Monsieur Gassire’s first waking thought that morning was for the safety of the bundle of securities which he had brought home the previous evening. He stretched out an exploring hand, and encountered the bundle still safely on the little table by his bed.
His mind set at rest, he proceeded to get out of bed and begin the business of dressing for the day.
Nicolas Gassire was a short, corpulent man with a shriveled hawk-face. He was an outside broker doing business in the Invalides quarter of Paris, with a sound clientele of worthy bourgeois. These latter entrusted their savings to him and were rewarded by the singularly attractive profits he netted for them, in part from lucky speculations and in part from his own little private business of money-lending.
He had a flat on the first floor of a narrow old house of which he was the owner. This flat comprised a hall, his bedroom, a dining-room which he used as his office, and another room in which his three clerks worked. Right at the back there was the kitchen.
Gassire’s economy led him to do without a servant. Every morning at eight the concierge, a stout, cheerful, active woman, came up with his post and petit déjeuner[109]—a cup of coffee and a croissant, which she laid on his desk—and then cleaned up the flat.
On the morning in question the concierge departed at half-past eight, and Monsieur Gassire, as was his custom, breakfasted in leisurely fashion, opened his letters and glanced through the morning paper while he awaited the arrival of his clerks.
Suddenly, just five minutes before nine, he thought he heard a noise in his bedroom. Remembering the bundle of securities which he had left in there, he jumped up, overturning his coffee-cup in his agitation. In a twinkling he was in the other room, but—the bundle of securities had vanished! At the very same moment he heard the hall-door on the landing slam violently.
Monsieur Gassire tried to open it, but it was a spring lock and he had left the key on his desk. He was afraid that if he went to get it the thief would escape without being seen.
He therefore opened the hall window, which gave on the street. It was physically impossible for any one to have had time to leave the building. In any case, the street was empty.
Mastering his excitement, Monsieur Nicolas Gassire refrained from crying “Thief!” But, a minute later, when he caught sight of his head clerk coming towards the house from the direction of the neighboring boulevard, he beckoned furiously to him.
“Hurry up, Sarlonat!” he cried, leaning out of the window. “Come in, lock the street door and don’t let any one out. I’ve been robbed!” [110]
As soon as his commands had been obeyed, he hastened downstairs, panting and distraught.
“Tell me, Sarlonat, have you seen anybody?”
“Not a soul, monsieur.”
He hurried to the concierge’s little room, which was wedged between the foot of the stairs and a small, dark courtyard. She was sweeping the floor.
“Madame Alain, I’ve been robbed!” he cried. “Is any one hiding here?”
“Why, no, monsieur,” faltered the poor woman in utter bewilderment.
“Where do you keep the key to my flat?”
“I put it here, monsieur, behind the clock. Anyhow, no one could have taken it, for I’ve not stirred out of my room this last half-hour.”
“That means that instead of coming down the thief must have run upstairs. Oh, this is terrible, terrible!”
Nicolas Gassire went back to the street door. His other two clerks had just come on the scene. Hurriedly, in a few breathless words, he gave them their orders. They were to let no one enter or leave the house until he came back.
“You understand, Sarlonat? No one.”
He dashed upstairs and into his flat. In an instant he had grabbed hold of the telephone.
“Hello!” he bawled into the mouthpiece, “hello! Put me through to the Préfecture!… No, I don’t mean police headquarters, you fool, I mean the café de la Préfecture … what number is it?… How should I know?… Hurry!… Give me information.… Oh, be quick, be quick, can’t you!” [111]
Dancing with rage the little man at last succeeded in getting on to the proprietor of the café, and thundered:
“Is Inspector Béchoux there? Then call him to the telephone—at once. Hurry … hurry! I want him on business. There’s no time to lose.… Hello!… Inspector Béchoux? This is Gassire speaking, Béchoux.… Yes, I’m all right … at least, I’m not … I’ve just been robbed of some securities—a whole bundle.… I’m waiting for you.… What’s that? Say it again!… You can’t come? You’re off on your holiday? Holiday be hanged, man! Béchoux, you must come, as quickly as possible! Your twelve African mining shares were in the bundle!”
Monsieur Gassire heard a volcanic monosyllable at the other end, which fully reassured him on the score of Inspector Béchoux’s purpose and promptitude. Indeed, it was barely a quarter of an hour before Inspector Béchoux arrived, running, his face a study in abject anxiety. He rushed up to the stockbroker.
