needle; and that poison was
so powerful that almost instantly it caused paralysis of the heart.
After all, that isn't so remarkable as it might seem. The blood in
the veins of the hand would be carried back to the heart in four or
five seconds."

"But you've already said there's no poison so powerful as all that."

"I said we didn't know of any. I wouldn't be so sure that Catherine
de Medici didn't."

"What has Catherine de Medici to do with it?"

"Nothing--except that what has been done may always be done again.
Those old stories are, no doubt, exaggerated; but it seems fairly
certain that the Queen of Navarre was killed with a pair of poisoned
gloves, the Duc d'Anjou with the scent of a poisoned rose, and the
Prince de Porcian with the smoke of a poisoned lamp. This case isn't
as extraordinary as those."

"No," I agreed, and fell silent, shivering a little, for there is
something horrible and revolting about the poisoner.

"After all," went on Godfrey, at last, "there is one thing that
neither you nor I nor any reasonable man can believe, and that is
that this Frenchman came from heaven knows where--from Paris,
perhaps--with Vantine's address in his pocket, and hunted up the
house and made his way into it simply to kill himself there. He had
some other object, and he met his death while trying to accomplish
it."

"Have you found out who he is?"

"No; he's not registered at any of the hotels; the French consul
never heard of him; he belongs to none of the French societies; he's
not known in the French quarter. He seems to have dropped in from the
clouds. We've cabled our Paris office to look him up; we may hear
from there to-night. But even if we discover the identity of
Théophile d'Aurelle, it won't help us any."

"Why not?" I demanded.

"Because it is evident that that isn't his name."

"Go ahead and tell me, Godfrey," I said, as he looked at me, smiling.
"I don't see it."

"Why, it's plain enough. He had five cards in his pocket, no two
alike. The sixth, selected probably at random, he had sent up to
Vantine."

I saw it then, of course; and I felt a good deal as the Spanish
savants must have felt when Columbus stood the egg on end. Godfrey
smiled again at my expression.

"The real d'Aurelle, whoever he may turn out to be, may be able to
help us," he added. "If he can't, we may learn something from the
Paris police. The dead man's Bertillon measurements have been cabled
over to them. Even that won't help, if he has never been arrested.
And, of course, we can't get at motives until we find out something
about him."

"But, Godfrey," I said, "suppose you knew who he was and what he
wanted with Vantine--suppose you could make a guess at who killed
him and why--how was it done? That is what stumps me. How was it
done?"

"Ah!" agreed Godfrey. "That's it! How was it done? I told you it was
a pretty case, Lester. But wait till we hear from Paris."

"That reminds me," I said, sitting up suddenly, "I've got to cable to
Paris myself, on some business for Mr. Vantine."

"Not connected with this affair?"

"Oh, no; his shippers over there sent him a piece of furniture that
doesn't belong to him. He asked me to straighten the matter out."

I rang for the hall-boy, asked for a cable-blank, and sent off a
message to Armand & Son, telling them of the mistake and asking them
to cable the name of the owner of the cabinet now in Mr. Vantine's
possession. Godfrey sat smoking reflectively while I was thus
engaged, staring straight before him with eyes that saw nothing; but
as I sat down again and took up my pipe, ready to continue the
conversation, he gave himself a sort of shake, put on his hat, and
got to his feet.

"I must be moving along," he said. "There's no use sitting here
theorising until we have some sort of foundation to build on."

"Goldberger was right in one thing," I remarked. "He pointed out,
after you left, that most crimes are not romances, but mere
brutalities. Perhaps this one--"

The ringing of my telephone stopped me.

"Hello," I said, taking down the receiver.

"Is that you, Mr. Lester?" asked a voice.

"Yes."

"This is Parks," and I suddenly realised that his voice was
unfamiliar because it was hoarse and quivering with emotion. "Could
you come down to the house right away, sir?"

"Why, yes," I said, wonderingly, "if it's important. Does Mr. Vantine
need me?"

"We all need you!" said the voice, and broke into a dry sob. "For
God's sake, come quick, Mr. Lester!"

"All right," I said without further parley, for evidently he had lost
his self-control. "Something has happened down at Vantine's," I added
to Godfrey, as I hung up the receiver. "Parks seems to be scared to
death. He wants me to come down right away," and I reached for my hat
and coat.

"Shall I come, too?" asked Godfrey.

Even under the stress of the moment, I could not but smile at the
question and at the tone in which it was uttered.

"Perhaps you'd better," I agreed. "It sounded pretty serious."

We went down together in the elevator, and three minutes later we had
hailed a taxi and were speeding eastward toward the Avenue. It had
started to drizzle, and the asphalt shone like a black mirror,
dancing with the lights along either side. The streets were almost
empty, for the theatre-crowd had passed, and as we reached the Avenue
and turned down-town, the driver pushed up his spark, and we hurtled
along toward Fourteenth street at a speed which made me think of the
traffic regulations. But no policeman interfered, and five minutes
later we drew up before the Vantine place.

Parks must have been on the front steps looking for me, for he came
running down them almost before the car had stopped. I caught a
glimpse of his face under the street lights, as I thrust a bill into
the driver's hand, and it fairly startled me.

"Is it you, Mr. Lester?" he gasped. "Good God, but I'm glad you're
here--"

I caught him by the arm.

"Steady, man," I said. "Don't let yourself go to pieces. Now--what
has happened?"

He seemed to take a sort of desperate grip of himself.

"I'll show you, sir," he said, and ran up the steps, along the hall,
to the door of the ante-room where we had found the Frenchman's body.
"In there, sir!" he sobbed. "In there!" and clung to the wall as I
opened the door and stepped inside.

The room was ablaze with light, and for an instant my eyes were so
dazzled that I could distinguish nothing. Dimly I saw Godfrey spring
forward and drop to his knees.

Then my eyes cleared, and I saw, on the very spot where d'Aurelle had
died, another body--or was it the same, brought back that the
tragedy of the afternoon might, in some mysterious way, be re-enacted?

I remember bending over and peering into the face--

It was the face of Philip Vantine.

A minute must have passed as I stood there dazed and shaken. I was
conscious, in a way, that Godfrey was examining him. Then I heard his
voice.

"He's dead," he said.

Then there was an instant's silence.

"Lester, look here!" cried Godfrey's voice, sharp, insistent. "For
God's sake, look here!"

Godfrey was kneeling there holding something toward me.

"Look here!" he cried again.

It was the dead man's hand he was holding; the right hand; a swollen
and discoloured hand. And on the back of it, just above the knuckles,
were two tiny wounds, from which a few drops of blood had trickled.

And as I stared at this ghastly sight, scarce able to believe my
eyes, I heard a choking voice behind me, saying over and over again:

"It was that woman done it! It was that woman done it! Damn her! It
was that woman done it!"




CHAPTER V

GRADY TAKES A HAND


I have no very clear remembrance of what happened after that. The
shock was so great that I had just strength enough to totter to a
chair and drop into it, and sit there staring vaguely at that dark
splotch on the carpet. I told myself that I was the victim of a
dreadful nightmare; that all this was the result of over-wrought
nerves and that I should wake presently. No doubt I had been working
too hard. I needed a vacation--well, I would take it....

And all the time I knew that it was not a nightmare, but grim
reality; that Philip Vantine was dead--killed by a woman. Who had
told me that? And then I remembered the sobbing voice....

Two or three persons came into the room--Parks and the other
servants, I suppose; I heard Godfrey's voice giving orders; and
finally someone held a glass to my lips and commanded me to drink. I
did so mechanically; coughed, spluttered, was conscious of a grateful
warmth, and drank eagerly again. And then I saw Godfrey standing over
me.

"Feel better?" he asked.

I nodded.

"I don't wonder it knocked you out," he went on. "I'm feeling shaky
myself. I had them call Vantine's physician--but he can't do
anything."

"He's dead, then?" I murmured, my eyes on that dark and crumpled
object which had been Philip Vantine.

"Yes--just like the other."

Then I remembered, and I caught his arm and drew him down to me.

"Godfrey," I whispered, "whose voice was it--or did I dream it
--something about a woman?"

"You didn't dream it--it was Rogers--he's almost hysterical. We'll
get the story, as soon as he quiets down."

Someone called him from the door, and he turned away, leaving me
staring blankly at nothing. So there had been a woman in Vantine's
life! Perhaps that was why he had never married. What ugly skeleton
was to be dragged from its closet?

But if a woman killed Vantine, the same woman also killed d'Aurelle.
Where was her hiding-place? From what ambush did she strike?

I glanced about the room, as a tremor of horror seized me. I arose,
shaking, from the chair and groped my way toward the door. Godfrey
heard me coming, swung around, and, with one glance at my face, came
to me and caught me by the arms.

"What is it, Lester?" he asked.

"I can't stand it here," I gasped. "It's too horrible!"

"Don't think about it. Come out here and have another drink."

He led me into the hall, and a second glass of brandy gave me back
something of my self-control. I was ashamed of my weakness, but when
I glanced at Godfrey, I saw how white his face was.

"Better take a drink yourself," I said.

I heard the decanter rattle on the glass.

"I don't know when I have been so shaken," he said, setting the glass
down empty. "It was so gruesome--so unexpected--and then Rogers
carrying on like a madman. Ah, here's the doctor," he added, as the
front door opened and Parks showed a man in.

I knew Dr. Hughes, of course, returned his nod, and followed him and
Godfrey into the ante-room. But I had not yet sufficiently recovered
to do more than sit and stare at him as he knelt beside the body and
assured himself that life had fled. Then I heard Godfrey telling him
all we knew, while Hughes listened with incredulous face.

"But it's absurd, you know!" he protested, when Godfrey had finished.
"Things like this don't happen here in New York. In Florence,
perhaps, in the Middle Ages; but not here in the twentieth century!"

"I can scarcely believe my own senses," Godfrey agreed. "But I saw
the Frenchman lying here this afternoon; and now here's Vantine."

"On the same spot?"

"As nearly as I can tell."

"And killed in the same way?"

"Killed in precisely the same way."

Hughes turned back to the body again, and looked long and earnestly
at the injured hand.

"What sort of instrument made this wound, would you say, Mr.
Godfrey?" he questioned, at last.

"A sharp instrument, with two prongs. My theory is that the prongs
are hollow, like a hypodermic needle, and leave a drop or two of
poison at the bottom of the wound. You see a vein has been cut."

"Yes," Hughes assented. "It would scarcely be possible to pierce the
hand here without striking a vein. One of the prongs would be sure to
do it."

"That's the reason there are two of them, I fancy."

"But you are, of course, aware that no poison exists which would act
so quickly?" Hughes inquired.

Godfrey looked at him strangely.

"You yourself mentioned Florence a moment ago," he said. "You meant,
I suppose, that such a poison did, at one time, exist there?"

"Something of the sort, perhaps," agreed Hughes. "The words were
purely instinctive, but I suppose some such thought was running
through my head."

"Well, the poison that existed in Florence five centuries ago, exists
here to-day. There's the proof of it," and Godfrey pointed to the
body.

Hughes drew a deep breath of wonder and horror.

"But what sort of devilish instrument is it?" he cried, his nerves
giving way for an instant, his voice mounting shrilly. "Above all,
who wields it?"

He stared about the room, as though half-expecting to see some mighty
and remorseless arm poised, ready to strike. Then he shook himself
together.

"I beg pardon," he said, mopping the sweat from his face; "but I'm
not used to this sort of thing; and I'm frightened--yes, I really
believe I'm frightened," and he laughed, a little unsteady laugh.

"So am I," said Godfrey; "so is Lester; so is everybody. You needn't
be ashamed of it."

"What frightens me," went on Hughes, evidently studying his own
symptoms, "is the mystery of it--there is something supernatural
about it--something I can't understand. How does it happen that each
of the victims is struck on the right hand? Why not the left hand?
Why the hand at all?"

Godfrey answered with a despairing shrug.

"That is what we've got to find out," he said.

"We shall have to call in the police," suggested Hughes. "Maybe they
can solve it."

Godfrey smiled, a little sceptical smile, quickly suppressed.

"At least, they will have to be given the chance," he agreed. "Shall
I attend to it?"

"Yes," said Hughes; "and you would better do it right away. The
sooner they get here the better."

"Very well," assented Godfrey, and left the room.

Hughes sat down heavily on the couch near the window, and mopped his
face again, with a shaking hand. Death he was accustomed to--but
death met decently in bed and resulting from some understood cause.
Death in this horrible and mysterious form shook him; he could not
understand it, and his failure to understand appalled him. He was a
physician; it was his business to understand; and yet here was death
in a form as mysterious to him as to the veriest layman. It compelled
him to pause and take stock of himself--always a disconcerting
process to the best of us!

That was a trying half hour. Hughes sat on the couch, breathing
heavily, staring at the floor, perhaps passing his own ignorance in
review, perhaps wondering if he had always been right in prescribing
this or that. As for me, I was thinking of my dead friend. I
remembered Philip Vantine as I had always known him--a kindly, witty,
Christian gentleman. I could see his pleasant eyes looking at me in
friendship, as they had looked a few hours before; I could hear his
voice, could feel the clasp of his hand. That such a man should be
killed like this, struck down by a mysterious assassin, armed with a
poisoned weapon....

A woman! Always my mind came back to that. A woman! Poison was a
woman's weapon. But who was she? How had she escaped? Where had she
concealed herself? How was she able to strike so surely? Above all,
why should she have chosen Philip Vantine, of all men, for her
victim--Philip Vantine, who had never injured any woman--and then I
paused. For I realised that I knew nothing of Vantine, except what he
had chosen to tell me. Parks would know. And then I shrank from the
thought. Must we probe that secret? Must we compel a man to betray
his master?

My face was burning. No, we could not do that--that would be
abominable....

The door opened and Godfrey came in. This time, he was not alone.
Simmonds and Goldberger followed him, and their faces showed that
they were as shaken and nonplussed as I. There was a third man with
them whom I did not know; but I soon found out that it was
Freylinghuisen, the coroner's physician.

They all looked at the body, and Freylinghuisen knelt beside it and
examined the injured hand; then he sat down by Dr. Hughes, and they
were soon deep in a low-toned conversation, whose subject I could
guess. I could also guess what Simmonds and Godfrey were talking
about in the farther corner; but I could not guess why Goldberger,
instead of getting to work, should be walking up and down, pulling
impatiently at his moustache and glancing at his watch now and then.
He seemed to be waiting for some one, but not until twenty minutes
later did I suspect who it was. Then the door opened again to admit a
short, heavy-set man, with florid face, stubbly black moustache, and
little, close-set eyes, preternaturally bright. He glanced about the
room, nodded to Goldberger, and then looked inquiringly at me.

"This is Mr. Lester, Commissioner Grady," said Goldberger, and I
realised that the chief of the detective bureau had come up from
headquarters to take personal charge of the case.

"Mr. Lester is Mr. Vantine's attorney," the coroner added, in
explanation.

"Glad to know you, Mr. Lester," said Grady, shortly.

"And now, I guess, we're ready to begin," went on the coroner.

"Not quite," said Grady, grimly. "We'll excuse all reporters, first,"
and he looked across at Godfrey, his face darkening.

I felt my own face flushing, and started to protest, but Godfrey
silenced me with a little gesture.

"It's all right, Lester," he said. "Mr. Grady is quite within his
rights. I'll withdraw--until he sends for me."

"You'll have a long wait, then!" retorted Grady, with a sarcastic
laugh.

"The longer I wait, the worse it will be for you, Mr. Grady," said
Godfrey quietly, opened the door and closed it behind him.

Grady stared after him for a moment in crimson amazement. Then,
mastering himself with an effort, he turned to the coroner.

"All right, Goldberger," he said, and sat down to watch the
proceedings.

A very few minutes sufficed for Hughes and Freylinghuisen and I to
tell all we knew of this tragedy and of the one which had preceded
it. Grady seemed already acquainted with the details of d'Aurelle's
death, for he listened without interrupting, only nodding from time
to time.

"You've got a list of the servants here, of course, Simmonds," he
said, when we had finished the story.

"Yes, sir," and Simmonds handed it to him. "H-m," said Grady, as he
glanced it over. "Five of 'em. Know anything about 'em?"

"They've all been with Mr. Vantine a long time, sir," replied
Simmonds. "So far as I've been able to judge, they're all right."

"Which one of 'em found Vantine's body?"

"Parks, I think," I said. "It was he who called me."

"Better have him in," said Grady, and doubled up the list and slipped
it into his pocket.

Parks came in looking decidedly shaky; but answered Grady's questions
clearly and concisely. He told first of the events of the afternoon,
and then passed on to the evening.

