Читать книгу Crooks in the Sunshine - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 6

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There were a scattered few of the little company of al fresco diners at the Restaurant de la Pomme d'Or at St. Paul, not so interested perhaps in their dinners or their companions, who realised what was about to happen. To the majority, however, the sudden darkness came almost as a shock. A moment before, the whole place had been flooded with moonlight, their plates, their fellow diners, the wine in their glasses, the anxious face of the one overworked waiter hurrying back and forth all plainly visible. Then, without the slightest warning, came darkness. A fragment of inky black cloud had floated across the surface of the moon with an amazing result. No longer could one look down upon the valley below, stretching away towards the pastures and the flowery land which led seawards, a vivid and brilliant picture of moonlit beauty, every tree visible and the rise and fall of the land as easily to be traced as at midday. Below now was nothing but a black chasm of darkness, with an occasional pin prick of light from the cottages or farmhouses on the hillside. Where before it seemed to be a fairy panorama, one could lean now over the terrace wall and peer over the edge of the world into an impenetrable gloom. The little company of guests seated at small tables became suddenly like shadowy, unreal figures, chaotic in shape, their faces blurred streaks of white upon the darkness.

There was a moment or two of almost complete silence, then a little nervous laughter. The waiter was groping his way towards the electric switch which turned on a shaded lamp at each table. The girl who assisted him stumbled against a tree and dropped two of the plates she was carrying with a crash. Almost simultaneously there was another sound, clear and vibrant with agony—without a doubt a human cry. At first, it seemed as though it might have come from the darkness below, then to almost every one came a feeling of shivering apprehension. It had come from somewhere in their very midst, from one of themselves. People began peering about with terrified eyes. Neighbours and friends at different tables called to one another for reassurance.

The owner of the restaurant put his head out from the doorway which led to the inside premises and called loudly to the waiter to hasten with the switch. No one thought of eating or drinking during those tense seconds. Every one was eager, yet fearful, for the coming of the light. At last from the first of the tables came a flicker, and four startled people swung round in their chairs to gaze terror-stricken into the gloom. The same thing happened at the second and third. Then, as the light flashed out from the fourth, the waiter stepped back with a shout—it seemed like the scream of a woman. People rose in their places and simultaneously through the wide-flung doors of the hotel restaurant came a broad stream of added illumination. The fourth table was occupied by a single man only. In the partial darkness there might have seemed nothing unusual in his somewhat grotesque attitude. In the clearer light one saw now that he was half sprawling across the table and that there was a very sinister-looking glitter from something rigid between his shoulder blades.... Several of the women began to shriek. One fainted. The men rushed forward and would have pressed to the table itself, but Monsieur Canis, the owner of the place, was there to push them back.

"Every one must stand clear," he insisted. "No one must come near the table before the police. Jean has gone for the gendarmes."

"Send for the doctor too," some one called out. "The man may not be dead."

But there were very ugly evidences upon the table that the affair was already hopeless.

The village gendarme arrived upon a scene of much confusion. Some of the lights had refused to burn, and the whole of the little outdoor terrasse, bordered with tables, and night by night an oasis of pleasure and merriment, seemed turned into a grim and ghastly tableau in which the figures of the seated guests had grown shadowy and sinister. To add to the weird effect, one of the stray dogs that haunted the place had a strain of bloodhound in him, and was seated on his haunches howling. The perspiring official wiped the sweat from his forehead and gave excited directions to Monsieur Canis.

"No one must leave the place," he commanded. "Those at the adjoining tables must remain in their seats. I am going to search for the Commissaire. Who will lend an automobile?"

There were plenty of offers, and by the time the man took his leave, having sipped plentifully from a glass of brandy which had been thrust into his hand, the doctor of the little hill town had arrived. The latter was more of the savant than the ordinary practitioner and he was scared and startled at the sight which he was called upon to face. His fingers stole tremblingly forward toward their task. His examination disturbed nothing: it was made with the gentleness of a woman. In a very few minutes he rose to his feet and brushed the dust mechanically from his trousers.

"The man was killed instantaneously," he announced. "The blade of that knife is through the heart. He could have known nothing, scarcely even felt any pain. Who is he?"

Monsieur Canis held up his hand. It was beginning to occur to him that, although, possibly, he was a ruined man, he was temporarily in a position of importance.

"No questions," he insisted. "It is for the police, this. Every one must remain in their places."

The gates into the little enclosure, closed perhaps once or twice in a lifetime, were pushed to, but there seemed to be no one there who was in the least anxious to leave. Most of the diners were members of the artist colony who lived together, more or less communally, in one establishment close at hand, and always took their evening meals at the restaurant. There were one or two visitors from Nice, for the place had a vogue, and a few others from Juan and Cagnes. They stood or sat about in little groups, talking. The proprietor went from one to the other.