“My Nigger Boys! My Twelve Little Nigger Boys! All my savings! What’s become of them?”
“Stolen, along with the bonds and shares of other clients … and all my own securities.”
“Stolen?”
“Yes, from my bedroom, half an hour ago!”
“Damnation! But what were my Nigger Boys doing in your room?”
“I took the bundle out of the safe at the Crédit Lyonnais yesterday to deposit it at another bank, nearer here. And I made the mistake of——” [112]
Béchoux’s hand descended heavily on the other’s shoulder.
“I shall hold you responsible, Gassire. You will have to make good my loss.”
“How can I? I’m ruined.”
“What do you mean? You have this house.”
“Mortgaged to the hilt!”
The two men faced each other, convulsed with rage and shouting unintelligibly.
The concierge and the three clerks had also lost their heads, and were barring the way to two girls from the top floor, who had just come down and were quite determined to be allowed out.
“Nobody shall leave this house!” roared Béchoux, beside himself with fury. “Nobody shall leave this house until my Twelve Little Nigger Boys are restored to me!”
“Perhaps we’d better call in help,” suggested Gassire. “There’s the butcher’s boy … and the grocer … they’re both dependable.”
“Not for me,” the inspector pronounced with decision. “If we need some one else we’ll telephone the Barnett Agency in the rue Laborde. Then we’ll notify the police. But for the moment that would be sheer waste of time. Action is what we want!”
He tried to control himself and to regain the pontifical calm that best befits a police inspector. But he was trembling from head to foot, and his quivering mouth betrayed his distress.
“Keep your head,” he told Gassire. “After all, we have the whip hand. Nobody has left the house. The [113]thing is to retrieve my little Nigger Boys before any one can find a way of sneaking them out of the building. That’s all that really matters.”
He turned to the two girls and began to question them. He ascertained that one was a typist who copied reports and circulars at home. The other gave lessons in flute-playing, also at home. They were both anxious to get out and do their marketing before lunch, but Béchoux was adamant.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but this door stays closed for the morning. Monsieur Gassire, two of your clerks shall mount guard here. The third can run errands for the tenants. In the afternoon the latter will be allowed out, but with my permission only in each case, and all parcels, boxes, baskets or packages of any kind will be submitted to a rigorous search. You have your orders. Now, Monsieur Gassire, it is for us to get to work. The concierge will lead the way.”
The building was so planned as to make investigation easy. There were three upper stories, with a single flat on each floor. This made four flats in the house, counting that on the ground floor, which was temporarily unoccupied. Monsieur Gassire lived on the first floor. On the second dwelt Monsieur Touffémont, an ex-Cabinet Minister. The top floor was partitioned off into two flatlets, occupied by Mademoiselle Legoffier, the typist, and Mademoiselle Haveline, who taught the flute.
That morning Monsieur Touffémont had left at half-past eight for the Chambre des Députés, where he was president of a commission. Since his flat was cleaned [114]by a woman who came in daily at lunch-time and had not yet arrived, they decided to await his return.
First, then, they explored the girls’ rooms thoroughly, and satisfied themselves that the missing securities were not there.
Next they searched every corner of the attic at the top of the house, getting up there by means of a ladder.
After this, choking with dust, they came downstairs again and searched the courtyard and Monsieur Gassire’s own flat.
Their efforts went unrewarded. In bitterness of spirit, Béchoux brooded over the unkind fate that had overtaken his Twelve Little Nigger Boys.
Towards noon Monsieur Touffémont came in. He proved to be an earnest parliamentarian, burdened with the type of portfolio proper to the use of an ex-Cabinet Minister. His industry commanded the respect of all parties in the house, and his rare but masterly interventions could make a Cabinet tremble apprehensively.
With measured tread he approached the concierge’s room and asked for his letters. Gassire came up to him and told him of the theft.
Touffémont gave him that grave attention he seemed to bestow even on the most flippant utterances. Then he promised his coöperation if Gassire decided to call in the police, and urged at the same time that they should search his flat.
“You never know,” he said. “Someone might have got in with a skeleton key.”
Accordingly they searched the flat, but here again [115]they drew a blank. Béchoux and Gassire tried to keep one another’s courage up by voicing each in turn his meed of hope and comfort, but their words rang hollow and their faces grew drawn and pale.