"Mr. Vantine had dinner at home, sir," he said. "It was served, I
think, at seven o'clock. He must have finished a little after
seven-thirty. I didn't see him, for I was straightening things around
up in his room and putting his clothes away. But he told Rogers--"

"Never mind what he told Rogers," broke in Grady. "Just tell us what
you know."

"Very well, sir," said Parks, submissively. "I had a lot of work to
do--we just got back from Europe yesterday, you know--and I kept on,
putting things in their places and straightening around, and it must
have been half-past eight when I heard Rogers yelling for me. I
thought the house was on fire, and I come down in a hurry. Rogers was
standing out there in the hall, looking like he'd seen a ghost. He
kind of gasped and pointed to this room, and I looked in and saw Mr.
Vantine laying there--"

His voice choked at the words, but he managed to go on, after a
moment.

"Then I telephoned for Mr. Lester," he added, "and that's all I
know."

"Very well," said Grady. "That's all for the present. Send Rogers
in."

Rogers's face, as he entered the room, gave me a kind of shock, for
it was that of a man on the verge of hysteria. He was a man of about
fifty, with iron-grey hair, and a smooth-shaven face, ordinarily
ruddy with health. But now his face was livid, his cheeks lined and
shrunken, his eyes blood-shot and staring. He reeled rather than
walked into the room, one hand clutching at his throat, as though he
were choking.

"Get him a chair," said Grady, and Simmonds brought one forward and
remained standing beside it. "Now, my man," Grady continued, "you'll
have to brace up. What's the matter with you, anyhow? Didn't you ever
see a dead man before?"

"It ain't that," gasped Rogers. "It ain't that--though I never saw a
murdered man before."

"What?" demanded Grady, sharply. "Didn't you see that fellow this
afternoon?"

"That was different," Rogers moaned. "I didn't know him. Besides, I
thought he'd killed himself. We all thought so."

"And you don't think Vantine did?"

"I know he didn't," and Rogers's voice rose to a shrill scream. "It
was that woman done it! Damn her! She done it! I knowed she was up to
some crooked work when I let her in!"




CHAPTER VI

THE WOMAN IN THE CASE


It was coming now; the secret, however sordid, however ugly, was to
be unveiled. I saw Grady's face set in hard lines; I could hear the
stir of interest with which the others leaned forward....

Grady took a flask from his pocket and opened it.

"Take a drink of this," he said, and placed it in Rogers's hand.

I could hear the mouth of the flask clattering against his teeth, as
he put it eagerly to his mouth and took three or four long swallows.

"Thank you, sir," he said, more steadily, and handed the flask back
to its owner. A little colour crept into his face; but I fancied
there was a new look in his eyes--for, as the horror faded, fear took
its place.

Grady screwed the cap on the flask with great deliberation, and
returned it to his pocket. And all the time Rogers was watching him
furtively, wiping his mouth mechanically with a trembling hand.

"Now, Rogers," Grady began, "I want you to take your time and tell us
in detail everything that happened here to-night. You say a woman did
it. Well, we want to hear all about that woman. Now go ahead; and
remember there's no hurry."

"Well, sir," began Rogers slowly, as though carefully considering his
words, "Mr. Vantine came out from dinner about half-past seven--maybe
a little later than that--and told me to light all the lights in here
and in the next room. You see there are gas and electrics both, sir,
and I lighted them all. He had gone into the music-room on the other
side of the hall, so I went over there and told him the lights were
all lit. He was looking at a new picture he'd bought, but he left it
right away and come out into the hall.

"'I don't want to be disturbed, Rogers,' he said, and come in here
and shut the door after him.

"It was maybe twenty minutes after that that the door-bell rung, and
when I opened the door, there was a woman standing on the steps."

He stopped and swallowed once or twice, as though his throat was dry,
and I saw that his fingers were twitching nervously.

"Did you know her?" questioned Grady.

Rogers loosened his collar with a convulsive movement.

"No, sir, I'd never seen her before," he answered hoarsely.

"Describe her."

Rogers closed his eyes, as though in an effort of recollection.

"She wore a heavy veil, sir, so that I couldn't see her very well;
but the first thing I noticed was her eyes--they were so bright, they
seemed to burn right through me. Her face looked white behind her
veil, and I could see how red her lips were--I didn't like her looks,
sir, from the first."

"How was she dressed?"

"In a dark gown, sir, cut so skimpy that I knowed she was French
before she spoke."

"Ah!" said Grady. "She was French, was she?"

"Yes, sir; though she could speak some English. She asked for Mr.
Vantine. I told her Mr. Vantine was busy. And then she said something
very fast about how she must see him, and all the time she kept
edging in and in, till the first thing I knowed she was inside the
door, and then she just pulled the door out of my hand and shut it. I
ask you, sir, is that the way a lady would behave?"

"No," said Grady, "I dare say not. But go ahead,--and take your
time."

Rogers had regained his self-confidence, and he went ahead almost
glibly.

"'See here, madam,' says I, 'we've had enough trouble here to-day
with Frenchies, and if you don't get out quietly, why, I'll have to
put you out.'

"'I must see Mistaire Vangtine,' she says, very fast. 'I must see
Mistaire Vangtine. It is most necessaire that I see Mistaire
Vangtine.'

"'Then I'll have to put you out,' says I, and took hold of her arm.
And at that she screamed and jerked herself away; and I grabbed her
again, and just then Mr. Vantine opened the door there and came out
into the hall.

"'What's all this, Rogers?' he says. 'Who is this party?'

"But before I could answer, that wild cat had rushed over to him and
begun to reel off a string of French so fast I wondered how she got
her breath. And Mr. Vantine looked at her kind of surprised at first,
and then he got more interested, and finally he asked her in here and
shut the door, and that was the last I saw of them."

"You mean you didn't let the woman out?" demanded Grady.

"Yes, sir, that's just what I mean. I thought if Mr. Vantine wanted
to talk with her, well and good; that was his business, not mine; so
I went back to the pantry to help the cook with the silver, expecting
to hear the bell every minute. But the bell didn't ring, and after
maybe half an hour, I came out into the hall again to see if the
woman had gone; and I walked past the door of this room but didn't
hear nothing; and then I went on to the front door, and was surprised
to find it wasn't latched."

"Maybe you hadn't latched it," suggested Grady.

"It has a snap-lock, sir; when that woman slammed it shut, I heard it
catch."

"You're sure of that?"

"Quite sure, sir."

"What did you do then?"

"I closed the door, sir, and then come back along the hall. I felt
uneasy, some way; and I stood outside the door there listening; but I
couldn't hear nothing; and then I tapped, but there wasn't no answer;
so I tapped louder, with my heart somehow working right up into my
mouth. And still there wasn't no answer, so I just opened the door
and looked in--and the first thing I see was him--"

Rogers stopped suddenly, and caught at his throat again.

"I'll be all right in a minute, sir," he gasped. "It takes me this
way sometimes."

"No hurry," Grady assured him, and then, when his breath was coming
easier, "What did you do then?"

"I was so scared I couldn't scarcely stand, sir; but I managed to get
to the foot of the stairs and yell for Parks, and he come running
down--and that's all I remember, sir."

"The woman wasn't here?"

"No, sir."

"Did you look through the rooms?"

"No, sir; when I found the front door open, I knowed she'd gone out.
She hadn't shut the door because she was afraid I'd hear her."

"That sounds probable," agreed Grady. "But what makes you think she
killed Vantine?"

"Well, sir," answered Rogers, slowly, "I guess I oughtn't to have
said that; but finding the door open that way, and then coming on Mr.
Vantine sort of upset me--I didn't know just what I was saying."

"You don't think so now, then?" questioned Grady, sharply.

"I don't know what to think, sir."

"You say you never saw the woman before?"

"Never, sir."

"Had she ever been here before?"

"I don't think so, sir. The first thing she asked was if this was
where Mr. Vantine lived."

Grady nodded.

"Very good, Rogers," he said. "I'll be offering you a place on the
force next. Would you know this woman if you saw her again?"

Rogers hesitated.

"I wouldn't like to say sure, sir," he answered, at last. "I might
and I might not."

"Red lips and a white face and bright eyes aren't much to go on,"
Grady pointed out. "Can't you give us a closer description?"

"I'm afraid not, sir. I just got a general impression, like, of her
face through her veil."

"You say you didn't search these rooms?"

"No, sir, I didn't come inside the door."

"Why not?"

"I was afraid to, sir."

"Afraid to?"

"Yes, sir; I'm afraid to be here now."

"Did Parks come in?"

"No, sir; I guess he felt the same way I did."

"Then how did you know Vantine was dead? Why didn't you try to help
him?"

"One look was enough to tell me that wasn't no use," said Rogers, and
glanced, with visible horror, at the crumpled form on the floor.

Grady looked at him keenly for a moment; but there seemed to be no
reason to doubt his story. Then the detective looked about the room.

"There's one thing I don't understand," he said, "and that is why
Vantine should want all these lights. What was he doing in here?"

"I couldn't be sure, sir; but I suppose he was looking at the
furniture he brought over from Europe. He was a collector, you know,
sir. There are five or six pieces in the next room."

Without a word, Grady arose and passed into the room adjoining, we
after him; only Rogers remained seated where he was. I remember
glancing back over my shoulder and noting how he huddled forward in
his chair, as though crushed by a great weight, the instant our backs
were turned.

But I forgot Rogers in contemplation of the scene before me.

The inner room was ablaze with light, and the furniture stood
hap-hazard about it, just as I had seen it earlier in the day. Only
one thing had been moved. That was the Boule cabinet.

It had been carried to the centre of the room, and placed in the full
glare of the light from the chandelier. It stood there blazing with
arrogant beauty, a thing apart.

Who had helped Vantine place it there, I wondered? Neither Rogers nor
Parks had mentioned doing so. I turned back to the outer room.

Rogers was sitting crouched forward in his chair, his hands over his
eyes, and I could feel him jerk with nervousness as I touched him on
the shoulder.

"Oh, is it you, Mr. Lester?" he gasped. "Pardon me, sir; I'm not at
all myself, sir."

"I can see that," I said, soothingly; "and no wonder. I just wanted
to ask you--did you help move any of the furniture in the room
yonder?"

"Help move it, sir?"

"Yes--help change the position of any of it since this afternoon?"

"No, sir; I haven't touched any of it, sir."

"That's all right, then," I said, and turned back into the inner
room.

Vantine had said that he intended examining the cabinet in detail at
the first opportunity; I remembered how his eyes had gleamed as he
looked at it; how his hand had trembled as he caressed the
arabesques. No doubt he was making that examination when he had heard
a woman's cry and had gone out into the hall to see what the matter
was.

Then he and the woman had entered the ante-room together; he had
closed the door; and then....

Like a lightning-flash, a thought leaped into my brain--a reason--an
explanation--wild, improbable, absurd, but still an explanation!

I choked back the cry which rose to my lips; I gripped my hands
behind me, in a desperate attempt to hold myself in check; and,
fascinated as by a deadly serpent, I stood staring at the cabinet.

For there, I felt certain, lay the clue to the mystery!




CHAPTER VII

ROGERS GETS A SHOCK


Grady, Simmonds and Goldberger examined the room minutely, for they
seemed to feel that the secret of the tragedy lay somewhere within
its four walls; but I watched them only absently, for I had lost
interest in the procedure. I was perfectly sure that they would find
nothing in any way bearing upon the mystery. I heard Grady comment
upon the fact that there was no door except the one opening into the
ante-room, and saw them examine the window-catches.

"Nobody could raise these windows without alarming the house," Grady
said, and pointed to a tiny wire running along the woodwork. "There's
a burglar alarm."

Simmonds assented, and finally the trio returned to the ante-room.

"We'd like to look over the rest of the house," Grady said to Rogers,
who was sitting erect again, looking more like himself, and the four
men went out into the hall together. I remained behind with Hughes
and Freylinghuisen. They had lifted the body to the couch and were
making a careful examination of it. Heavy at heart, I sat down near
by and watched them.

That Philip Vantine should have been killed by enthusiasm for the
hobby which had given him so much pleasure seemed the very irony of
fate, yet such I believed to be the case. To be sure, there were
various incidents which seemed to conflict with such a theory, and
the theory itself seemed wild to the point of absurdity; but at least
it was a ray of light in what had been utter darkness. I turned it
over and over in my mind, trying to fit into it the happenings of the
day--I must confess with very poor success. Freylinghuisen's voice
brought me out of my reverie.

"The two cases are precisely alike," he was saying. "The symptoms are
identical. And I'm certain we shall find paralysis of the heart and
spinal cord in this case, just as I did in the other. Both men were
killed by the same poison."

"Can you make a guess as to the nature of the poison?" Hughes
inquired.

"Some variant of hydrocyanic acid, I fancy--the odour indicates
that; but it must be about fifty times as deadly as hydrocyanic acid
is."

They wandered away into a discussion of possible variants, so
technical and be-sprinkled with abstruse words and formulae that I
could not follow them. Freylinghuisen, of course, had all this sort
of thing at his fingers' ends--post-mortems were his every-day
occupation, and no doubt he had been furbishing himself up, since
this last one, in preparation for the inquest, where he would
naturally wish to shine. I could see that he enjoyed displaying his
knowledge before Hughes, who, although a family practitioner of high
standing, with an income greater than Freylinghuisen's many times
over, had no such expert knowledge of toxicology as a coroner's
physician would naturally possess.

The two detectives and the coroner came back while the discussion was
still in progress and listened in silence to Freylinghuisen's
statement of the case. Grady's mahogany face told absolutely nothing
of what was passing in his brain, but Simmonds was plainly
bewildered. It was evident from his look that nothing had been found
to shed any light on the mystery; and now that his suicide theory had
fallen to pieces, he was completely at sea. So, I suspected, was
Grady, but he was too self-composed to betray it.

The coroner drew the two physicians aside and talked to them for a
few moments in a low tone. Then he turned to Grady.

"Freylinghuisen thinks there is no necessity for a post-mortem," he
said. "The symptoms are in every way identical with those of the
other man who was killed here this afternoon. There can be no
question that both of them died from the same cause. He is ready to
make his return to that effect."

"Very well," assented Grady. "The body can be turned over to the
relatives, then."

"There aren't any relatives," I said; "at least, no near ones.
Vantine was the last of this branch of the family. I happen to know
that our firm has been named as his executors in his will, so, if
there is no objection, I'll take charge of things."

"Very well, Mr. Lester," said Grady again; and then he looked at me.
"Do you know the provisions of the will?" he asked.

"I do."

"In the light of those provisions, do you know of any one who would
have an interest in Vantine's death?"

"I think I may tell you the provisions," I said, after a moment.
"With the exception of a few legacies to his servants, his whole
fortune is left to the Metropolitan Museum of Art."

"You have been his attorney for some time?"

"We have been his legal advisers for many years."

"Have you ever learned that he had an enemy?"

"No," I answered instantly; "so far as I know, he had not an enemy on
earth."

"He was never married, I believe?"

"No."

"Was he ever, to your knowledge, involved with a woman?"

"No," I said again. "I was astounded when I heard Rogers's story."

"So you can give us no hint as to this woman's identity?"

"I only wish I could!" I said, with fervour.

"Thank you, Mr. Lester," and Grady turned to Simmonds. "I don't see
that there is anything more we can do here," he added. "There's one
thing, though, Mr. Lester, I will have to ask you to do. That is to
keep all the servants here until after the inquest. If you think
there is any doubt of your ability to do that, we can, of course, put
them under arrest--"

"Oh, that isn't necessary," I broke in. "I will be responsible for
their appearance at the inquest."

"I'll have to postpone it a day," said Goldberger. "I want
Freylinghuisen to make some tests to-morrow. Besides, we've got to
identify d'Aurelle, and these gentlemen seem to have their work cut
out for them in finding this woman--"

Grady looked at Goldberger in a way which indicated that he thought
he was talking too much, and the coroner stopped abruptly. A moment
later, all four men left the house.

Dr. Hughes lingered for a last word.

"The undertaker had better be called at once," he said. "It won't do
to delay too long."

I knew what he meant. Already the face of the dead man was showing
certain ugly discolourations.

"I can send him around on my way home," he added, and I thanked him
for assuming this unpleasant duty.

As the door closed behind him, I heard a step on the stair, and
turned to see Godfrey calmly descending.

"I came in a few minutes ago," he explained, in answer to my look,
"and have been glancing around upstairs. Nothing there. How did our
friend Grady get along?"

"Fairly well; but if he guesses anything, his face didn't show it."

"His face never shows anything, because there's nothing to show. He
has cultivated that sibylline look until people think he's a wonder.
But he's simply a stupid ignoramus."