"If any one would wish to eat inside," he suggested, "it is possible, so long as they don't leave the place. Nothing else can be served here. Inside, there is emptiness."

But no one wanted to go inside.

The Commissaire arrived. He sprang from the automobile and was across the open space, round which the dining tables were arranged, in half a dozen swift strides. He was long and lantern-jawed, with a hungry mouth and enquiring eyes. A torrent of words streamed from his lips. The two gendarmes whom he had brought with him and Monsieur Canis hastened to do his bidding. In less than five minutes he had made a hurried examination of the dead man, drawn a circle of chalk around the scene of the tragedy, across which no one was permitted to tread, and established himself at a table dragged into the centre of the courtyard a few yards away. He spoke first to Monsieur Canis, who explained that no one had witnessed the tragedy, that a passing cloud had completely obscured the moon and, during the brief interval of darkness, the murdered man's death cry had suddenly startled everybody. He himself, Monsieur Canis, had been in the kitchen and had heard nothing.

"The name of the deceased?" the Commissaire barked out.

There was only one of the diners who could tell him that—a painter, strangely attired in a workman's blouse and a pair of loose trousers.

"It was I whom he saw," he explained, "when he came to the Château Pension for quarters as an artist. He told me that his name was Paul Legarge and that he was a painter."

"What nationality?"

The other shook his head.

"He spoke French, but it was scarcely the French of a Frenchman. English or American perhaps."

"Has any one else here spoken with the deceased?" the Commissaire demanded.

The waiter and Monsieur Canis confessed to having exchanged banalities concerning the view and on the matter of food. He had spoken always in French.

"Was he dining alone?" the Commissaire asked.

"Naturally," Monsieur Canis assented.

"Who was at the table behind?" was the next question.

An avocat from Nice and his lady friend acknowledged themselves. The Commissaire took their names.

"Now, tell me," he said, hunching his shoulders and leaning forward. "You were within two metres of this murdered man. Can you tell me that you saw no one plunge that knife into his shoulders?"

"I saw no one," the avocat declared. "Nor could any one else in my position. It was impossible to see even the table. As for Madame, she was facing me, with her back towards the whole affair. I neither heard nor saw any one. I simply heard the cry and saw nothing until the lights went on."

"And there was no one standing up or moving about the place?"

"No one except the waiter, and his hand was on the switch when the lights went on."

The Commissaire glared round at everybody. It seemed apparent that he considered every one of them a possible, even a probable assassin.

"It is a circumstance most extraordinary," he declared, "that in this small place, during a temporary cessation of moonlight, a man should have been murdered in sight of all of you and no one apparently saw the assassin leave this place or heard anything but the cry. There is only one conclusion," he said, stretching out his hand. "The murderer is still present."

There was a little shiver of emotion. Every one looked fearfully around. For the moment there was no one who was not under suspicion, from Monsieur Canis himself and his pale-faced, weedy little waiter, to Monsieur Plessis, the wealthy avocat from Nice.

"Has this Monsieur Legarge dined here before?" the Commissaire demanded, resuming his examination.

"Several times," Monsieur Canis acknowledged. "On the last occasion with one of the young ladies who dance at the small cabaret up the hill."

The Commissaire grasped his pen. There were possibilities here.

"What ladies?" he demanded. "I know nothing of any cabaret show here."

"They were two young ladies who, with another one, I believe, came over from America some months ago to entertain the guests of an American millionaire living down at the Château d'Antibes—Commodore Jasen. Chiefly, one believes, for their amusement, the Commodore permitted them to give a small entertainment here one night a week. This Monsieur Legarge was apparently acquainted with them, for he brought one of the young ladies here to dine."

"She is not here to-night?" the Commissaire snapped.

"One has seen nothing of either of the young ladies for some days," Monsieur Canis replied.

"This unfortunate man—had he an apartment in St. Paul?"

"Barely a hundred yards away."

"Is there any one here present," the Commissaire demanded, "who can tell me more about the dead man, or who saw anything of the event of to-night other than has been described?"

"I saw the man come in," the notary from Nice observed. "One could scarcely fail to remark him, for he was wearing a claret-coloured shirt and blue trousers, as though he had come straight from the easel. He stood by his table for several minutes before he sat down, and seemed to be looking around, as though to know exactly who was here. He was restless, too, for after sitting down for a few minutes, he got up and went inside."

"That was to drink an apéritif," Monsieur Canis explained. "He came to me for it in the bar. He looked round the room as though in search of some one and went back to his table."

"He gave you the impression of being nervous?" the Commissaire asked the notary.

The latter assented.

"When he sat down again he even looked over the parapet, as though to see if there was any one on the terrace below."

The Commissaire stroked his chin.