At last they thought they would go in search of refreshment to a small café just opposite, so placed that they could keep an eye on the home all the time. But when they got there, Béchoux found he had no appetite. The Twelve Little Nigger Boys lay heavy on his stomach. Gassire said that he felt dizzy. No, he wouldn’t take anything, thank you. They both went over and over what had happened, trying to find some ray of reassurance in the prevailing gloom.
“It’s quite obvious,” said Béchoux. “Someone got into your flat and stole the securities. Well, as the thief can’t have escaped from the building, that means that he or she is still in the house.”
“Absolutely,” agreed Gassire.
“And if he or she is in the house, my Twelve Little Nigger Boys are there too. Hang it all, they can’t have flown out through the roof!”
“Not unless they were nigger angels,” suggested Gassire.
“So,” Béchoux went on, ignoring him, “we are forced to the conclusion that——”
He never finished the sentence. Suddenly a look of terror came into his eyes, and he stared speechless at someone who was jauntily approaching the house opposite.
“Barnett!” he whispered. “Barnett! How did he get to know of this?” [116]
“You mentioned him, and the Barnett Agency in the rue Laborde,” Gassire confessed, not without hesitation, “and I thought that, in the appalling circumstances, it was just worth giving him a ring.”
“You fool!” spluttered Béchoux. “Who’s in charge of the case, anyhow? You or me? Barnett has nothing to do with this. We must be on our guard against him or there will be the devil to pay. Let Barnett in on this? Not much!”
Béchoux was quite sure in his own mind that Barnett’s assistance would prove the last straw. Jim Barnett in the house and on the case would only mean that, if the mystery were solved, a bundle of securities, including Twelve Little Nigger Boys of vital import to their owner, would surely vanish into thin air.
He tore across the street, and, as Barnett raised his hand to the bell, he seized his arm and said in trembling tones:
“Get out! Hop it! We don’t want your help. You were called in by mistake. Cut along now, and be quick about it.”
Barnett gave him an astonished stare full of reproach and childlike innocence.
“My dear Béchoux, what’s the matter? Tell your Uncle Barnett! You seem a trifle rattled, old lad. Still sore about the grandfather clocks of Baron de Gravières? And those gold teeth? Left, right!”
“Get out, I tell you!”
“Then they told me the truth just now on the telephone? Have you really been robbed of your savings? [117]And don’t you want your Uncle Barnett to lend a helping hand?”
“My Uncle Barnett can go to hell!” declared Béchoux, furious. “I know all about your helping hand! It goes into other people’s pockets and helps itself.”
“Are you in a stew because of your Twelve Little Nigger Boys?”
“I shall be if you come poking your nose in!”
“Oh, all right. I leave you to it!”
“You’re off, then?” Béchoux’s frown cleared.
“Rather not! I’ve come here on business.”
He turned to Gassire, who had joined them and was holding the door ajar.
“Can you tell me if Mademoiselle Haveline lives here—Mademoiselle Haveline who teaches the flute? She took second prize at the Conservatoire.”
Béchoux grew wrathful.
“Huh, you’re asking for her because you’ve just seen her brass plate up there.…”
“Well,” replied Barnett, “haven’t I a perfect right to learn the flute if I like? It’s a free country!”
“You can’t come here.”
“Sorry, but I am consumed with a passion for the flute.”
“I absolutely forbid it.”
For sole answer Barnett snapped his fingers in the other’s face and pushed past him into the house. No one dared bar his way. Béchoux, his heart full of misgivings, watched him ascend the first flight of stairs and vanish out of sight.
It must have taken Barnett only a little while to get [118]started with his teacher, for in ten minutes’ time wobbly scales on the flute began floating down from the top floor. Mademoiselle Haveline’s pupil was on the job!
“The scoundrel!” cried Béchoux, his anxiety increasing every minute. “With him in the house, heaven help us!”
He set to work again madly. They ransacked the empty ground floor flat, also the concierge’s room, in case the bundle of securities had been thrown down somewhere. It was all fruitless. And the whole afternoon the sound of flute practice went on, like a mocking goblin under the eaves. Béchoux nearly collapsed beneath the strain.
At last, on the stroke of six, Barnett appeared, skipping down the stairs and humming a ribald tune. And, as he went, he swung to and fro a large cardboard box.
A cardboard box! Béchoux, with a strangled exclamation, seized it and snatched off the lid. Out tumbled some old hat-shapes and bits of moth-eaten fur.
“Since she is not allowed to leave the house,” Barnett explained solemnly, “Mademoiselle Haveline has asked me to throw this stuff away for her. I say, isn’t she a peach? And what a flautist! She thinks I am full of talent and says that if I keep on at it I shall soon be able to qualify for the post of blind man on the church steps. Ta, ta!” And he was gone.