"Oh, come, Godfrey," I protested, "you're prejudiced. He went right
to the point. Do you know Rogers's story?"

"About the woman? Certainly. Rogers told it to me before Grady
arrived."

"Well," I commented, "you didn't lose any time."

"I never do," he assented blandly. "And now I'm going to prove to you
that Grady is merely a stupid ignoramus. He has heard all the
evidence, but does he know who that woman was?"

"Of course not," I said, and then I looked at him. "Do you mean that
you do? Then I'm an ignoramus, too!"

"My dear Lester," protested Godfrey, "you are not a detective--that's
not your business; but it _is_ Grady's. At least, it is supposed to
be, and the safety of this city as a place of residence depends more
or less upon the truth of that assumption. On the strength of it, he
has been made deputy police commissioner, in charge of the detective
bureau."

"Then you mean that you _do_ know who she was?"

"I'm pretty sure I do--that is what I came back to prove. Where's
Rogers?"

"I'll ring for him," I said, and did so, and presently he appeared.

"Did you ring, sir?" he asked.

He was still miserably nervous, but much more self-controlled than he
had been earlier in the evening.

"Yes," I said. "Mr. Godfrey wishes to speak to you."

It seemed to me that Rogers turned visibly paler; there was certainly
fear in the glance he turned upon my companion. But Godfrey smiled
reassuringly.

"We'd better give him his instructions about the reporters, first
thing, hadn't we, Lester?" he inquired.

"Which reporters?" I queried.

"All the others, of course. They will be storming this house, Rogers,
before long. You will meet them at the door, you will refuse to admit
one of them; you will tell them that there is nothing to be learned
here, and that they must go to the police. Tell them that
Commissioner Grady himself is in charge of the case and will no doubt
be glad to talk to them. Is that right, Lester?"

"Yes, Ulysses," I agreed, smiling.

"And now," continued Godfrey, watching Rogers keenly, "I have a
photograph here that I want you to look at. Did you ever see that
person before?" and he handed a print to Rogers.

The latter hesitated an instant, and then took the print with a
trembling hand. Stark fear was in his eyes again; then slowly he
raised the print to the light, glanced at it....

"Catch him, Lester!" Godfrey cried, and sprang forward.

For Rogers, clutching wildly at his collar, spun half around and fell
with a crash. Godfrey's arm broke the fall somewhat, but as for me, I
was too dazed to move.

"Get some water, quick!" Godfrey commanded sharply, as Parks came
running up. "Rogers has been taken ill."

And then, as Parks sped down the hall again, I saw Godfrey loosen the
collar of the unconscious man and begin to chafe his temples
fiercely.

"I hope it isn't apoplexy," he muttered. "I oughtn't to have shocked
him like that."

At the words, I remembered; and, stooping, picked up the photograph
which had fluttered from Rogers's nerveless fingers. And then I, too,
uttered a smothered exclamation as I gazed at the dark eyes, the full
lips, the oval face--the face which d'Aurelle had carried in his
watch!




CHAPTER VIII

PRECAUTIONS


But it wasn't apoplexy. It was Parks who reassured us, when he came
hurrying back a minute later with a glass of water in one hand and a
small phial in the other.

"He has these spells," he said. "It's a kind of vertigo. Give him a
whiff of this."

He uncorked the phial and handed it to Godfrey, and I caught the
penetrating fumes of ammonia. A moment later, Rogers gasped
convulsively.

"He'll be all right pretty soon," remarked Parks, with ready
optimism. "Though I never saw him quite so bad."

"We can't leave him lying here on the floor," said Godfrey.

"There's a couch-seat in the music-room," Parks suggested, and the
three of us bore the still unconscious man to it.

Then Godfrey and I sat down and waited, while he gasped his way back
to life.

"Though he can't really tell us much," Godfrey observed. "In fact, I
doubt if he'll be willing to tell anything. But his face, when he
looked at the picture, told us all we need to know."

Thus reminded, I took the photograph out of the pocket into which I
had slipped it, and looked at it again.

"Where did you get it?" I asked.

"The police photographer made some copies. This is one of them."

"But what made you suspect that the two women were the same?"

"I don't just know," answered Godfrey, reflectively. "They were both
French--and Rogers spoke of the red lips; somehow it seemed probable.
Mr. Grady will find some things he doesn't know in to-morrow's
_Record_. But then he usually does. This time, I'm going to rub it
in. Hello," he added, "our friend is coming around."

I looked at Rogers and saw that his eyes were open. They were staring
at us as though wondering who we were. Godfrey passed an arm under
his head and held the glass of water to his lips.

"Take a swallow of this," he said, and Rogers obeyed mechanically,
still staring at him over the rim of the glass, "How do you feel?"

"Pretty weak," Rogers answered, almost in a whisper. "Did I have a
fit?"

"Something like that," said Godfrey, cheerfully; "but don't worry.
You'll soon be all right again."

"What sent me off?" asked Rogers, and stared up at him. Then his face
turned purple, and I thought he was going off again. But after a
moment's heavy breathing, he lay quiet. "I remember now," he said.
"Let me see that picture again."

I passed it to him. His hand was trembling so he could hardly take
it; but I saw he was struggling desperately to control himself, and
he managed to hold the picture up before his eyes and look at it with
apparent unconcern.

"Do you know her?" Godfrey asked.

To my infinite amazement, Rogers shook his head.

"Never saw her before," he muttered. "When I first looked at her, I
thought I knew her; but it ain't the same woman."

"Do you mean to say," Godfrey demanded sternly, "that that is not the
woman who called on Mr. Vantine to-night?"

Again Rogers shook his head.

"Oh, no," he protested; "it's not the same woman at all. This one is
younger."

Godfrey made no reply; but he sat down and looked at Rogers, and
Rogers lay and gazed at the picture, and gradually his face softened,
as though at some tender memory.

"Come, Rogers," I urged, at last. "You'd better tell us all you know.
If this is the woman, don't hesitate to say so."

"I've told you all I know, Mr. Lester," said Rogers, but he did not
meet my eyes. "And I'm feeling pretty bad. I think I'd better be
getting to bed."

"Yes, that's best," agreed Godfrey promptly. "Parks will help you,"
and he held out his hand for the photograph.

Rogers relinquished it with evident reluctance. He opened his lips as
though to ask a question; then closed them again, and got slowly to
his feet, Parks aiding him.

"Good-night, gentlemen," he said weakly, and shuffled away, leaning
heavily on Parks's shoulder.

"Well!" said I, looking at Godfrey. "What do you think of that?"

"He's lying, of course. We've got to find out why he's lying and
bring it home to him. But it's getting late--I must get down to the
office. One word, Lester--be sure Rogers doesn't give you the slip."

"I'll have him looked after," I promised. "But I fancy he'll be
afraid to run away. Besides, it is possible he's telling the truth. I
don't believe any woman had anything to do with either death."

Godfrey turned, as he was starting away, and stopped to look at me.

"Who did then?" he asked.

"Nobody."

"You mean they both suicided in that abnormal way?"

"No, it wasn't suicide--they were killed--but not by a human being
--at least, not directly." I felt that I was floundering hopelessly,
and stopped. "I can't tell you now, Godfrey," I pleaded. "I haven't
had time to think it out. You've got enough for one day."

"Yes," he smiled; "I've got enough for one day. And now good-bye.
Perhaps I'll look in on you about midnight, on my way home, if I get
through by then."

I sighed. Godfrey's energy became a little wearing sometimes. I was
already longing for bed, and there remained so much to be done. But
he, after a day which I knew had been a hard one, and with a
many-column story still to write, was apparently as fresh and eager
as ever.

"All right," I agreed. "If you see a light, come up. If there isn't
any light, I'll be in bed, and I'll kill you if you wake me."

"Conditions accepted," he laughed, as I opened the door for him.

Parks joined me as I turned back into the house.

"I got Rogers to bed, sir," he said. "He'll be all right in the
morning. But he's a queer duck."

"How long have you known him, Parks?"

"He's been with Mr. Vantine about five years. I don't know much about
him; he's a silent kind of fellow, keeping to hisself a good deal and
sort of brooding over things. But he did his work all right, except
once in a while when he keeled over like he did to-night."

"Parks," I said, suddenly, "I'm going to ask you a question. You know
that Mr. Vantine was a friend of mine, and I thought a great deal of
him. Now, what with this story Rogers tells, and one or two other
things, there is talk of a woman. Is there any foundation for talk of
that kind?"

"No, sir," said Parks, emphatically. "I've been Mr. Vantine's valet
for eight years and more, and in all that time he has never been
mixed up with a woman in any shape or form. I always fancied he'd
loved a lady who died--I don't know what made me think so; but
anyhow, since I've known him, he never looked at a woman--not in
that way."

"Thank you, Parks," I said, with a sigh of relief. "I've been through
so much to-day, that I felt I couldn't endure that; and now--"

"Beg pardon, sir," said a voice at my elbow; "we have everything
ready, sir."

I turned with a start to see a little, clean-shaven man standing
there, rubbing his hands softly together and gazing blandly up at me.

"The undertaker's assistant, sir," explained Parks, seeing my look of
astonishment. "He came while you and Mr. Godfrey were in the
music-room. Dr. Hughes sent him."

"Yes, sir," added the little man; "and we have the corpse ready for
the coffin. Very nice it looks, too; though it was a hard job. Was it
poison killed him, sir?"

"Yes," I answered, with a feeling of nausea, "it was poison."

"Very powerful poison, too, I should say, sir; we didn't get here
none too soon. Where shall we put the body, sir?"

"Why not leave it where it is?" I asked, impatiently.

"Very good, sir," said the man, and presently he and his assistant
took themselves off, to my intense relief.

"And now, Parks," I began, "there is something I want to say to you.
Let us go somewhere and sit down."

"Suppose we go up to the study, sir. You're looking regularly done
up, if you'll permit me to say so, sir. Shall I get you something?"

"A brandy-and-soda," I assented; "and bring one for yourself."

"Very good, sir," and a few minutes later we were sitting opposite
each other in the room where Vantine had offered me similar
refreshment not many hours before. I looked at Parks as he sat there,
and turned over in my mind what I had to say to him. I liked the man,
and I felt he could be trusted. At any rate, I had to take the risk.

"Now, Parks," I began again, setting down my glass, "what I have to
say to you is very serious, and I want you to keep it to yourself: I
know that you were devoted to Mr. Vantine--I may as well tell you
that he has remembered you in his will--and I am sure you are willing
to do anything in your power to help solve the mystery of his death."

"That I am, sir," Parks agreed, warmly. "I was very fond of him, sir;
nobody will miss him more than I will."

I realised that the tragedy meant far more to Parks than it did even
to me, for he had lost not only a friend, but a means of livelihood,
and I looked at him with heightened sympathy.

"I know how you feel," I said, "and I am counting on you to help me.
I have a sort of idea how his death came about. Only the vaguest
possible idea," I added hastily, as his eyes widened with interest;
"altogether too vague to be put into words. But I can say this much
--the mystery, whatever it is, is in the ante-room where the bodies
were found, or in the room next to it where the furniture is. Now, I
am going to lock up those rooms, and I want you to see that nobody
enters them without your knowledge."

"Not very likely that anybody will want to enter them, sir," and
Parks laughed a grim little laugh.

"I am not so sure of that," I dissented, speaking very seriously. "In
fact, I am of the opinion that there _is_ somebody who wants to enter
those rooms very badly. I don't know who he is, and I don't know what
he is after; but I am going to make it your business to keep him out,
and to capture him if you catch him trying to get in."

"Trust me for that, sir," said Parks promptly. "What is it you want
me to do?"

"I want you to put a cot in the hallway outside the door of the
ante-room and sleep there to-night. To-morrow I will decide what further
precautions are necessary."

"Very good, sir," said Parks. "I'll get the cot up at once."

"There is one thing more," I went on. "I have given the coroner my
personal assurance that none of the servants will leave the house
until after the inquest. I suppose I can rely on them?"

"Oh, yes, sir. I'll see they understand how important it is."

"Rogers, especially," I added, looking at him.

"I understand, sir," said Parks, quietly.

"Very well. And now let us go down and lock up those rooms."

They were still ablaze with light; but both of us faltered a little,
I think, on the threshold of the ante-room. For in the middle of the
floor stood a stretcher, and on it was an object covered with a
sheet, its outlines horribly suggestive. But I took myself in hand
and entered. Parks followed me and closed the door.

The ante-room had two windows, and the room beyond, which was a
corner one, had three. All of them were locked, but a pane of glass
seemed to me an absurdly fragile barrier against any one who really
wished to enter.

"Aren't there some wooden shutters for these windows?" I asked.

"Yes, sir; they were taken down yesterday and put in the basement.
Shall I get them?"

"I think you'd better," I said. "Will you need any help?"

"No, sir; they're not heavy. If you'll wait here, you can snap the
bolts into place when I lift them up from the outside."

"Very well," I agreed, and Parks hurried away.

I entered the inner room and stopped before the Boule cabinet. There
was a certain air of arrogance about it, as it stood there in that
blaze of light, its inlay aglow with a thousand subtle reflections; a
flaunting air, the air of a courtesan conscious of her beauty and
pleased to attract attention--just the air with which Madame de
Montespan must have sauntered down the mirror gallery at Versailles,
ablaze with jewels, her skirts rustling, her figure swaying
suggestively. Something threatening, too; something sinister and
deadly--

There was a rattle at the window, and I saw Parks lifting one of the
shutters into place. I threw up the sash, and pressed the heavy bolts
carefully into their sockets, then closed the sash and locked it. The
two other windows were secured in their turn, and with a last look
about the room, I turned out the lights. The ante-room windows were
soon shuttered in the same way, and with a sigh of relief I told
myself that no entrance to the house could be had from that
direction. With Parks outside the only door, the rooms ought to be
safe from invasion.

Then, before extinguishing the lights, I approached that silent
figure on the stretcher, lifted the sheet and looked for the last
time upon the face of my dead friend. It was no longer staring and
terrible, but calm and peaceful as in sleep--almost smiling. With
wet eyes and contracted throat, I covered the face again, turned out
the lights, and left the room. Parks met me in the hall, carrying a
cot, which he placed close across the doorway.

"There," he said; "nobody will get into that room without my knowing
it."

"No," I agreed; and then a sudden thought occurred to me. "Parks," I
said, "is it true that there is a burglar-alarm on all the windows?"

"Yes, sir. It rings a bell in Mr. Vantine's bedroom, and another in
mine, and sends in a call to the police."

"Is it working?"

"Yes, sir; Mr. Vantine himself tested it this evening just before
dinner."

"Then why didn't it work when I opened those windows just now?" I
demanded.

Parks laughed.

"Because I threw off the switch, sir," he explained, "when I came out
to get the shutters. The switch is in a little iron box on the wall
just back of the stairs, sir. It's one of my duties to turn it on
every night before I go to bed."

I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Is it on again, now?"

"It certainly is, sir. After what you told me, I'd not be likely to
forget it."

"You'd better have a weapon handy, too," I suggested.

"I have a revolver, sir."

"That's good. And don't hesitate to use it. I'm going home--I'm dead
tired."

"Shall I call a cab, sir?"

"No, the walk will do me good. I'll see you to-morrow."

Parks helped me into my coat and opened the door for me. Glancing
back, after a moment, I saw that he was standing on the steps gazing
after me. I could understand his reluctance to go back into that
death-haunted house; and I found myself breathing deeply with the
relief of getting out of it.




CHAPTER IX

GUESSES AT THE RIDDLE


The walk uptown did me good. The rain had ceased, and the air felt
clean and fresh as though it had been washed. I took deep breaths of
it, and the feeling of fatigue and depression which had weighed upon
me gradually vanished. I was in no hurry--went out of my way a
little, indeed, to walk out into Madison Square and look back at the
towering mass of the Flatiron building, creamy and delicate as carved
ivory under the rays of the moon--and it was long past midnight when
I finally turned in at the Marathon. Higgins, the janitor, was just
closing the outer doors, and he joined me in the elevator a moment
later.

"There's a gentleman waiting to see you, sir," he said, as the car
started upward. "Mr. Godfrey, sir. He came in about ten minutes ago.
He said you were expecting him, so I let him into your rooms."

"That was right," I said, and reflected again upon Godfrey's
exhaustless energy.

I found him lolling in an easy chair, and he looked up with a smile
at my entrance. "Higgins said you hadn't come in yet," he explained,
"so I thought I'd wait a few minutes on the off chance that you
mightn't be too tired to talk. If you are, say so, and I'll be moving
along."

"I'm not too tired," I said, hanging up my coat. "I feel a good deal
better than I did an hour ago."

"I saw that you were about all in."

"How do you keep it up, Godfrey?" I asked, sitting down opposite him.
"You don't seem tired at all."

"I _am_ tired, though," he said, "a little. But I've got a fool brain
that won't let my body go to sleep so long as there is work to be
done. Then, as soon as everything is finished, the brain lets go and
the body sleeps like a log. Now I knew I couldn't go to sleep
properly to-night until I had heard the very interesting theory you
are going to confide to me. Besides, I have a thing or two to tell
you."

"Go ahead," I said.

"We had a cable from our Paris office just before I left. It seems
that M. Théophile d'Aurelle plays the fiddle in the orchestra of the
Café de Paris. He played as usual to-night, so that it is manifestly
impossible that he should also be lying in the New York morgue.
Moreover, none of his friends, so far as he knows, is in America. No
doubt he may be able to identify the photograph of the dead man, and
we've already started one on the way, but we can't hear from it for
six or eight days. But my guess was right--the fellow's name isn't
d'Aurelle."

"You say you have a photograph?"

"Yes, I had some taken of the body this afternoon. Here's one of
them. Keep it; you may have a use for it."

I took the card, and, as I gazed at the face depicted upon it, I
realised that the distorted countenance I had seen in the afternoon
had given me no idea of the man's appearance. Now the eyes were
closed and the features composed and peaceful, but even death failed
to give them any dignity. It was a weak and dissipated face, the face
of a hanger-on of cafés, as Parks had said--of a loiterer along the
boulevards, of a man without ambition, and capable of any depth of
meanness and deceit. At least, that is how I read it.

"He's evidently low-class," said Godfrey, watching me. "One of those
parasites, without work and without income, so common in Paris.
Shop-girls and ladies' maids have a weakness for them."

"I think you are right," I agreed; "but, at the same time, if he was
of that type, I don't see what business he could have had with Philip
Vantine."

"Neither do I; but there are a lot of other things I don't see,
either. We're all in the dark, Lester; have you thought of that?
Absolutely in the dark."

"Yes, I have thought of it," I said, slowly.

"No doubt we can establish this fellow's identity in time--sooner
than we think, perhaps, for most of the morning papers will run his
picture, and if he is known here in New York at all, it will be
recognised by some one. When we find out who he is, we can probably
guess at the nature of his business with Vantine. We can find out who
the woman was who called to see Vantine to-night--that is just a case
of grilling Rogers; then we can run her down and get her secret out
of her. We can find why Rogers is trying to shield her. All that is
comparatively simple. But when we have done it all, when we have all
these facts in hand, I am afraid we shall find that they are utterly
unimportant."

"Unimportant?" I echoed. "But surely--"

"Unimportant because we don't want to know these things. What we want
to know is how Philip Vantine and this unknown Frenchman were killed.
And that is just the one thing which, I am convinced, neither the man
nor the woman nor Rogers nor anybody else we have come across in this
case can tell us. There's a personality behind all this that we
haven't even suspected yet, and which, I am free to confess, I don't
know how to get at. It puzzles me; it rather frightens me; it's like
a threatening shadow which one can't get hold of."

There was a moment's silence; then, I decided, the time had come for
me to speak.

"Godfrey," I said, "what I am about to tell you is told in
confidence, and must be held in confidence until I give you
permission to use it. Do you agree?"

"Go on," he said, his eyes on my face.

"Well, I believe I know how these two men were killed. Listen."

And I told him in detail the story of the Boule cabinet; I repeated
Vantine's theory of its first ownership; I named the price which he
was ready to pay for it; I described the difference between an
original and a counterpart, and dwelt upon Vantine's assertion that
this was an original of unique and unquestionable artistry. Long
before I had finished, Godfrey was out of his chair and pacing up and
down the room, his face flushed, his eyes glowing.

"Beautiful!" he murmured from time to time. "Immense! What a case it
will make, Lester!" he cried, stopping before my chair and beaming
down upon me, as I finished the story. "Unique, too; that's the
beauty of it! As unique as this adorable Boule cabinet!"

"Then you see it, too?" I questioned, a little disappointed that my
theory should seem so evident.

"See it?" and he dropped into his chair again. "A man would be blind
not to see it. But all the same, Lester, I give you credit for
putting the facts together. So many of us--Grady, for instance!
--aren't able to do that, or to see which facts are essential and
which are negligible. Now the fact that Vantine had accidentally come
into possession of a Boule cabinet would probably seem negligible to
Grady, whereas it is the one big essential fact in this whole case.
And it was you who saw it."

"You saw it, too," I pointed out, "as soon as I mentioned it."

"Yes; but you mentioned it in a way which made its importance
manifest. I couldn't help seeing it. And I believe that we have both
arrived at practically the same conclusions. Here they are," and he
checked them off on his fingers. "The cabinet contains a secret
drawer. This is inevitable, if it really belonged to Madame de
Montespan. Any cabinet made for her would be certain to have a secret
drawer--she would require it, just as she would require lace on her
underwear or jewelled buttons on her gloves. That drawer, since it
was, perhaps, to contain such priceless documents as the love letters
of a king--even more so, if the love letters were from another man!
--must be adequately guarded, and therefore a mechanism was devised to
stab the person attempting to open it and to inject into the wound a
poison so powerful as to cause instant death. Am I right so far?"

"Wonderfully right," I nodded. "I had not put it so clearly, even to
myself. Go ahead."

"We come to the conclusion, then," continued Godfrey, "that the
business of this unknown Frenchman with Vantine in some way concerned
this cabinet."

"Vantine himself thought so," I broke in. "He told me afterwards that
it was because he thought so he consented to see him."

"Good! That would seem to indicate that we are on the right track.
The Frenchman's business, then, had something to do with this
cabinet, and with this secret drawer. Left to himself, he discovered
the cabinet in the room adjoining the ante-room, attempted to open
the drawer, and was killed."

"Yes," I agreed; "and now how about Vantine?"

"Vantine's death isn't so simply explained. Presumably the unknown
woman also called on business relating to the cabinet. She, also,
wanted to open the secret drawer, in order to secure its contents
--that seems fairly certain from her connection with the first
caller."

"You still think it was her photograph he carried in his watch?"

"I am sure of it. But how did it happen that it was Vantine who was
killed? Did the woman, warned by the fate of the man, deliberately
set Vantine to open the drawer in order that she might run no risk?
Or was she also ignorant of the mechanism? Above all, did she succeed
in getting away with the contents of the drawer?"

"What _was_ the contents of the drawer?" I demanded.

"Ah, if we only knew!"

"Perhaps the woman had nothing to do with it. Vantine himself told me
that he was going to make a careful examination of the cabinet. No
doubt that is exactly what he was doing when the woman's arrival
interrupted him. He might have let her out of the house himself, and
then, returning to the cabinet, stumbled upon the secret drawer after
she had gone."

"Yes; that is quite possible, too. At any rate, you agree with me
that both men were killed in some such way as I have described?"

"Absolutely. I think there can be no doubt of it."

"There are objections--and rather weighty ones. The theory explains
the two deaths, it explains the similarity of the wounds, it explains
how both should be on the right hand just above the knuckles, it
explains why both bodies were found in the same place since both men
started to summon help. But, in the first place, if the Frenchman got
the drawer open, who closed it?"

"Perhaps it closed itself when he let go of it."

"And closed again after Vantine opened it?"

"Yes."

"It would take a very clever mechanism to do that."

"But at least it's possible."

"Oh, yes; it's possible. And we must remember that the poisoners of
those days were very ingenious. That was the heydey of La Voisin and
the Marquise de Brinvilliers, of Elixi, and heaven knows how many
other experts who had followed Catherine de Medici to France. So
that's all quite possible. But there is one thing that isn't
possible, and that is that a poison which, if it is administered as
we think it is, must be a liquid, could remain in that cabinet fresh
and ready for use for more than three hundred years. It would have
dried up centuries ago. Nor would the mechanism stay in order so
long. It must be both complicated and delicate. Therefore it would
have to be oiled and overhauled from time to time. If it is worked by
a spring--and I don't see how else it can be worked--the spring would
have to be renewed and wound up."

"Well?" I asked, as he paused.

"Well, it is evident that the drawer contains something more recent
than the love letters of Louis Fourteenth. It must have been put in
working order quite recently. But by whom and for what purpose? That
is the mystery we have to solve--and it is a mighty pretty one. And
here's another objection," he added. "That Frenchman knew about the
secret drawer, because, according to our theory, he opened it and got
killed. Why didn't he also know about the poison?"

That was an objection, truly, and the more I thought of it, the more
serious it seemed.

"It may be," said Godfrey, at last, "that d'Aurelle was going it
alone--that he had broken with the gang--"

"The gang?"

"Of course there is a gang. This thing has taken careful planning and
concerted effort. And the leader of the gang is a genius! I wonder if
you understand how great a genius? Think: he knows the secret of the
drawer of Madame de Montespan's cabinet; but above all he knows the
secret of the poison--the poison of the Medici! Do you know what that
means, Lester?"

"What _does_ it mean?" I asked, for Godfrey was getting ahead of me.

"It means he is a great criminal--a really great criminal--one of the
elect from whom crime has no secrets. Observe. He alone knows the
secret of the poison; one of his men breaks away from him, and pays
for his mutiny with his life. He is the brain; the others are merely
the instruments!"

"Then you don't believe it was by accident that cabinet was sent to
Vantine?"

"By accident? Not for an instant! It was part of a plot--and a
splendid plot!"

"Can you explain that to me, too?" I queried, a little ironically,
for I confess it seemed to me that Godfrey was permitting his
imagination to run away with him.

He smiled good-naturedly at my tone.

"Of course, this is all mere romancing," he admitted. "I am the first
to acknowledge that. I was merely following out our theory to what
seemed its logical conclusion. But perhaps we are on the wrong track
altogether. Perhaps d'Aurelle, or whatever his name is, just
blundered in, like a moth into a candle-flame. As for the plot--well,
I can only guess at it. But suppose you and I had pulled off some big
robbery--"

He stopped suddenly, and his face went white and then red.

"What is it, Godfrey?" I cried, for his look frightened me.

He lay back in his chair, his hands pressed over his eyes. I could
see how they were trembling--how his whole body was trembling.

"Wait!" he said, hoarsely. "Wait!" Then he sat upright, his face
tense with anxiety. "Lester!" he cried, his voice shrill with fear.
"The cabinet--it isn't guarded!"

"Yes, it is," I said. "At least I thought of that!"

And I told him of the precautions I had taken to keep it safe. He
heard me out with a sigh of relief.

"That's better," he said. "Parks wouldn't stand much show, I'm
afraid, if worst came to worst; but I think the cabinet is safe--for
to-night. And before another night, Lester, we will have a look for
ourselves."

"A look?"

"Yes; for the secret drawer!"

I stared at him fascinated, shrinking.

"And we shall find it!" he added.

"D'Aurelle and Vantine found it," I muttered thickly.

"Well?"

"And they're both dead!"

"It won't kill us. We will go about it armoured, Lester. That
poisoned fang may strike--"

"Don't!" I cried, and cowered back into my chair. "I--I can't do it,
Godfrey. God knows, I'm no coward--but not that!"

"You shall watch me do it!" he said.

"That would be even worse!"

"But I'll be ready, Lester. There will be no danger. Come, man! Why,
it's the chance of a lifetime--to rifle the secret drawer of Madame
de Montespan! Yes!" he added, his eyes glowing, "and to match
ourselves against the greatest criminal of modern times!"

His shrill laugh told how excited he was.

"And do you know what we shall find in that drawer, Lester? But no
--it is only a guess--the wildest sort of a guess--but if it is
right--if it is right!"

He sprang from his chair, biting his lips, his whole frame quivering.
But he was calmer in a moment.

"Anyway, you will help me, Lester? You will come?"

There was a wizardry in his manner not to be resisted. Besides--to
rifle the secret drawer of Madame de Montespan! To match oneself
against the greatest criminal of modern times! What an adventure!

"Yes," I answered, with a quick intaking of the breath; "I'll come!"

He clapped me on the shoulder, his face beaming.

"I knew you would! To-morrow night, then--I'll call for you here at
seven o'clock. We'll have dinner together--and then, hey for the
great secret! Agreed?"

"Agreed!" I said.

He caught up coat and hat and started for the door.

"There are things to do," he said; "that armour to prepare--the plan
of campaign to consider, you know. Good-night, then, till--this
evening!"

The door closed behind him, and his footsteps died away down the
hall. I looked at my watch--it was nearly two o'clock.

Dizzily I went to bed. But my sleep was broken by a fearful dream--a
dream of a serpent, with blazing eyes and dripping fangs, poised to
strike!




CHAPTER X

PREPARATIONS


My first thought, when I awoke next morning, was for Parks, for
Godfrey's manner had impressed me with the feeling that Parks was in
much more serious danger than either he or I suspected. It was with a
lively sense of relief, therefore, that I heard Parks's voice answer
my call on the 'phone.

"This is Mr. Lester," I said. "Is everything all right?"

"Everything serene, sir," he answered. "It would take a mighty smooth
burglar to get in here now, sir."

"How is that?" I asked.

"Reporters are camped all around the house, sir. They seem to think
somebody else will be killed here to-day."

He laughed as he spoke the words, but I was far from thinking the
idea an amusing one.

"I hope not," I said, quickly. "And don't let any of the reporters
in, nor talk to them. Tell them they must go to the police for their
information. If they get too annoying, let me know, and I'll have an
officer sent around."

"Very good, sir."

"And, Parks."

"Yes, sir?"

"Don't let anybody in the house--no matter what he wants--unless Mr.
Grady or Mr. Simmonds or Mr. Goldberger accompanies him. Don't let
anybody in you don't know. If there is any trouble, call me up. I
want you to be careful about this."

"I understand, sir."

"How is Rogers?" I asked.

"Much better, sir. He wanted to get up, but I told him he might as
well stay in bed, and I'd look after things. I thought that was the
best place for him, sir."

"It is," I agreed. "Keep him there as long as you can. I'll come in
during the day, if possible; in any event, Mr. Godfrey and I will be
there this evening. Call me at the office, if you need me for
anything."

"Very good, sir," said Parks again, and I hung up.

I glanced through Godfrey's account of the affair while I ate my
breakfast, and noted with amusement the sly digs taken at
Commissioner Grady. Under the photograph of the unknown woman was the
legend:

     MR. VANTINE'S MYSTERIOUS CALLER

     (Grady Please Notice)

And it was intimated that when Grady wanted any real information
about an especially puzzling case, he had to go to the _Record_ to
get it.

This, however, was merely by the way, for the story of the double
tragedy, fully illustrated, was flung across many columns, and was
plainly considered the great news feature of the day.

I glanced at two or three other papers on my way down-town. All of
them featured the tragedy with a riot of pictures--pictures of
d'Aurelle and Vantine, of Grady (very large), of Simmonds, of
Goldberger, of Freylinghuisen, of the Vantine house, diagrams of the
ante-room showing the position in which the bodies were found,
anatomical charts showing the exact nature of the wounds, pictures of
the noted poisoners of history with a highly-coloured list of their
achievements--but, when it came to the story of the tragedy itself,
their accounts were far less detailed and intimate than that in the
_Record_. They were, indeed, for the most part, mere farragos of
theories, guesses, blood-curdling suggestions, and mysterious hints
of important information confided to the reporters but withheld from
the public until the criminal had been run to earth. That this would
soon be accomplished not a single paper doubted, for had not Grady,
the mighty Grady, taken personal charge of the case? (Here followed a
glowing history of Grady's career.)

It was evident enough that all these reporters had been compelled to
go to Grady for their information, and I could fancy them damning him
between their teeth as they penned these panegyrics. I could also
fancy their city editors damning as they compared these incoherent
imaginings with the admirable and closely-written story in the
_Record_, and I suspected that it was the realisation of the
_Record's_ triumph which had caused the descent of the phalanx of
reporters upon the Vantine place.

I went over the whole affair with Mr. Royce, as soon as he reached
the office, and spent the rest of the day arranging the papers
relating to Vantine's affairs and getting them ready to probate.
Parks called me up once or twice for instructions as to various
details, and Vantine's nearest relative, a third or fourth cousin,
wired from somewhere in the west that he was starting for New York at
once. And then, toward the middle of the afternoon, came the
cablegram from Paris which I had almost forgotten to expect:

     "Royce & Lester, New York.

     "Regret mistake in shipment exceedingly. Our representative will
      call to explain.

     "Armand et Fils."