All night long, Béchoux and Gassire mounted guard, one inside and the other outside the street door, in case the thief should try to throw a parcel out of a window [119]to an accomplice waiting below. And next day they set to work again, but all in vain.
At three o’clock that afternoon Barnett was on the scene again, carrying the empty cardboard box. He went straight upstairs, nodding affably to poor Béchoux in the manner of one whose time is well and fully occupied.
The flute lesson began. Scales, followed by exercises. The critical listener would have detected plenty of wrong notes.
Suddenly all was quiet. The silence continued unbroken, until Béchoux was thoroughly puzzled.
“What on earth can he be up to now?” he wondered, as he pictured Barnett busy with those private researches which would assuredly culminate in some extraordinary discovery.
He ran upstairs and stood listening on the landing. No sound came from Mademoiselle Haveline’s room. But a man’s voice was distinctly audible in the next door flatlet of Mademoiselle Legoffier, the typist.
“Barnett’s voice,” thought Béchoux, his curiosity now at white-heat. Then, incapable of holding back any longer, he rang the bell.
“Come in!” called Barnett from within. “The key is in the lock outside.”
Béchoux entered the room. Mademoiselle Legoffier, an attractive brunette, was sitting at a table by her typewriter, taking shorthand at Barnett’s dictation.
“The hunt is up, is it?” said the latter. “Carry on, old man. Nothing up my sleeves”—he mimicked a conjurer—“and as for Mademoiselle Legoffier——” That [120]damsel blushed discreetly; her arms were bare to the shoulder.
“Well,” Barnett continued, “I’m dictating my memoirs. You won’t mind if I go on?”
And, while Béchoux peered under the furniture, he proceeded:
“That afternoon Inspector Béchoux dropped in while I was dictating my memoirs to a charming young lady called Legoffier. She had been recommended to me by her friend, the flautist. Béchoux searched high and low for his Twelve Little Nigger Boys, who heartlessly persisted in eluding him. Under the couch he collected three grains of dust; under the wardrobe a shoe-heel and a hairpin. Inspector Béchoux never overlooks the slightest detail. What a life!”
Béchoux stood up and shook his fist in Barnett’s face, volleying abuse. The other went on dictating, and the detective departed in a fury.
A little later Barnett came down with his cardboard box. Béchoux, who was keeping watch, had a moment’s hesitation. But his fears conquered him and he opened the box, to find that it contained nothing but old papers and rags.
Life became unbearable for the unhappy Béchoux. Barnett’s continued presence, his quizzical attitude and freakish pranks threw the detective into fresh fits of rage. Every day Barnett came to the house, and after each flute lesson or shorthand séance, he would display his cardboard box.
Béchoux did not know what to do. He had no doubt that the whole thing was a farce and that Barnett was [121]ragging him. All the same, there was always the chance that this time Barnett really was spiriting away the securities. Suppose he was kidnapping the Twelve Little Nigger Boys? Suppose he was smuggling his haul out of the house?
Béchoux was forced to rummage in the box, empty it and run his hands over its oddly assorted contents of torn clothing, rags, old feather dusters, broom handles, ashes and potato peelings. And this made Barnett roar with laughter.
“He’s found his shares! No, false alarm! He’s getting warm … try that lettuce leaf! Ah, Béchoux, what a lot of quiet fun you manage to give me, bless you!”
This went on for a week. Béchoux lost the whole of his holiday over the wretched business, and made himself the laughing-stock of the neighborhood. For neither he nor Nicolas Gassire had been able to stop the tenants from attending to their own affairs, even while allowing their persons to be searched on exit and entrance. Gossip travelled apace. Gassire’s misfortune became known. His terrified clients flocked to the office and demanded the immediate return of their money.
As for Monsieur Touffémont, the ex-Cabinet Minister, who came under the amateur surveillance four times a day, to his great annoyance and the interruption of his customary routine, he was all for calling in the police officially, and urged Gassire to take this course without further delay. The situation could not be prolonged indefinitely. [122]
At last things came to a head. Late one afternoon Gassire and Béchoux heard sounds of violent quarreling coming from the top of the house. Two high-pitched voices were raised in rival but continuous clamor, the uproar punctuated by stamps and screams. It sounded most alarming.