So there was an end of the romance Godfrey had woven, and which I had
been almost ready to believe--the romance of design, of a carefully
laid plot, and all that. It had been merely accident, after all. And
I smiled a little sarcastically at myself for my credulity. No doubt
my own romance of a secret drawer and a poisoned mechanism would
prove equally fabulous. In my over-wrought state of the night before,
it had seemed reasonable enough; but here, in the cold light of day,
it seemed preposterous. How Grady and Goldberger would have laughed
at it!

I put the whole thing impatiently away from me, and turned to other
work; but I found I could not conquer a certain deep-seated
nervousness; so at last I locked my desk, told the boy I would not be
back, and took a cab for a long drive through the park. The fresh
air, the smell of the trees, the sight of the children playing along
the paths, did me good, and I was able to greet Godfrey with a smile
when he called for me at seven o'clock.

"I've engaged a table at a little place around the corner," he said.
"It is managed by a friend of mine, and I think you'll like it."

I did. Indeed, the dinner was so good that it demanded undivided
attention, and not until the coffee was on the table and the cigars
lighted did we speak of the business which had brought us together.

"Anything new?" I asked, as we pushed back our chairs.

"No, nothing of any importance. The man at the morgue has not been
identified. In the first place, the Paris police have never taken his
Bertillon measurements."

"Then he's not a criminal?"

"He has never been arrested," Godfrey qualified. "More peculiar is
the fact that he hasn't been recognised here. Two million people,
probably, saw his photograph in the papers this morning. Some of
them thought they knew him and went around to the morgue to see his
body, but nothing came of it. The police have no report of any such
man missing."

"That _is_ peculiar, isn't it!" I commented.

"It's very peculiar. It means one of two things--either the fellow's
friends are keeping dark purposely, or he didn't have any friends,
here in New York, at least. But even then, one would think that
whoever rented him a room would wonder what had become of him, and
would make some inquiries."

"Perhaps he hadn't rented a room," I suggested. "Perhaps he had just
reached New York, and went direct to Vantine's."

Godfrey's face lighted up.

"From the steamer, of course! I ought to have guessed as much from
the cut of his hair. He hasn't been out of France more than ten days
or so. Excuse me a moment."

He hurried away, and five minutes passed before he came back.

"I 'phoned the office to send some men around to the boats which came
in yesterday. If he was a passenger, some one of the stewards will
recognise his photograph. There were three boats he might have come
on--the _Adriatic_ and _Cecelie_ from Cherbourg, and _La Touraine_
from Havre. There is nothing else that I know of," he added
thoughtfully, "except that Freylinghuisen thinks he has discovered
the nature of the poison. He says it is some very powerful variant of
prussic acid."

"Yes," I said, "I heard him say something of the sort last night."

"I had a talk with him this afternoon about it, and he was quite
learned," Godfrey went on. "This is a great chance for him to get
before the public, and he's making the most of it. I gathered from
what he said that ordinary prussic acid, which is deadly enough,
heaven knows, contains only two per cent. of the poison; while the
strongest solution yet obtained contains only four per cent.
Freylinghuisen says that whoever concocted this particular poison has
evidently discovered a new way of doing it--or rediscovered an old
way--so that it is at least fifty per cent. effective. In other
words, if you can get a fraction of a drop of it in a man's blood,
you kill him by paralysis quicker than if you put a bullet through
his heart."

"Nothing can save a man, then?" I questioned.

"Nothing on earth. Oh, I don't say that if somebody had an axe handy
and chopped your arm off at the shoulder an instant after you were
struck on the hand, you mightn't have a chance to live; but it would
take mighty quick work, and even then, it would be nip and tuck.
Freylinghuisen thinks it is a new discovery. I don't. I think some
one has dug up one of the old Medici formulae. Maybe it was placed in
the secret drawer, so that there would never be any lack of
ammunition for the mechanism."

"Godfrey," I said, "are you still bent on fooling with that thing?"

"More than ever; I'm going to find that secret drawer. And if the
fangs strike--well, I'm ready for them. See here what I had made
today."

He drew from his pocket something that looked like a steel gauntlet,
such as one sees on suits of old armour. He slipped it over his right
hand.

"You see it covers the back of the hand completely," he said, "half
way down the first joint of the fingers. It is made of the toughest
steel and would turn a bullet. And do you see how it is depressed in
the middle, Lester?"

"Yes," I said, "I was wondering why you had it made in that shape."

"I want to get a sample of that poison. My theory is that when the
fangs strike the hand, the shock drives out a drop or two of the
poison. I don't want those drops to get away; I want them to roll
into this depression, and I shall very carefully bottle them. Think
what they are, Lester--the poison of the Medici!"

I sat for a moment looking at him, half in amusement, half in sorrow.
It seemed a pity that his theory must come tumbling down, it was so
picturesque, and he was so interested and enthusiastic over it. And
it would make such a good story! He caught my glance, and put the
gauntlet back into his pocket.

"Well, what is it?" he asked quietly.

For answer, I got out the cablegram and passed it across to him. He
read it with brows contracted.

"That seems to put a puncture in our little romance, doesn't it?" I
asked, at last.

He nodded thoughtfully.

"Yes, it does," and he read the message again, word by word.
"Armand's man hasn't called yet?"

"No, I didn't get the message till about three o'clock. I suppose
he'll be around to-morrow."

"You will have to turn the cabinet over to him, of course?"

"Why, yes, it belongs to him. At least, it doesn't belong to
Vantine."

He slipped the message into its envelope and handed it back to me. I
could see that he was perplexed and upset.

"Well, in spite of this," he said finally, "I am still interested in
that cabinet, Lester, and I wish you would keep possession of it as
long as you can. At least, I wouldn't give it up until he delivered
to you the other cabinet which Vantine really bought."

"Oh, I'll make him do that," I agreed quickly. "That will no doubt
take a few days--longer than that if Vantine's cabinet is in Paris."

Godfrey raised a finger to the waiter, asked for the check, and paid
it.

"And now let us go down and have a look at this one," he said, "as we
intended doing. You will think me foolish, Lester, but even that
cablegram hasn't shaken my belief in the existence of that secret
drawer."

"And all the rest?" I asked.

"Yes," he answered slowly, "and all the rest." He said nothing more
until we stopped before the Vantine house, but I could see, from his
puckered brows, how desperately he was trying to untangle this quirk
in the mystery.

"The siege seems to have been lifted," I remarked, as we alighted.

"The siege?"

"Parks telephoned me that your esteemed contemporaries had the place
surrounded. I told him to hold the fort!"

"Poor boys!" he commented, smiling. "To think that all they know is
what Grady is able to tell them!" Then he stopped before the house
and made a careful survey of it.

"Which room is the cabinet in?" he asked.

"The ante-room is there at the left where those two shuttered windows
are. The cabinet is in the corner room--there is one window on this
side and two on the other."

"Wait till I take a look at them," he said, and, vaulting the low
railing, he walked quickly along the front of the house and around
the corner. He was gone only a minute. "They're all right," he said,
in a tone of relief.

"Of course they're all right. You didn't suppose--"

"If that cabinet contains what I thought it did, Lester--yes," he
added, a little savagely, as he saw my look, "and what I still think
it does--it wouldn't be safe in the strongest vault of the National
City Bank," and he motioned for me to ring the bell.

I did so, in silence.

Parks answered it almost instantly, and I could tell from the way his
face changed how glad he was to see me.

"Well, Parks," I said, as we stepped inside, "everything is all
right, I hope?"

"Yes, sir," he answered. "But--but it gets on the nerves a little,
sir."

I heard a movement behind me, as I gave Parks my coat, and turned to
see Rogers sitting on the cot.

"Hello," I said, "so you're able to be up, are you?"

"Yes, sir," he answered, without looking at me. "I thought I'd come
down and keep Parks company."

Parks smiled a little sheepishly.

"I asked him to, Mr. Lester," he said. "I got so lonesome and jumpy
here by myself that I just had to have somebody to talk to.
Especially, after the burglar-alarm rang."

"The burglar-alarm?" repeated Godfrey quickly. "What do you mean?"

"We've got a burglar-alarm on the windows, sir. It's usually turned
off in the day-time, but I thought I'd better leave it on to-day, and
it rang about the middle of the afternoon. I thought at first that
one of the other servants had raised a window, but none of them had.
Something went wrong with it, I guess."

"Did you take a look at the windows?" I asked.

"Yes, sir; a policeman came to see what was the matter and we went
around and examined the windows, but they were all locked. It made me
feel kind of scary for a while."

"Does the alarm work now?"

"No, sir; the policeman said there must be a short circuit somewhere,
and that he'd notify the people who put it in; but nobody has come
around yet to fix it."

"We'd better take a look at the windows, ourselves," said Godfrey.
"You stay here, Parks. We can find them, all right; and I don't want
you to leave that door unguarded for a single instant."

We went from window to window, and Godfrey examined each of them with
a minuteness that astonished me, for I had no idea what he expected
to find. But we completed the circuit of the ground floor without his
apparently discovering anything out of the way.

"Let's take a look at the basement," he said, and led the way
downstairs with a readiness which told me that he had been over the
house before.

In the kitchen, we came upon the cook and housemaid sitting close
together and talking in frightened whispers. They watched us
apprehensively, and I stopped to reassure them, while Godfrey
proceeded with his search. Then I heard him calling me.

I found him in a kind of lumber-room, standing before its single
small window, his electric torch in his hand.

"Look there," he said, his voice quivering with excitement, and threw
a circle of light on the jamb of the window at the spot where the
upper and lower sashes met.

"What is it?" I asked, after a moment. "I don't see anything wrong."

"You don't? You don't see that this house was to be entered to-night?
Then what does this mean?"

With his finger-nail, he turned up the end of a small insulated wire.
And then I saw that the wire had been cut.




CHAPTER XI

THE BURNING EYES


For an instant, I did not grasp the full significance of that severed
wire. Then I understood.

"Yes," said Godfrey drily, "that romance of mine is looking up again.
Somebody was preparing for a quiet invasion of the house to-night
--somebody, of course, interested in that cabinet."

"He wasn't losing any time," I ventured.

"He knew he hadn't any to lose. When you put those wooden shutters
up, you warned him that you suspected his game. He knew, if the alarm
was on, it would ring when he cut the wire, but he also knew that the
chances were a hundred to one against the cut being discovered, or
the alarm put in working order, before to-morrow."

"Why can't we ambush him?" I suggested.

"We might try, but it will be a mighty risky undertaking, Lester."

"One risky undertaking is enough for to-night," I said, with a sigh,
for my belief in the existence of the secret drawer and the poison
and all the rest of it had come back with a rush. I felt almost
apologetic toward Godfrey for ever doubting him. "We'd better wait
and see if we survive the first one before we arrange for any more."

"All right," Godfrey laughed. "But I'll fix this break."

He got out his pen-knife, loosened two or three of the staples which
held the wire in place, drew it out, scraped back the insulation, and
twisted the ends tightly together.

"There," he added, "that's done. If the invader tampers with the
window again, he will set off the alarm. But I don't believe he'll
touch it. I fancy he already knows his little game is discovered."

"How would he know it?" I demanded, incredulously.

"If he is keeping an eye on this window, as he naturally would do, he
has seen my light. Perhaps he is watching us now."

I glanced at the dark square of the window with a little shiver. This
business was getting on my nerves again. But Godfrey turned away with
a shrug of the shoulders.

"Now for the cabinet," he said, and led the way back upstairs.

Rogers was still sitting dejectedly on the cot, and, looking at him
more closely, I could see that he was white and shaken. His trouble,
whatever its nature, plainly lay heavy on his mind.

"Have you anything to tell us, this evening, Rogers?" I asked,
kindly, but he only shook his head.

"I've told you everything I know, sir," he answered, in a low voice.

"I'm not going to worry you, Rogers," I went on, "but I want you to
think it over. You can rely upon me to help you, if I can."

He looked up quickly, but caught himself, and turned his eyes away.

"Thank you, sir," was all he said.

"And now," I added, briskly, "I'll have to ask you to get up. Move
the cot away from the door, Parks."

Parks obeyed me with astonished face.

"You're not going in there, sir!" he protested, as I turned the knob.

"Yes, we are," I said, and opened the door. "Is--is...."

"No, sir," broke in Parks, understanding. "The undertakers brought
the coffin and put him in it and moved him over to the drawing-room
this afternoon, sir."

"I'm glad of that. I want all the lights lit, Parks, just as they
were last night."

Parks reached inside the door and switched on the electrics. Then he
went away, came back in a moment with a taper, and proceeded to light
the gas-lights. A moment later, the lights in the inner room were
also blazing.

"There you are, sir," said Parks, and retreated to the door. "Will
you need me?"

"Not now. But wait in the hall outside. We may need you." I had a
notion to tell him to have an axe handy, but I saw Godfrey smiling.

"Very good, sir," said Parks, evidently relieved, and went out and
closed the door.

I led the way into the inner room.

"Well, there it is," I said, and nodded toward the Boule cabinet,
standing in the full glare of the light, every inlay and incrustation
glittering like the eyes of a basilisk. "It isn't too late to give it
up, Godfrey."

"Oh, yes, it is," he said, coolly, removing his coat "It was too late
the moment you told me that story. Why, Lester, if I gave it up, I
should never sleep again!"

"And if you don't, you may never wake again," I pointed out.

He laughed lightly.

"What a dismal prophet you are! Draw up a chair and watch me."

He pulled back his shirt-sleeves, and placed his electric torch on
the floor beside the cabinet. Then he paused with folded arms to
contemplate this masterpiece of M. Boule.

"It _is_ a beauty," he said, at last, and then drew out the little
drawers, one after another, looked them over, and placed them
carefully on a chair. "Now," he added, "let us see if there is any
space that isn't accounted for."

He took from his pocket a folding rule of ivory, opened it, and began
a series of measurements so searching and intricate that half an hour
passed without a word being spoken. Then he pulled up another chair,
and sat down beside me.

"I seem to be pretty much up against it," he said, "no doubt just as
the designer of the cabinet would wish me to be. The whole bottom of
the desk is inclosed, and those three little drawers take up only a
small part of the space. Then the back of the cabinet seems to be
double--at least, there's a space of three inches I can't account
for. So there's room for a dozen secret drawers, if the Montespan
required so many. And now to find the combination."

He adjusted the steel gauntlet carefully to his right hand and sat
down on the floor before the cabinet.

"I'll begin at the bottom," he said. "If there is any spot I miss,
tell me of it."

He ran his fingers up and down the graceful legs, carefully feeling
every inequality of the elaborate bronze ornamentation. Particularly
did his fingers linger on every boss and point, striving to push it
in or move it up or down; but they were all immovable. Then he
examined the bottom of the table minutely, using his torch to
illumine every crevice; but again without result.

Another half hour passed so, and when at last he came out from under
the table, his face was dripping with sweat.

"It's trying work," he said, sitting down again and mopping his face.
"But isn't it a beauty, Lester? The more I look at it, the more
wonderful it seems."

"I told Philip Vantine I wasn't up to it, and I'm not," I said.

"Nor I, but I can appreciate it to the extent of my capacity. It's
the Louis Fourteenth ideal of beauty--splendour carried to the nth
degree. Look at the arabesques along the front--can you imagine
anything more graceful? And the engraving--nothing cut-and-dried
about that. It was done by a burin in the hands of a master--perhaps
by Boule himself. I don't wonder Vantine was rather mad about it. But
we haven't found that drawer yet," and he drew his chair close to the
cabinet.

"I'd point out one thing to you, Godfrey," I said: "if you go on
poking about with the fingers of both hands, as you've been doing,
you are just as apt to get struck on the left hand as on the right."

"That's true," he agreed. "Stop me if I forget."

There were three little drawers in the front of the table, and these
Godfrey had removed. He inserted his hand into the space from which
he had taken them, and examined it carefully. Then, inch by inch, he
ran his fingers over the bosses and arabesques with which the sides
and top of the table were incrusted. It seemed to me that, if the
secret drawer were anywhere, it must be somewhere in this part of the
cabinet, and I watched him with breathless interest. Once I thought
he had found the drawer, for a piece of inlay at the side of the
table seemed to give a little under the pressure of his fingers; but
no hidden spring was touched; no drawer sprang open; no poisoned
fangs descended.

"Well," said Godfrey, sitting back in his chair at last, and wiping
his face again, "there's so much done. If there is any secret drawer
in the lower part of the cabinet, it is mighty cleverly concealed.
Now we'll try the upper part."

The upper part of the cabinet consisted of a series of drawers,
rising one above the other, and terminated by a triangular pediment,
its tympanum ornamented with some beautiful little bronzes. The
drawers themselves were concealed by two doors, opening in the
centre, and covered with a most intricate design of arabesqued
incrustations.

"If there is a secret drawer here," said Godfrey, "it is somewhere in
the back, where there seems to be a hollow space. But to discover the
combination...."

He ran his fingers over the inlay, and then, struck by a sudden
thought, tested each of the little figures along the tympanum, but
they were all set solidly in place.

"There's one thing sure," he said, "the combination, whatever it is,
is of such a nature that it could not be discovered accidentally--by
a person leaning on the cabinet, for instance. It isn't a question of
merely touching a spring; it is probably a question of releasing a
series of levers, which must be worked in a certain order, or the
drawer won't open. I'm afraid we are up against it."

"I can't pretend I'm sorry," I said, with a sigh of relief. "As far
as I am concerned, I'm perfectly willing that the drawer should go
undiscovered."

"Well, I am not!" retorted Godfrey, curtly, and he sat regarding the
cabinet with puckered brows. Then he rose and began tapping at the
back.

I don't know what it was--for I was conscious of no noise--but some
mysterious attraction drew my eyes to the window at the farther side
of the room. Near the top of the wooden shutter, which Parks and I
had put in place, was a small semi-circular opening, to allow the
passage of a little light, perhaps, and peering through this opening
were two eyes--two burning eyes....

They were fixed upon Godfrey with such feverish intentness that they
did not see my glance, and I lowered my head instantly.

"Godfrey," I said, in a shaking voice, "don't look up; don't move
your head; but there is some one peering through the hole in the
shutter opposite us."

Godfrey did not answer for quite a minute, but kept calmly on with
his examination of the cabinet.

"Did he see you look at him?" he asked, at last.

"No, he was looking at you, with his eyes almost starting out of his
head. I never saw such eyes!"

"Did you see anything of his face?"

"No, the hole is too small. I fancy I saw the fingers of one hand,
which he had thrust through to steady himself."

"How high is the hole?"

"Near the top of the window."

Godfrey came back to his chair a moment later, sat down in it, and
passed his handkerchief slowly over his face. Then he leaned forward,
apparently to examine the legs of the cabinet.

"I saw him," he said. "Or, rather, I saw his eyes. Rather fierce,
aren't they?"

"They're a tiger's eyes," I said, with conviction.

"Well, there is no use going ahead with this while he is out there.
Even if we found the drawer, we'd both be dead an instant later."

"You mean he'd kill us?"

"He would shoot us instantly. Imagine what a sensation that would
make, Lester. Parks hears two pistol shots, rushes in and finds us
lying here dead. Grady would have a convulsion--and we should both
be famous for a few days."

"I'll seek fame in some other way," I said drily. "What are you going
to do about it?"

"We've got to try to capture him; and if we do--well, we shall have
the fame all right! But it's a good deal like trying to pick up a
scorpion--we're pretty sure to get hurt. If that fellow out there is
who I think he is, he's about the most dangerous man on earth."

He went on tapping the surface of the cabinet. As for me, I would
have given anything for another look at those gleaming eyes. They
seemed to be burning into me; hot flashes were shooting up and down
my back.

"Why can't I go out as though I were going after something," I
suggested. "Then Parks and I could charge around the corner and get
him."

"You wouldn't get him, he'd get you. You wouldn't have a chance on
earth. If there is a window upstairs over that one, you might drop
something out on him, or borrow Parks's pistol and shoot him--"

"That would be pretty cowardly, wouldn't it?" I suggested, mildly.

"My dear Lester," Godfrey protested, "when you attack a poisonous
snake, you don't do it with bare hands, do you?"

I couldn't help it--I glanced again at the window....

"He's gone!" I cried.

Godfrey was at the window in two steps.

"Look at that!" he said, "and then tell me he isn't a genius!"

I followed the direction of his pointing finger and saw that, just
opposite the opening in the shutter, a little hole had been cut in
the window-pane.

"That fellow foresees everything," said Godfrey, with enthusiasm. "He
probably cut that hole as soon as it was dark. He must have guessed
we were going to examine the cabinet to-night--and he wanted not only
to see, but to hear. He heard everything we said, Lester!"

"Let's go after him!" I cried, and, without waiting for an answer, I
sprang across the ante-room and snatched open the door which led into
the hall.

Parks and Rogers were sitting on the couch just outside and I never
saw two men more thoroughly frightened.

"For God's sake, Mr. Lester!" gasped Rogers, and stopped, his hand at
his throat.

"Is it Mr. Godfrey?" cried Parks.

"There's a man outside. Got your pistol, Parks?"

"Yes, sir," and he took it from his pocket.

I snatched it from him, opened the front door, leaped the railing,
and stole along the house to the corner.

Then, taking my courage in both hands, I charged around it.

There was no one in sight; but from somewhere near at hand came a
burst of mocking laughter.




CHAPTER XII

GODFREY IS FRIGHTENED


I was still staring about me, that mocking laughter in my ears, when
Godfrey joined me.

"He got away, of course," he said coolly.

"Yes, and I heard him laugh!" I cried.

Godfrey looked at me quickly.

"Come, Lester," he said, soothingly, "don't let your nerves run away
with you."

"It wasn't my nerves," I protested, a little hotly. "I heard it quite
plainly. He can't be far away."

"Too far for us to catch him," Godfrey retorted, and, torch in hand,
proceeded to examine the window-sill and the ground beneath it.
"There is where he stood," he added, and the marks on the sill were
evident enough. "Of course he had his line of retreat blocked out,"
and he flashed his torch back and forth across the grass, but the
turf was so close that no trace of footsteps was visible.

We went slowly back to the house, and Godfrey sat down again to a
contemplation of the cabinet.

"It's too much for me," he said, at last. "The only way I can find
that drawer, I'm afraid, is with an axe. But I don't want to smash
the thing to pieces--"

"I should say not! It would be like smashing the Venus de Milo."

"Hardly so bad as that. But we won't smash it yet awhile. I'm going
to look up the subject of secret drawers--perhaps I'll stumble upon
something that will help me."

"And then, of course," I said, disconsolately, "it is quite possible
that there isn't any such drawer at all."

But Godfrey shook his head decidedly.

"I don't agree with you there, Lester. I'll wager that fellow who was
looking in at us could find it in a minute."

"He seemed mighty frightened lest you should."

"He had reason to be," Godfrey rejoined grimly. "I'll have another
try at it to-morrow. One thing we've got to take care of, and that is
that our friend of the burning eyes doesn't get a chance at it
first."

"Those shutters are pretty strong," I pointed out. "And Parks is no
fool."

"Yes," agreed Godfrey, "the shutters are pretty strong--they might
keep him out for ten minutes--scarcely longer than that. As for
Parks, he wouldn't last ten seconds. You don't seem to understand the
extraordinary character of this fellow."

"During your period of exaltation last night," I reminded him, "you
referred to him as the greatest criminal of modern times."

"Well," smiled Godfrey, "perhaps that _was_ a little exaggerated.
Suppose we say one of the greatest--great enough, surely, to walk all
around us, if we aren't on guard. I think I would better drop a word
to Simmonds and get him to send down a couple of men to watch the
house. With them outside, and Parks on the inside, it ought to be
fairly safe."

"I should think so!" I said. "One would imagine you were getting
ready to repel an army. Who is this fellow, anyway, Godfrey? You seem
to be half afraid of him!"

"I'm wholly afraid of him, if he's who I think he is--but it's a mere
guess as yet, Lester. Wait a day or two. I'll call up Simmonds."

He went to the 'phone, while I sat down again and looked at the
cabinet in a kind of stupefaction. What was the intrigue, of which it
seemed to be the centre? Who was this man, that Godfrey should
consider him so formidable? Why should he have chosen Philip Vantine
for a victim?

Godfrey came back while I was still groping blindly amid this maze of
mystery.

"It's all right," he said. "Simmonds is sending two of his best men
to watch the house." He stood for a moment gazing down at the
cabinet. "I'm coming back to-morrow to have another try at it," he
added. "I have left the gauntlet there on the chair, so if you feel
like having a try yourself, Lester...."

"Heaven forbid!" I protested. "But perhaps I would better tell Parks
to let you in. I hope I won't find you a corpse here, Godfrey!"

"So do I! But I don't believe you will. Yes, tell Parks to let me in
whenever I come around. And now about Rogers."

"What about him?"

"I rather thought I might want to grill him to-night. But perhaps I
would better wait till I get a little more to go on." He paused for a
moment's thought. "Yes; I'll wait," he said, finally. "I don't want
to run any risk of failing."

We went out into the hall together, and I told Parks to admit
Godfrey, whenever he wished to enter. Rogers was still sitting on the
cot, looking so crushed and sorrowful that I could not help pitying
him. I began to think that, if he were left to himself a day or two
longer, he would tell all we wished to know without any grilling.

I confided this idea to Godfrey as we went down the front steps.

"Perhaps you're right," he agreed. "I don't believe the fellow is
really crooked. Something has happened to him--something in
connection with that woman--and he has never got over it. Well, we
shall have to find out what it was. Hello, here are Simmonds's men,"
he added, as two policemen stopped before the house.

"Is this Mr. Godfrey?" one of them asked.

"Yes," said Godfrey.

"Mr. Simmonds told us to report to you, sir, if you were here."

"What we want you to do," said Godfrey, "is to watch the house--watch
it from all sides--patrol clear around it, and see that no one
approaches it."

"Very well, sir," and the men touched their helmets, and one of them
went around to the back of the house, while the other remained in
front.

"Perhaps if they concealed themselves," I suggested, "the fellow
might venture back and be nabbed."

But Godfrey shook his head.

"I don't want him to venture back," he said. "I want to scare him
off. I want him to see we're thoroughly on guard." He hailed a
passing cab, and paused with one foot on the step. "I've already told
you, Lester," he added, over his shoulder, "that I'm afraid of him.
Perhaps you thought I was joking, but I wasn't. I was never more
serious in my life. The _Record_ office," he added to the cabby, and
jingled away, leaving me staring after him.

As I turned homeward, I could not but ponder over this remarkable and
mysterious being with whom Godfrey was so impressed. Never before had
I known him to hesitate to match himself with any adversary; but now,
it seemed to me, he shunned the contest, or at least feared it
--feared that he might be outwitted and outplayed! How great a
compliment that was to the mysterious unknown only I could guess!

And then I shivered a little as I recalled that mocking and ironic
laughter. And I quickened my step, with a glance over my shoulder;
for if Godfrey was afraid, how much more reason had I to be! It was
with a sense of relief, of which I was a little ashamed, that I
reached my apartment at the Marathon and locked the door.

Just before I turned in for the night, I heard from Godfrey again,
for my telephone rang, and it was his voice that answered.

"I just wanted to tell you, Lester," he said, "that your guess was
right. The mysterious Frenchman came over on _La Touraine_, landing
at noon yesterday. He came in the steerage, and the stewards know
nothing about him. What time was it he got to Vantine's?"

"About two, I should say."

"So he probably went directly there from the boat, as you thought.
That accounts for nobody knowing him. The steamship company is
holding a bag belonging to him. I'll get them to open it to-morrow,
and perhaps we shall find out who he was."

"But, Godfrey," I broke in, "how about this other fellow--the man
with the burning eyes? He's getting on my nerves!"

"Don't let him do that, Lester!" he laughed. "We're in no danger so
long as we are not around that cabinet! That's the storm centre! I
can't tell you more than that. Good-night!" and he hung up without
waiting for me to answer.




CHAPTER XIII

A DISTINGUISHED CALLER


It was shortly after I reached the office, next morning, that the
office-boy came in and handed me a card with an awed and reverent air
so at variance with his usual demeanour that I glanced at the square
of pasteboard in some astonishment. Then, I confess, an awed and
reverent feeling crept over me, also, for the card bore the name of
Sereno Hornblower.

That name is quite unknown outside the legal profession of the three
great cities of the east, New York, Boston and Philadelphia; for
Sereno Hornblower has never held a public office, has never made a
public speech, has never responded to a toast, has never served on a
public committee, has never, so far as I know, conducted a case in
court or addressed a jury--has never, in a word, figured in the
newspapers in any way; and yet his income would make that of any
other lawyer in the country look like thirty cents.

For Sereno Hornblower is the confidential attorney of most of our
"best families." He has held that position for years, and it is said
that no case placed unreservedly in his hands ever resulted in a
public scandal. He accepts clients with great care; he has
steadfastly refused the business of Pittsburgh millionaires,
remunerative as it was certain to be; but he seems to take a sort of
personal pride in keeping intact the reputations of the old families,
even when their scions embark in the most outrageous escapades. If
you are descended from the Pilgrims or the Patroons, Mr. Hornblower
will ask no further recommendation.

His reputation for tact and delicacy is tremendous; and yet those who
have found themselves opposed to him have never been long in
realising that there was a most redoubtable mailed fist under the
velvet glove. Altogether a remarkable man, whose memoirs would make
absorbing reading, could he be persuaded to write them--which is
quite beyond the bounds of possibility. I had never met him either
professionally or personally, and it was with some eagerness that I
told the office-boy to show him in at once.

Sereno Hornblower did not look the part. His reputation led one to
expect a sort of cross between Uriah Heep and Sherlock Holmes, but
there was nothing secretive or insinuating about his appearance. He
was a bluff and hearty man of middle age, rather heavy-set,
fresh-faced and clean-shaven, and with very bright blue eyes--evidently
a man with a good digestion and a comfortable conscience. Had I met him
on Broadway, I should have taken him for a ripe and finished
comedian. There was about him an air which somehow reminded me of
Joseph Jefferson--perhaps it was his bright blue eyes. It may have
been this very appearance of bluff sincerity and honest downrightness
which accounted for his success.

We shook hands, and he sat down and plunged at once, without an
instant's hesitation, into the business which had brought him.
Looking back at it, understanding as I do now the delicate nature of
that business, I admire more and more that bluff readiness; though
the more I think of it, the more I am convinced that he had thought
out definitely beforehand precisely what he was going to say. The man
who can carry through a carefully premeditated scene with an air of
complete unpremeditation has an immense advantage.

"Mr. Lester," he began, "I understand that you are the administrator
of the estate of the late Philip Vantine?"

"Our firm is," I corrected.

"But you, personally, have been attending to his business?"

"Yes."

"He was a collector of old furniture, I believe?"

"Yes."

"And on his last trip to Europe, from which he returned only a few
days ago, he purchased of Armand & Son, of Paris, a Boule cabinet?"

I could not repress a start of astonishment.

"Are you acting for Armand & Son?" I queried.

"Not at all. I am acting for a lady whom, for the present, we will
call Madame X."

The thought flashed through my mind that Madame X. and the mysterious
Frenchwoman might be one and the same person. Then I put aside the
idea as absurd. Sereno Hornblower would never accept such a client.

"Mr. Vantine did buy such a cabinet," I said.

"And it is in your possession?"

"There is at his residence a Boule cabinet which was shipped him from
Paris, but, only a few hours before his death, Mr. Vantine assured me
that it was not the one he had purchased."

"You mean that a mistake had been made in the shipment?"

"That is what we supposed, and a cablegram from Armand & Son has
since confirmed it."

Mr. Hornblower pondered this for a moment.

"Where is the cabinet which Mr. Vantine did buy?" he asked at last.

"I have no idea. Perhaps it is still in Paris. But I am expecting a
representative of the Armands to call very soon to straighten things
out."

Again my companion fell silent, and sat rubbing his chin absently.

"It is very strange," he said, finally. "If the cabinet was still at
Paris, one would think it would have been discovered before my client
made inquiry about it."

"There are a good many things which are strange about this whole
matter," I supplemented.

"Would you have any objection to my client seeing this cabinet, Mr.
Lester?"

It was my turn to hesitate.

"Mr. Hornblower," I said, finally, "I will be frank with you. There
is a certain mystery surrounding this cabinet which we have not been
able to solve. I suppose you have read of the mysterious deaths of
Mr. Vantine and of an unknown Frenchman, both in the same room at the
Vantine house, and both apparently from the same cause?"

He nodded.

"Do you mean that this cabinet is connected with them in any way?" he
asked quickly.

"We believe so; though as yet we have been able to prove absolutely
nothing. But we are guarding the cabinet very closely. I should not
object to your client seeing it, but I could not permit her to touch
it--not, at least, without knowing why she wished to do so. You will
remember that you have told me nothing of why she is interested in
it."

"I am quite ready to tell you the story, Mr. Lester," he said. "It is
only fair that I should do so. After you have heard it, if you agree,
we will take Madame X. to see the cabinet."

"Very well," I assented.

He settled back in his chair, and his face became more grave.

"My client," he began, "is a member of a prominent American family--a
most prominent family. Three years ago, she married a French
nobleman. You can, perhaps, guess her name, but I should prefer that
neither of us utter it."

I nodded my agreement.