The two men hurried upstairs. On the top landing Mademoiselle Haveline and Mademoiselle Legoffier were doing battle. Standing over them like an umpire was Jim Barnett!
Although quite unable to restrain the combatants, Barnett wore an expression of genuine enjoyment. The girls continued to fly at each other, their hair like that of Furies, and their frocks getting torn to shreds. The air was thick with Parisienne invective!
After heroic efforts the pair was separated. The typist promptly went into hysterics, and Barnett carried her into her flat, while the flute teacher proceeded to expound her wrongs to Béchoux and Gassire on the landing.
“Caught them together, I did,” shrilled Mademoiselle Haveline. “Barnett was mine first, and then I caught him kissing her! I can tell you, he’s up to no good, that Barnett. He’s a queer sort and no mistake. Why don’t you ask him, Monsieur Béchoux, what his game’s been up here all this week, questioning the two of us and poking his nose everywhere? I’m going to give him away, though. He knows who the thief is. It’s the concierge, Madame Alain. But he made us swear we wouldn’t let on to you. Another thing, he knows where those securities are. Didn’t he tell us: ‘The securities [123]are in the house, and yet not in it, and they’re out of it, and yet in it’? Those were his very words. You want to be careful of him, Monsieur Béchoux!”
Jim Barnett had finished with the typist and now came forth. Taking Mademoiselle Haveline by the shoulders, he pushed her firmly through her own front door.
“Come along, professor mine, and no idle gossip, if you please! You’re going right off the handle. Stop talking nonsense and stick to the flute. I don’t want you playing in my band!”
Béchoux did not stay any longer. Mademoiselle Haveline’s sudden revelation had shed a ray of light on the case. He now saw that the thief must be Madame Alain. He only marveled that he could ever have overlooked her guilt.
Spurred by his conviction, he rushed downstairs, followed by Nicolas Gassire, and burst in upon the concierge.
“My Africans! Where are they? It was you who stole them!”
Nicolas Gassire panted at his heels.
“My securities! Where have you put them, you thief?”
They each took hold of the poor woman, shaking her violently and overwhelming her with abuse and questions. She seemed quite dazed by it all, but stuck bravely to her protestations of innocence and ignorance.
When at last they let her be, she retired to bed and passed a sleepless night. Next morning the inquisition [124]recommenced, and that day and its successor were long hours of unrelieved ordeal for the poor woman.
Béchoux would not for a minute admit that Jim Barnett could have made a mistake. Besides, in the light of this definite accusation, it was easy to put the right construction on the facts of the case. The concierge, while cleaning the flat, had doubtless noticed the unaccustomed bundle on the table by the bed. She was the only person who had the key to the flat. Knowing Monsieur Gassire’s regular habits, she might well have returned to the flat, seized the securities, run off with them, and taken refuge in the little room where Nicolas Gassire found her when he rushed downstairs.
Béchoux began to get discouraged.
“Yes,” he said, “it’s obvious that this woman is the guilty party. But still we’re no nearer a solution of the mystery. I don’t care if the criminal is the concierge or the man in the moon. It makes no odds as long as we are still without news of my Twelve Little Nigger Boys. I can see that she had them in her room, but by what miracle did they leave it between nine o’clock and the time we searched her belongings?”
All their threats, and the “third degree” cross-examination to which she was subjected failed to make the fat Madame Alain disclose any helpful information. She denied everything. She had seen nothing. She knew nothing. Even though there was now no doubt of her guilt she stood firm.
“We’ve simply got to settle this,” Gassire told Béchoux one morning. “You know that Touffémont overthrew the Cabinet last night. The reporters will be here [125]any minute to interview him, and we can’t possibly go searching them, too.”
Béchoux agreed that they had come to an impasse.
“But keep smiling,” he urged, “for within three hours I shall know the truth.”
That afternoon he called at the Barnett Detective Agency.
“I was waiting for you to drop in, Béchoux,” said Barnett amicably. “What do you want?”
“I want your coöperation, Barnett. I’m at a loss what to do.”
This was unvarnished admission of defeat. The inspector’s surrender was unconditional. Béchoux was making the amende honorable.
Jim Barnett clapped him friendliwise on the back, then took him by the shoulders and rocked him gently to and fro, by sheer geniality sparing the other humiliation. This was no meeting of vanquished and victor. Rather was it a scene of reconciliation between two comrades.
“To tell you the truth, Béchoux, I was awfully cut up about that misunderstanding between us. I couldn’t bear to think of our being enemies. It worried me till I could hardly sleep at nights!”