"This nobleman has been both prodigal and unfaithful. He has
scattered my client's fortune with both hands. He has flaunted his
mistresses in her face. He has even tried to compel her to receive
one of them. I am free to confess that I consider her a fool not to
have left him long ago. At last her trustees interfered, for her
father had been wise enough to place a portion of her fortune in
trust. They paid her husband's debts, placed him on an allowance, and
notified his creditors that his debts would not be paid again."

I had by this time, of course, guessed the name of his client, since
these details had long been a matter of public notoriety, and, I need
hardly say, listened to the story with a heightened interest.

"The allowance is a princely one," Mr. Hornblower continued, "but it
does not suffice Monsieur X. No allowance would suffice him--the more
money he had, the more ways he would find of spending it. So he has
become a thief. He has taken to selling the objects of art with which
his residences are filled, and which are really the property of my
client, since they were purchased with her money. About two weeks
ago, my client returned to Paris from a stay at her château in
Normandy to find that he had almost denuded the town house.
Tapestries, pictures, sculptures--everything had been sold. Among
other things which he had taken was a Boule cabinet, which had been
used by my client as her private writing-desk. The cabinet was a most
valuable one; but it is not its monetary value which makes my client
so anxious to recover it."

He paused an instant and cleared his throat, and I realised that he
was coming to the really delicate part of the story.

"Monsieur X. had had the decency," he went on, more slowly, "to, as
he thought, retain his wife's private papers. He had caused the
contents of the various drawers to be dumped out upon a chair. But
there was one drawer of which he knew nothing--a secret drawer, known
only to my client. That drawer contained a packet of letters which my
client is most anxious to regain. Of their nature, I will say
nothing--indeed, I know very little about them, for, after all, that
is none of my business. But she has given me to understand that their
recovery is essential to her peace of mind."

I nodded again; there was really no need that he should say more.
Only, I reflected, a faithless husband has no reason to complain if
his wife repays him in the same coin!

"My client went to work at once to regain the cabinet," continued Mr.
Hornblower, plainly relieved that the thinnest ice had been crossed.
"She found that it had been sold to Armand & Son. Hastening to their
offices, she learned that it had been resold by them to Mr. Vantine
and sent forward to him here. So she came over on the first boat,
ostensibly to visit her family, but really to ask Mr. Vantine's
permission to open the drawer and take out the letters. His death
interfered with this, and, in despair, she came to me. I need hardly
add, that no member of her family knows anything about this matter,
and it is especially important that her husband should never even
suspect it. On her behalf, I apply to you, as Mr. Vantine's executor,
to restore these letters to their owner."

I sat for a moment turning this extraordinary story over in my mind,
and trying to make it fit in with the occurrences of the past two
days. But it would not fit--at least, it would not fit with my theory
as to the cause of those occurrences. For, surely, Madame X. would
scarcely guard the secret of that drawer with poison!

"Does any one besides your client know of the existence of these
letters?" I asked, at last.

"I think not," answered Mr. Hornblower, smiling drily. "They are not
of a nature which my client would care to communicate to any one. In
fact, Mr. Lester, as you have doubtless suspected, they are
compromising letters. We must get them back at any cost."

"As a matter of fact," I pointed out, "there are always at least two
people who know of the existence of every letter--the person who
writes it and the person who receives it."

"I had thought of that, but the person who wrote these letters is
dead."

"Dead?" I repeated.

"He was killed in a duel some months ago," explained Mr. Hornblower,
gravely.

"By Monsieur X.?" I asked quickly.

"By Monsieur X.," said Mr. Hornblower, and sat regarding me, his lips
pursed, as an indication, perhaps, that he would say no more.

But there was no necessity that he should. I knew enough of French
law and of French habits of thought to realise that if those letters
ever came into possession of Monsieur X., the game would be entirely
in his hands. His wife would be absolutely at his mercy. And the
thought flashed through my mind that perhaps in some way he had
learned of the existence of the letters, and was trying desperately
to get them. That thought was enough to swing the balance in his
wife's favour.

"I am sure," I said, "that Mr. Vantine would instantly have consented
to your client opening the drawer and taking out the letters. And, as
his executor, I also consent, for, whoever may own the cabinet, the
letters are the property of Madame X. All this providing, of course,
that this should prove to be the right cabinet. But I must warn you,
Mr. Hornblower, that I believe two men have already been killed
trying to open that drawer," and I told him, while he sat there
staring in profound amazement, of my theory in regard to the death of
Philip Vantine and of the unknown Frenchman. "I am inclined to
think," I concluded, "that Vantine blundered upon the drawer while
examining the cabinet; but there is no doubt that the other man knew
of the drawer, and also, presumably, of its contents."

"Well!" exclaimed my companion. "I have listened to many astonishing
stories in my life, but never one to equal this. And you know nothing
of this Frenchman?"

"Nothing except that he came from Havre on _La Touraine_ last
Thursday, and drove from the dock direct to Vantine's house."

"My client also came on _La Touraine_--but that, no doubt, was a mere
coincidence."

"That may be," I agreed, "but it is scarcely a coincidence that both
he and your client were after the contents of that drawer."

"You mean...."

"I mean that the mysterious Frenchman may very possibly have been an
emissary of Monsieur X. Madame may have betrayed the secret to him in
an unguarded moment."

Mr. Hornblower rose abruptly. He was evidently much disturbed.

"You may be right," he agreed. "I will communicate with my client at
once. I take it that she has your permission to see the cabinet; and,
if it proves to be the right one, that she may open the drawer and
remove the letters."

"If she cares to take the risk," I assented.

"Very well; I will call you as soon as I have seen her," he said. "In
any event, I thank you for your courtesy," and he left the office.

He must have driven straight to her family residence on the Avenue;
or perhaps she was awaiting him at his office; at any rate, he called
me up inside the half hour.

"My client would like to see the cabinet at once," he said. "She is
in a very nervous condition; especially since she learned that some
one else has tried to open the drawer. When will it be convenient for
you to go with us?"

"I can go at once," I said.

"Then we will drive around for you. We should be there in fifteen or
twenty minutes."

"Very well," I said, "I'll be ready. I shall, of course, want to take
a witness with me."

"That is quite proper," assented Mr. Hornblower. "We can have no
objection to that. In twenty minutes, then."

I got the _Record_ office as soon as I could, but Godfrey was not
there. He did not come on usually, some one said, until the middle of
the afternoon. I rang his rooms, but there was no reply. Finally I
called up the Vantine house.

"Parks," I said, "I am bringing up some people to look at that
cabinet. It might be just as well to get that cot out of the way and
have all the lights going?"

"The lights are already going, sir," he said.

"Already going? What do you mean?"

"Mr. Godfrey has been here for quite a while, sir, fooling with that
cabinet thing."

"He has!" and then I reflected that I ought to have guessed his
whereabouts. "Tell him, Parks, that I am bringing some people up to
see the cabinet, and that I should like him to stay there and be a
witness of the proceedings."

"Very well, sir," assented Parks.

"Everything quiet?"

"Oh, yes, sir; there was two policemen outside all night, and Rogers
and me inside."

"Mr. Hornblower's carriage is below, sir," announced the office-boy,
opening the door.

"All right," I said. "We are coming right up, Parks. Good-bye," and I
hung up and slipped into my coat.

Then, as I took down my hat, a sudden thought struck me.

If the unknown Frenchman was indeed an emissary of Monsieur X.,
Madame might be acquainted with him. It was a long shot, but worth
trying! I stepped to my desk, took out the photograph which Godfrey
had given me, and slipped it into my pocket. Then I hurried out to
the elevator.




CHAPTER XIV

THE VEILED LADY


There were three persons in the carriage. Mr. Hornblower sat with his
back to the horses, and two women were on the opposite seat. Both
were dressed in black and heavily veiled, but there was about them
the indefinable distinction of mistress and maid. It would be
difficult to tell precisely in what the distinction consisted, but it
was there. Mr. Hornblower glanced behind me as I entered.

"You spoke of a witness," he said.

"He is at the Vantine house," I explained, and sat down beside him.

"This is Mr. Lester," he said, and the veiled lady opposite him, whom
I had known at once to be the mistress, inclined her head a little.

Those were the only words spoken. The carriage rolled out to Broadway
and then turned northward, making such progress as was possible along
that crowded thoroughfare. I glanced from time to time at the women
opposite, and was struck by the contrast in their behaviour. One sat
quite still, her hands in her lap, her head bent, admirably
self-contained; the other was restless and uneasy, unable to control
a nervous twitching of the fingers. I wondered why the maid should
seem more upset than her mistress, and decided finally that her
uneasiness was merely lack of breeding. But the contrast interested
me.

At Tenth Street, the carriage turned westward again, skirted
Washington Square, turned into the Avenue, and stopped before the
Vantine house. Mr. Hornblower assisted the women to alight, and I led
the way up the steps. But as we reached the top and came upon the
funeral wreath on the door, the veiled lady stopped with a little
exclamation.

"I did not know," she said, quickly. "Perhaps, after all, we would
better wait. I did not realise...."

"There are no relatives to be hurt, madame," I interrupted. "As for
the dead man, what can it matter to him?" and I rang the bell.

Parks opened the door, and, nodding to him, I led the way along the
hall and into the ante-room. Godfrey was awaiting us there, and I saw
the flame of interest which leaped into his eyes, as Mr. Hornblower
and the two veiled women entered.

"This is my witness," I said to the former. "Mr. Godfrey--Mr.
Hornblower."

Godfrey bowed, and Hornblower regarded him with a good-humoured
smile.

"If I were not sure of Mr. Godfrey's discretion," he said, "I should
object. But I have tested it before this, and know that it can be
relied upon."

"There is only one person to whom I yield precedence in the matter of
discretion," rejoined Godfrey, smiling back at him, "and that is Mr.
Hornblower. He is in a class quite by himself."

"Thank you," said the lawyer, and bowed gravely.

During this interchange of compliments, the woman I had decided was
the maid had sat down, as though her legs were unable to sustain her,
and was nervously clasping and unclasping her hands; even her
mistress showed signs of impatience.

"The cabinet is in here," I said, and led the way into the inner
room, the two men and the veiled lady at my heels.

It stood in the middle of the floor, just as it had stood since the
night of the tragedy, and all the lights were going. As I entered, I
noticed Godfrey's gauntlet lying on a chair.

"Is it the right one, madame?" I asked.

She gazed at it a moment, her hands pressed against her breast.

"Yes!" she answered, with a gasp that was almost a sob.

I confess I was astonished. I had never thought it could be the right
one; even now I did not see how it could possibly be the right one.

"You are sure?" I queried incredulously.

"Do you think I could be mistaken in such a matter, sir? I assure you
that this cabinet at one time belonged to me. You permit me?" she
added, and took a step toward it.

"One moment, madame," I interposed. "I must warn you that in touching
that cabinet you are running a great risk."

"A great risk?" she echoed, looking at me.

"A very great risk, as I have pointed out to Mr. Hornblower. I have
reason to believe that two men met death while trying to open that
secret drawer."

"I believe Mr. Hornblower did tell me something of the sort," she
murmured; "but of course that is all a mistake."

"Then the drawer is not guarded by poison?" I questioned.

"By poison?" she repeated blankly, and carried her handkerchief to
her lips. "I do not understand."

I knew that my theory was collapsing, utterly, hopelessly. I dared
not look at Godfrey.

"Is there not, connected with the drawer," I asked, "a mechanism
which, as the drawer is opened, plunges two poisoned fangs into the
hand which opens it?"

"No, Mr. Lester," she answered, astonishment in her voice, "I assure
you there is no such mechanism."

I clutched at a last straw, and a sorry one it was!

"The mechanism may have been placed there since the cabinet passed
from your possession," I suggested.

"That is, perhaps, possible," she agreed, though I saw that she was
unconvinced.

"At any rate, madame," I said, "I would ask that, in opening the
drawer, you wear this gauntlet," and I picked up Godfrey's gauntlet
from the chair on which it lay. "It is needless that you should take
any risk, however slight. Permit me," and I slipped the gauntlet over
her right hand.

As I did so, I glanced at Godfrey. He was staring at the veiled lady
with such a look of stupefaction that I nearly choked with delight.
It had not often been my luck to see Jim Godfrey mystified, but he
was certainly mystified now!

The veiled lady regarded the steel glove with a little laugh.

"I am now free to open the drawer?" she asked.

"Yes, madame."

She moved toward the cabinet, Godfrey and I close behind her. At last
the secret which had defied us was to be revealed. And with its
revelation would come the end of the picturesque and romantic theory
we had been building up so laboriously.

Instinctively, I glanced toward the shuttered window, but the
semi-circle of light was unobscured.

The veiled lady bent above the table and disposed the fingers of her
right hand to fit the metal inlay midway of the left side.

"It is a little awkward," she said. "I have always been accustomed to
using the left hand. You will notice that I am pressing on three
points; but to open the drawer, one must press these points in a
certain order--- first this one, then this one, and then this one."

There was a sharp click, and, at the side of the table, a piece of
the metal inlay fell forward.

"That is the handle," said the veiled lady, and, without an instant's
hesitation, while my heart stood still, she grasped it and drew out a
shallow drawer. "Ah!" and, casting aside the ridiculous gauntlet, she
caught up the packet of papers which lay within. Then, with an
effort, she controlled herself, slipped off the ribbon which held the
packet together, and spread out before my eyes ten or twelve
envelopes. "You will see that they are only letters, Mr. Lester," she
said in a low voice, "and I assure you that they belong to me."

"I believe you, madame," I said, and with a sigh of relief that was
almost a sob, she rebound the packet and slipped it into the bosom of
her gown. "There is one thing," I added, "which madame can, perhaps,
do for me."

"I shall be most happy!" she breathed.

"As I have told Mr. Hornblower," I continued, "two men died in this
room the day before yesterday. Or, rather, it was in the room beyond
that they died; but we believed it was here they received the wounds
which caused death. It seems that we were wrong in this."

"Undoubtedly," she agreed. "There has never been any such weird
mechanism as you described connected with that drawer, Mr. Lester. At
least, not since I have had it. There is a legend, you know, that the
cabinet was made for Madame de Montespan."

She was talking more freely now; evidently a great load had been
lifted from her--perhaps I did not guess how great!

"Mr. Vantine suspected as much," I said. "He was a connoisseur of
furniture, and there was something about this cabinet which told him
it had belonged to the Montespan. He was examining it at the time he
died. What the other man was doing, we do not know, but if we could
identify him, it might help us."

"You have not identified him?"

"We know nothing whatever about him, except that he was presumably a
Frenchman, and that he arrived on _La Touraine_, two days ago."

"That is the boat upon which I came over."

"It has occurred to me, madame, that you may have seen him--that he
may even be known to you."

"What was his name?"

"The card he sent in to Mr. Vantine bore the name of Théophile
d'Aurelle."

She shook her head.

"I have never before heard that name, Mr. Lester."

"We believe it to have been an assumed name," I said; "but perhaps
you will recognise this photograph," and I drew it from my pocket and
handed it to her.

She took it, looked at it, and again shook her head. Then she looked
at it again, turning aside and raising her veil in order to see it
better.

"There seems to be something familiar about the face," she said, at
last, "as though I might have seen the man somewhere."

"On the boat, perhaps," I suggested, but I knew very well it was not
on the boat, since the man had crossed in the steerage.

"No; it was not on the boat. I did not leave my stateroom on the
boat. But I am quite sure that I have seen him--and yet I can't say
where."

"Perhaps," I said, in a low voice, "he may have been one of the
friends of your husband."

I saw her hand tremble under the blow, but it had to be struck. And
she was brave.

"The same thought occurred to me, Mr. Lester," she answered; "but I
know very few of my husband's friends; certainly not this one. And
yet.... Perhaps my maid can help us."

Photograph in hand, she stepped through the doorway into the outer
room. The maid was sitting on the chair where we had left her; her
hands clenched tightly together in her lap, as though it was only by
some violent effort she could maintain her self-control.

"Julie," said the veiled lady, in rapid French, "I have here the
photograph of a man who was killed in this room most mysteriously a
few days ago. These gentlemen wish to identify him. The face seems to
me somehow familiar, but I cannot place it. Look at it."

Julie put forth a shaking hand, took the photograph, and glanced at
it; then, with a long sigh, slid limply to the floor, before either
Godfrey or I could catch her.

As she fell, her veil, catching on the chair-back, was torn away;
and, looking down at her, a great emotion burst within me, for I
recognised the mysterious woman whose photograph d'Aurelle had
carried in his watch-case.