A frown clouded Béchoux’s brow. His professional conscience pricked him sore for being on friendly terms with Barnett. He cursed the unkind fate that forced him to collaborate with a man he felt sure was a crook, and to incur obligations to the fellow into the bargain. But there are moments and circumstances when even the just man stretches a point. The loss of a dozen [126]valuable African mining shares explained Béchoux’s course of action.
Swallowing his scruples, he whispered:
“It’s the concierge, of course?”
“It is she for the reason, inter alia, that it could not be any one else.”
“But how do you account for a woman who has always been honest and respectable suddenly turning crook?”
“If you had troubled to make a few inquiries about her you would know that the poor creature is afflicted with a son who is a thorough bad hat. He is always sponging on her. It was on his account that she suddenly gave way to temptation.”
Béchoux jumped up.
“Did she manage to give him my shares?” he asked anxiously.
“Of course not! Do you think I should have allowed a thing like that? I regard your Twelve Little Nigger Boys as sacred.”
“Where are they, then?”
“In your own coat-pocket.”
“Please don’t joke about it.”
“But, Béchoux, I’m not joking. I never joke in times of stress. Look for yourself!”
Béchoux’s hand went gingerly to his coat-pocket, felt in it and took out a large envelope which bore the following superscription: “To my friend Béchoux.” With trembling fingers he tore it open. Oh, joy, his Nigger Boys were restored to him, all twelve! Clutching the precious shares to his breast, he turned very pale [127]and closed his eyes. Barnett hastened to revive him with smelling salts held under the nose.
“Sniff hard, Béchoux. This is no time to faint.”
Béchoux did not faint, though he surreptitiously wiped away a few tears of relief. He was inarticulate with emotion. Of course he had no doubt but that Barnett had stuffed the envelope into his pocket the moment he came into the Agency, while they were making up their differences. But anyhow there were the Twelve Little Nigger Boys in his still trembling hands, and Barnett’s virtue was for him untarnished.
Reviving suddenly, he began capering about, dancing a kind of Spanish jig shaking imaginary castanets.
“I’ve got them back! My own little pickaninnies! Bless you, Barnett, for a friend in need. From now on there is only one Barnett—Béchoux’s preserver! You deserve a statue and a drinking fountain. You are one of our truly great men. But how on earth did you bring it off? Tell me all.”
Once again Barnett’s little way was a source of amazement to Inspector Béchoux. His professional curiosity thoroughly aroused, he asked:
“Won’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what?” Barnett’s tone was one of amused indolence.
“How you unravelled everything! Where was the bundle? ‘In the house yet out of it,’ was what you said, I believe?”
“ ‘And out of the house but in it,’ ” added Barnett with a laugh. [128]
“What does it mean?”
“D’you give it up?”
“Yes, yes; I give it up. I’ll do anything you ask.”
“Will you promise never again to take up that chilly and reproachful attitude towards my harmless exploits, which almost convinces me at times that I must have wandered from the straight and narrow path?”
“Go on, tell me, Barnett!”
“Ah,” exclaimed the other, “what a story! I’ve never come across anything more neatly done, more unexpected, more spontaneous or more baffling. It was at once human and fantastic. And withal so simple that you, Béchoux, gifted as you are in your profession, were absolutely in the dark.”
“Well, hang it all, come to the point,” said Béchoux in some annoyance. “How did the bundle of securities leave the house?”
“Under your own eyes, my bright lad! And not only did it leave the house, but it came in again. It left the house twice daily, and twice daily it returned! And under your own eyes, Béchoux, under your bright, benignant eyes! And for ten days you bowed to it respectfully. You almost grovelled on your knees before it!”
“I don’t believe you!” cried Béchoux. “It’s absurd. We searched everything.”
“Everything was searched, Béchoux, except that. Parcels, boxes, handbags, pockets, hats, tins, dustbins … all those, but not that. At the frontier they search all luggage, except the diplomat’s valise. Naturally, you searched everything but that.” [129]
“What is that?” yelled Béchoux frenziedly. “For goodness sake, answer me.”
“The portfolio of the ex-Cabinet Minister!”
Béchoux sprang up in astonishment.
“What do you mean, Barnett? Are you accusing Monsieur Touffémont?”
“Idiot, should I dare accuse a member of parliament? In the first place, that man, an ex-Cabinet Minister, is above suspicion. And among all members of parliament and ex-Cabinet Ministers—and Lord knows their name is legion—I regard Touffémont as the least open to suspicion. All the same, Madame Alain made him a receiver of stolen goods!”
“Then he was her accomplice?”
“Not a bit of it!”
“Then who was?”
“His portfolio!” And, with a broad smile, Barnett proceeded to elucidate. “A minister’s portfolio, Béchoux, has a personality of its own. In this world we have Monsieur Touffémont and we have his portfolio. The two are inseparable, and each is the other’s raison d’être. You can’t imagine Monsieur Touffémont minus his portfolio—nor the portfolio minus Monsieur Touffémont. But it happens that Monsieur Touffémont lays down his portfolio when he eats and sleeps, and on various other occasions through the day. At such times the portfolio assumes a separate identity and may lend itself to actions for which Monsieur Touffémont cannot be held responsible.
“That was what happened on the morning of the theft.” [130]
Béchoux stared at Barnett, wondering what on earth he was getting at.
“That was what happened,” Barnett repeated, “on the morning that your twelve African mining shares vanished away. The concierge, terrified by what she had done, and dreading the consequences of her action, could not think how to get rid of the securities, which were bound to betray her guilt. Suddenly she noticed the providential presence of Monsieur Touffémont’s portfolio on her mantelpiece—the portfolio all by itself! Monsieur Touffémont had come in there to collect his post. He put his portfolio down on the mantelpiece and proceeded to open his letters, while Gassire and you, Béchoux, were telling him about the disappearance of the securities.
“Then Madame Alain had an inspiration of sheer genius. Her room had not yet been searched, but it was bound to be ransacked in a little while, and the securities would be discovered. She had no time to lose. She turned her back on the three of you standing there discussing the theft. With quick, deft fingers she opened the portfolio, emptied one of the flap pockets of all its papers, and slipped the securities into their place. The deed was done, the great bell rung. No one suspected anything. And when Monsieur Touffémont withdrew, he took away in the portfolio under his arm your Twelve Little Nigger Boys and all Gassire’s securities.”
Béchoux never questioned Barnett’s asseverations when they were made on that particular note of absolute conviction. Instead, he bowed his head humbly [131]in the Temple of Truth and believed what he was told.
“Certainly,” he said, “I noticed a sheaf of papers and reports lying about down there that morning, but I paid no attention to it. And surely she must have given those documents back to Monsieur Touffémont?”
“I hardly think so,” answered Barnett. “Rather than incur any suspicion she probably burned them.”
“But he must have asked after them?”
Barnett shook his head and smiled quietly.
“You mean to say he hasn’t noticed the disappearance of a whole sheaf of his papers?”
“Has he noticed the appearance of the bundle of securities?”
“But—but what happened when he opened the portfolio?”
“He didn’t open it. He never opens it. Monsieur Touffémont’s portfolio, like that of many a politician, is only a sham—a dummy—a useful prop on the parliamentary stage. If he had opened it he would have demanded the return of his own papers, and restored the securities. He has done neither.”
“But when he works.…”
“He doesn’t work. The mere fact of a man’s carrying a portfolio does not necessarily imply that he works. As a matter of fact, the possession of an ex-minister’s portfolio is in itself a dispensation from work. A portfolio stands for power, authority, omnipotence, and omniscience. Last night, at the Chambre des Députés—I was there myself, by the way—Monsieur Touffémont laid down his portfolio on the rostrum. You can see [132]that his doing this at such a crisis was tantamount to announcing publicly that he was once again a candidate for office. The Cabinet realized that it was lost. The great man’s portfolio must be full of crushing documents crammed with statistics! Monsieur Touffémont even undid it, though he took nothing from its bulging compartments. It was so obvious that he had everything there.… But really, there was nothing there except your twelve African mining shares, Gassire’s securities and some old newspapers. They carried the day, however, and Monsieur Touffémont’s portfolio overthrew the Cabinet.”
“But how do you know all this?”
“Because, when Monsieur Touffémont was strolling home from the House at one o’clock in the morning, a person unknown came into clumsy collision with him and sent him sprawling on the pavement. Another man—an accomplice—snatched up the portfolio and replaced the securities with a bundle of old papers, carrying off the former. Need I tell you the name of the second man?”
Béchoux laughed heartily. Every time his hand felt the twelve shares in his pocket he was struck afresh with the humor of the story and of Monsieur Touffémont’s little adventure.