CHAPTER XV

THE SECRET OF THE UNKNOWN FRENCHMAN


For a moment, I stood spell-bound, staring down at that jaded and
passion-stained countenance; then Godfrey sprang forward and lifted
the unconscious woman to the couch.

"Bring some water," he said, and as he turned and looked at me, I saw
that his face was glowing with excitement.

I rushed to the door and snatched it open. Rogers was standing in the
hall outside, and I sent him hurrying for the water, and turned back
into the room.

Godfrey was chafing the girl's hands, and the veiled lady was bending
over her, fumbling at the hooks of her bodice. Evidently she could
not see them, for, with a sudden movement, she put back her veil. My
heart warmed to her at that act of sacrifice; and after a single
glance at her, I turned away my eyes.

I saw Godfrey's start of recognition as he looked down at her; then
he, too, looked aside.

"Here's the water, sir," said Rogers, and handed me glass and
pitcher.

The next instant, his eyes fell upon the woman on the couch. He stood
staring, his face turning slowly purple; then, clutching at his
throat, he half-turned and fell, just as I had seen him do once
before.

Hornblower, who was staring at the unconscious woman and mopping his
face feverishly, spun around at the crash.

"Well, I'll be damned!" he said, in a hoarse voice, as he saw Rogers
extended on the floor at his feet. "What's the matter with this
house, anyway?"

So great was the tension on my nerves that I could scarcely restrain
a shout of laughter. I turned it into a shout for Parks; but his
face, when he appeared on the threshold, was too much for me, and I
sank into a chair, laughing hysterically.

"For God's sake!" Parks began....

"It's all right," Godfrey broke in, sharply, "Rogers has had another
fit. Get the ammonia!"

Parks staggered away, and Mr. Hornblower sat down weakly.

"I don't see the joke!" he growled, glaring at me, his face crimson.

"Get a grip of yourself, Lester," said Godfrey, savagely, seized the
pitcher from my hand, and hurried with it to madame.

I _did_ get a grip of myself, and when Parks came back a moment later
with the ammonia, was able to hold up Rogers's head, while Parks
applied the phial to his nostrils.

"Give me a whiff of it, too, Parks," I said, unsteadily, and in an
instant my eyes were streaming; but I had escaped hysteria.
"Straighten Rogers out and let him lie there," I gasped, and sat
dizzily down upon the floor. But I dared not look at Hornblower. I
felt that another glance at his dazed countenance would send me off
again.

Madame, meanwhile, had dashed some water into the face of the
unconscious Julie--much to the detriment of her complexion!--watched
her a moment, then stood erect and lowered her veil.

"She will soon be all right again," she said; and, truly enough, at
the end of a few seconds, the girl opened her eyes and looked dazedly
about her. Then a violent trembling seized her.

"What is it, Julie?" asked her mistress, taking her hand. "You knew
this man?"

A hoarse sob was the only answer.

"You must tell me," went on madame, quietly but firmly. "Perhaps a
crime has been committed. You must tell me everything. You may rely
upon the discretion of these gentlemen. You knew this man?"

The girl nodded, and closed her eyes; but the hot tears brimmed from
them and ran down over her cheeks.

"In Paris?"

The girl nodded again.

"He was your lover?"

A third nod, and a fresh flood of tears.

"I remember, now," said madame, suddenly. "I saw him with her once.
What was he doing in this house?" she went on, more sternly. "Tell
us!"

"Madame will never forgive me!" sobbed the girl, and I began to think
that she was more concerned for herself than for her lover. The same
thought occurred to her mistress too, no doubt, for her voice
hardened.

"Try me," she said. "Understand well, you must tell--if not here,
then before an officer of the police."

"Oh, no, no!" screamed Julie, sitting suddenly erect. "Never that! I
could not bear that! Madame would not be so cruel!"

"Then tell us now!" said the veiled lady, inexorably.

"Very well, madame!" cried the girl, dabbing at her eyes with her
handkerchief, and speaking in a mixture of French and English which I
shall not attempt to transcribe. "I will tell; I will tell
everything. After all, I was not to blame. It was that creature. I
did not love him--but I feared him. He possessed a power over me. He
could make me do anything. He even beat me! And still I went back to
him!"

"What was his name?" asked the veiled lady.

"Georges Drouet--he lived in the Rue de la Huchette, just off the Rue
Saint Jacques--on the top floor, under the gutters. He was bad--bad;
--he lived off women. I met him six months ago. He knew how to
fascinate one; I thought he loved me. Then he began to borrow money
from me, until he had taken all that I had saved; then my rings
--every one!" She held up her hands to show their bareness.
"Then...."

She stopped and glanced at her mistress.

"Continue!" said the latter. "Tell what you have to tell."

"I knew that madame also...."

She stopped again. I walked over to the window and stood staring at
the wooden shutter, strangely moved.

"Well, why not?" she demanded fiercely, and I felt that she was
addressing my turned back. "Why not? Shall a woman not be loved?
Shall a woman endure what madame endured...."

"That will do, Julie," broke in the veiled lady, her voice cold as
ice. "Tell your story."

"I knew of the secret drawer; I had seen madame open it; I knew what
it contained. But I was faithful to madame; I loved her; I was glad
that she had found some one.... Madame will remember her despair, her
horror, when she entered her room to find the cabinet gone, taken
away, sold by that.... I, too, was in despair--I desired with my
whole soul to help madame. That night I had a rendezvous with him,"
and she nodded toward the photograph which lay upon the floor. "I
told him."

Her mistress stood as though turned to stone. I could guess her
anguish and humiliation.

"He questioned me--he learned everything--the drawer, how it was
opened--all. But I did not suspect what was in his mind--not for an
instant did I suspect. But on the boat I saw him, and then I knew.
Well, he has got what he deserved!"

She shivered and pressed her hands against her eyes.

"I think that is all, madame," she added, hoarsely.

"It is all of that story," said Godfrey, in a crisp voice; "but there
is another."

"Another?" echoed the veiled lady, looking at him.

"Ask her, madame, for what purpose she called at this house, night
before last, and saw Philip Vantine in this room."

"I did not!" shrieked the girl, her face ablaze. "It is a lie!"

"She does not need to tell!" went on Godfrey inexorably. "Any fool
could guess. She came for the letters! She had resolved herself to
blackmail you, madame!"

"It is a lie!" shrieked the girl again. "I came hoping to save her
--to...."

A storm of angry sobbing choked her.

I could see how the veiled lady was trembling. I placed a chair for
her, and she sank into it with a murmur of thanks.

"Besides, we have a witness to her visit," added Godfrey. "Shall I
call the police, madame?"

"No, no!" and the girl sat upright again, her face ghastly. "I will
tell. I will tell all. Give me but a moment!"

She sat there, struggling for self-control, her streaked and
grotesque countenance contorted with emotion. Then I saw her eyes
widen, and, glancing around, I saw that Rogers had dragged himself to
a sitting posture, and was staring at her, his face livid.

The sight of him seemed to madden her.

"It was you!" she shrieked, and shook her clenched fist at him. "It
was you who told! Coward! Coward!"

But Godfrey, his face very grim, laid a heavy hand upon her arm.

"Be still!" he cried. "He told us nothing! He tried to shield you
--though why he should wish to do so...."

Rogers broke in with a hollow and ghastly laugh.

"It was natural enough, sir," he said hoarsely. "She's my wife!"




CHAPTER XVI

PHILIP VANTINE'S CALLER


It was a sordid story that Rogers gasped out to us; and, as it
concerns this tale only incidentally, I shall pass over it as briefly
as may be.

Eight or ten years before, the fair Julie--at least, she was fairer
then than now!--had come to New York to enter the employ of a family
whose mistress had decided that life without a French maid was
unendurable. Rogers had met her, had been fascinated by her black
eyes and red lips, had, in the end, proposed honourable marriage
--quite unnecessarily, no doubt!--had been accepted, and for some
months had led an eventful existence as the husband of the siren.
Then, one morning, he awakened to find her gone.

He had, of course, entrusted his savings to her--that had been one
condition of the marriage!--and the savings were gone, also. Julie,
it seems, had been overcome with longing for the Paris asphalt; no
doubt, too, she had found herself ennuied by the lack of romance in
married life with Rogers; and she had flown back to France. Rogers
had thought of following; but, appalled at the difficulty of finding
her in Paris, not knowing what he should do if he did find her, he
had finally given it up, and had settled gloomily down to live upon
his memories. Some sort of affection for her had kept alive within
him, and when he opened the door of Vantine's house and found her
standing on the steps, he was as wax in her hands.

Julie had listened to all this indifferently, even disdainfully,
without denying anything, nor seeking to excuse herself. Perhaps the
idea that she needed excuse did not occur to her. And when the story
was finished, she was quite herself again; even a little proud, I
think, of holding the centre of the stage in the rôle of siren. It
was almost a rejuvenescence, and there was gratitude in the gaze she
turned on Rogers.

"This is all true, I suppose?" asked the veiled lady.

"All quite true, madame," answered Julie, with a shrug. "I was
younger then and the love of excitement was too strong for me. I am
older now, and have more sense--besides, I am no longer sought after
as I was."

"And so," said madame, with irony, "you are now, no doubt, willing to
return to your husband."

"I have been considering it, madame," replied Julie, with astounding
simplicity, "ever since I saw him here the other evening, and learned
that he still cared for me. One must have a harbour in one's old
age."

I glanced at Rogers and was astonished to see that he was regarding
the woman with affectionate admiration. Evidently the harbour was
waiting, should Julie choose to anchor there.

"I have hesitated," she added, "only because of madame. Where would
madame get another maid such as I? No one but I can arrange her hair
--no one but I can prepare her bath...."

"We will discuss it," said the veiled lady, "when we are alone. And
now, perhaps, you will be so good as to tell us of your previous
visit here."

"Very well, madame," and Julie settled into a more comfortable
posture. "It was one day on the boat as I was looking down at the
passengers of the third class that I perceived Georges--M. Drouet
--strolling about. I was _bouleversée_--what you call upset with
amazement, and then he looked up and our eyes met, and he came
beneath me and commanded that I meet him that evening. It was then
that I learned his plan. It was to secure those letters for himself
and to dispose of them."

"To whom?" asked Godfrey.

"To the person that would pay the greatest price for them, most
certainly," answered Julie, surprised that it should have been
thought necessary to ask such a question. "They were to be offered
first to madame at ten thousand francs each; should she refuse, they
were then to be offered to M. le Duc--he would surely desire to
possess them!"

The veiled lady shivered a little, and her hand instinctively sought
her bosom to assure herself that the precious packet was safe.

"That night," continued Julie, "in my cabin, I tossed and tossed,
trying to discover a way to prevent this; for I had seen long since
that M. Drouet no longer cared for me--I knew that it was upon some
other woman that money would be spent. I decided that, at the first
moment, I would hasten to this house; I would explain the matter to
M. Vantine, I would persuade him to restore to me the letters, with
which I would fly to madame. I knew, also, that I could rely upon her
gratitude," added the girl. "After all, one must provide for
oneself."

She paused and glanced around the room, smiling at the interest in
our faces.

"You have at least one virtue--that of frankness," said the veiled
lady. "Continue."

"It was not until evening that I found an opportunity to leave
madame," Julie went on. "I hastened here; I rang the bell; but I
confess I should have failed, I should not have secured an entrance,
if it had not been that it was my husband who opened the door to me.
Even after I was inside the door, he refused to permit me to see his
master; but as we were debating together, M. Vantine himself came
into the hall, and I ran to him and begged that he hear me. It was
then that he invited me to enter this room."

She paused again, and a little shiver of expectancy ran through me.
At last we were to learn how Philip Vantine had met his death!

"I sat down," continued Julie. "I told him the story from the very
beginning. He listened with much interest; but when I proposed that
he should restore to me the letters, he hesitated. He walked up and
down the room, trying to decide; then he took me through that door
into the room beyond. The cabinet was standing in the centre of the
floor, and all the lights were blazing.

"'Is that the cabinet?' he asked me, and when I said that most
assuredly it was, he seemed surprised.

"'It is an easy thing to prove,' I said, and I went to the cabinet
and pressed on the three springs, as I had seen madame do. The little
handle at the side fell out, but suddenly he stopped me.

"'Yes, it is the cabinet,' he said. 'I see that. And no doubt the
drawer contains the letters, as you say. But those letters do not
belong to you. They belong to your mistress. I cannot permit that you
take them away, for, after all, I do not know you. You may intend to
make some bad use of them.'

"I protested that such a suspicion was most unjust, that my character
was of the best, that I was devoted to my mistress and desired to
protect her. He listened, but he was not convinced. In the end, he
brought me back into this room. I could have cried with rage!

"'Return to your mistress,' he said, 'and inform her that I shall be
most happy to return the letters to her. But it must be in her own
hands that I place them. The letters are here, whenever it pleases
her to claim them."

"I saw that it was of no use to argue further; he was of adamant. So
I left the house, he himself opening the door for me. And that is all
that I know, madame."

There was a moment's silence; then I heard Godfrey draw a deep
breath. I could see that, like myself, he was convinced that the girl
was telling the truth.

"Of course," he suggested gently, "as soon as you reached home you
related to your mistress what had occurred?"

Julie grew a little crimson.

"No, monsieur," she said, "I told her nothing."

"I should have thought you would have wished to prove your devotion,"
went on Godfrey, in his sweetest tone.

"I feared that, without the letters, she would misunderstand my
motives," said Julie, sullenly.

"And then, of course, without the letters, there would be no reward,"
Godfrey supplemented.

Julie did not reply, but she looked very uncomfortable.

The veiled lady rose.

"Have you any further questions to ask her?" she said.

"No, madame," said Godfrey. "The story is complete."

Julie resumed her veil, shooting at Godfrey a glance anything but
friendly. The veiled lady turned to me and held out her hand.

"I thank you, Mr. Lester, for your kindness," she said. "Come,
Julie," and she moved toward the door, which Rogers hastened to open.

Mr. Hornblower nodded and passed out after them, and Godfrey and I
were left alone together.

We both sat down, and for a moment neither of us spoke.

"Well!" said Godfrey, at last. "Well! what a story it would make! And
I can't use it! It's a bitter reflection, Lester!"

"It would certainly shake the pillars of society," I agreed. "I'm
rather shaken myself."

"So am I! I was all at sea for a while--I was dumb with astonishment
when I heard you and the veiled lady talking about the secret drawer
--I could see you laughing at me! I don't know the whole story yet.
How did she happen to come to you?"

I told him of Hornblower's visit, of the story he told me, and of the
arrangement we had made. Godfrey nodded thoughtfully when I had
finished.

"The story is straight, of course," he said. "Hornblower would not be
engaged in anything tricky. Besides, I recognised the lady. I suppose
you did, too."

"Yes, I have seen pictures of her. And I admired her for putting back
her veil."

"So did I. She has changed since the day of her wedding, Lester--she
was a smooth-faced girl, then! Three years of life with her duke have
left their mark on her!"

He fell silent, staring thoughtfully at the carpet. Then he shook
himself.

"And the maid's story was most interesting," he added. "Nevertheless,
there are still a number of things which are not quite clear to me."

"There is one thing I don't understand, myself," I said. "I hadn't
any idea this was the right cabinet. I didn't see how it could be."

"That's it, exactly. How did it happen, when the veiled lady went to
Armand & Son in Paris, that she was directed to Philip Vantine?
According to his own story, he did not purchase this cabinet; he had
never seen it before; it was presumably shipped him by mistake;
Armand & Son cable you that it was a mistake; and yet they cite
Vantine as the purchaser. There is something twisted somewhere,
Lester; just where I'll try to find out."

"Which reminds me that Armand's representative hasn't been around
yet. No doubt he can straighten the matter out."

"It won't do any harm to hear his story, anyway," Godfrey agreed.
"Now let's have a look at that drawer."

It was standing open as we had left it, and Godfrey pushed it back
into place, called my attention to the cunning way in which its
outline was concealed by the inlay about it. Then he worked the
spring, the handle fell into place, and he drew the drawer out again,
as far as it would come, and examined it carefully.

"The fellow who devised that was a genius," he said, admiringly,
pushing it back into place. "I wonder what its contents have been
from the days of Madame de Montespan down to the present? Love
letters, mostly, I suppose, since they are the things which need
concealment most. Don't you wish this drawer could tell its secrets,
Lester?"

"There is one I wish it would tell, if it knows it," I said. "I wish
it would tell who killed Philip Vantine. I suppose you will agree
with me that our pretty theory has got a knock-out blow, this time."

"It looks that way, doesn't it?"

"There is no poisoned mechanism about that drawer--that's sure," I
added.

"No, and never has been," Godfrey agreed.

"And that leaves us all at sea, doesn't it? It leaves the whole
a

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