Barnett, beaming on his friend, concluded:
“That’s all there is to know, and it was in my endeavor to ferret out the truth and collect evidence in the case that I’ve dictated my memoirs and taken lessons on the flute. What a pleasant week it’s been! Flirtations up above and a variety entertainment on [133]the ground floor. Gassire, Béchoux, Madame Alain, Touffémont … my own little marionettes, dancing when I pulled the strings! The hardest nut I had to crack was that Touffémont could actually be oblivious of his portfolio’s guilty secret, and be taking your Twelve Little Nigger Boys to and fro in blissful ignorance. At first it had me absolutely beat. And how surprised the poor concierge must have been! She must think Touffémont a common crook, since she certainly believes that he has stuck to your Little Nigger Boys and the rest of the bundle. Fancy Touffémont——”
“Hadn’t I better tell him?” broke in Béchoux.
“What’s the good? Let him go on carting his old newspapers about and sleeping with the portfolio under his pillow. Don’t let on about this to anyone, Béchoux.”
“Except Gassire, of course,” said Béchoux. “I shall have to explain to him when I give him back his securities.”
“What securities?” asked Barnett blankly.
“The ones you found in Monsieur Touffémont’s portfolio—they’re his!”
“You must be crazy, Béchoux. You don’t suppose Gassire will ever see his securities again?”
“Naturally I do.”
Barnett brought his fist down on the table and gave vent to a sudden burst of righteous indignation.
“Look here, Béchoux, do you know what sort of man Nicolas Gassire is? He’s a scoundrel like the concierge’s son! He robbed his clients—I can prove it! He gambled with their money. He was even preparing to steal the lot. Look, here is his first-class railway ticket to [134]Brussels. He bought it on the same day that he withdrew the securities from his safe deposit, not to hand them over to another bank as he told you, but to bolt with them! How do you feel about Nicolas Gassire now?”
Béchoux could say nothing. Ever since the theft of his shares his confidence in Nicolas Gassire had been considerably shaken. Still, he raised the obvious objection.
“His clients are all decent people. It’s not fair to ruin them as well.”
“Who ever talked of ruining them? That would be disgraceful. It would upset me terribly!”
Béchoux looked his interrogation.
“Gassire is rich,” observed Barnett.
“He’s broke,” contradicted Béchoux.
“Not at all. I have information that he has enough money to pay back all his clients and then leave something over. You can be quite sure that the reason he didn’t call in the police the very first day was that he didn’t want them meddling in his private affairs. Threaten him with imprisonment, and watch him skip! Why, Nicolas Gassire is a millionaire. It’s up to him to right his client’s wrongs, no business of mine!”
“Which means that you intend keeping the securities?”
“Certainly not! They’re already sold!”
“Yes, but you’ve got the cash.”
Barnett was virtuously indignant and protested that he had kept nothing.
“I’m merely distributing it,” he declared. [135]
“To whom?”
“To friends in distress and to various deserving charities which I supply with funds. You needn’t worry, Béchoux. I’m making good use of Gassire’s money.”
Béchoux did not doubt it. Yet another treasure-hunt in which the prize was forfeit at the finish! Barnett, as usual, walked off with the spoils. He punished the guilty and saved the innocent—and never forgot to line his pockets in the process. Well-ordered charity invariably begins at home.
Inspector Béchoux found himself blushing. If he made no protest, he became Barnett’s accomplice. But, as he felt the precious bundle of shares in his pocket, and realized that without Barnett’s intervention he would have lost them for ever, he cooled down. It was hardly an opportune moment to enter the lists!
“What’s up?” asked Barnett. “Aren’t you pleased?”
“Oh, rather,” said the luckless Béchoux hastily. “Delighted!”
“Then smile, smile, smile!”
Béchoux managed a grimace like a watery sunset.
“That’s better,” cried Barnett. “It’s been a pleasure to do you this small service, and I thank you for giving me the opportunity. And now it’s time for us to part. You must be very busy, and I’m expecting a lady.”
“So long,” said Béchoux, and made for the door.
“To our next merry meeting,” answered Barnett.
Béchoux took his leave, delighted, indeed, but at loggerheads with his conscience and firmly resolved to shun Barnett’s society henceforward. [136]
As he turned the corner of the rue Laborde he noticed the pretty typist from the Invalides hurrying along. Doubtless she was the lady Barnett was expecting!
And, a couple of days later, Béchoux saw Barnett at the cinema, accompanied by the equally charming Mademoiselle Haveline, who played upon the flute.… [137]