"If he was afraid of any one," he remarked, "it is strange that he should have chosen the one table which is in some measure of obscurity—the table under the tree."

"He had sat there on each of his previous visits," Monsieur Canis confided.

There was an interruption and revival of interest. Police assistance had arrived from Nice with a detective and finger-print expert. If anything was discovered, however, there was little that found its way to the outside public, for before they even commenced their investigations every one had been requested to move inside. There were rumours flying about that night, but nothing else....

The Pomme d'Or closed its doors early and from the street it seemed that every light was extinguished. The little dancing cabaret in the quaint Provençal barn a few hundred yards away was never opened. The inhabitants of St. Paul were forced to discuss the tragedy which had happened amongst them either in the streets or in their own houses. At a little before midnight, however, the Commissaire, accompanied by a gendarme, emerged from the side door of the Pomme d'Or and mounted the crazy street to the house which had been indicated as the temporary abode of the murdered man. There was a small crowd on the pavement outside. Madame, who owned the house, was entertaining a group of friends and gossips. The coming of the Commissaire created a fresh thrill.

"It is you who are the proprietress of this house, Madame?" the Commissaire enquired.

The woman acknowledged the fact.

"Monsieur le Commissaire can ask me any questions," she invited. "He was a silent man, that Legarge, but he spoke sometimes."

"First of all," the official announced, "I wish to examine his room. I have the key here."

The woman rose to her feet and pointed up the stairs.

"It was a habit of his," she confided, "to lock always his door when he went out—honest people though we are. The door faces you at the corner of the banisters."

The Commissaire mounted, followed by the gendarme. The steps were of stone and the house was of great age. The gendarme fitted the key in the lock and pushed open the heavy oak door. The room was in darkness, but electric light was plentiful in St. Paul, and the gendarme soon found the switch. A cry of amazement broke from the lips of both men almost simultaneously.

"Now, who the devil has been here?" the Commissaire exclaimed.

"Nom de Dieu!" the gendarme cried.

The room was in wild disorder. Every drawer in a chest had been turned out and its contents emptied. A despatch box had been broken open and a collection of unimportant trifles scattered over the table.

"Touch nothing," the Commissaire ordered.

He called in Madame. With uplifted hands she screamed out her amazement. The Commissaire had a way with women and he silenced her quickly.

"It would appear to be impossible to enter this room without a key," he said. "Are there any except the one which I found in the dead man's pocket and have just used?"

"There is another," Madame acknowledged.

"Where is it then?"

The woman hesitated, but there were few people who would have cared to lie to her fierce questioner.

"There is a young lady who dances here," she confided. "I do not think that she has often made use of it, but one night I saw Monsieur give her his spare key."

"For the moment that will do," the Commissaire observed, feeling that he was getting on very nicely. "Leave us."

The search of the apartment and of the belongings of the murdered man revealed nothing of interest. His wearing apparel and linen, ordinary enough, had apparently been bought in Marseilles. There was not the slightest indication to be gathered from any of the objects displayed as to his position in life, his poverty or his wealth. If he were indeed a foreigner, he appeared to possess no passport. There were a few hundred francs in a shabby pocketbook and a letter directed to "Dear Paul" and signed only "Max" with no address on it, begging for the loan of a mille. Whatever Monsieur Legarge had possessed of value had gone!

There was a knock at the door. The gendarme opened it. One of the young painters of the place—the one who had already spoken of his brief acquaintance with the murdered man—made tentative appearance.

"There is a thing here which might interest you, Monsieur le Commissaire," he said politely, as he glanced around the room. "Ah yes, I see that I was right. Tell me, Monsieur—you are a judge of art without a doubt—what you think of the dead man's genius?"

There was a row of paintings ranged against the wall, one half finished upon an easel. The Commissaire examined them superficially.

"I do not know why you intrude with your question," he said gruffly, "but the work is passable. I am not an artist, but I should say that the young man had learnt his trade."

"The fact that the paintings are here at all," the other replied, "is a proof that he had not. Every one of those canvases, including the unfinished one, he bought from me. You can see, if you look closely, where my name has been scratched out."

"You mean that they are your work?" the Commissaire demanded.

"Precisely."

"But is such a thing usual that one artist should buy the work of another?"

"Within my knowledge," the young painter declared, "such a thing has never happened before. Yet that is what has occurred. Legarge came to me with a story about an uncle who might come to see his work and if he found nothing would stop his allowance. He had plenty of money at the time. He asked me to sell him some pictures. I sold him these and he dragged one I was halfway through from my easel."

"It is incredible," the police functionary exclaimed.

"Yet it is true," the other affirmed. "Voilà, Monsieur le Commissaire, your murdered man may have been anything in the world, but he was no artist. He couldn't draw a line, neither could he paint."

The Commissaire stood with folded arms, staring out of the window across the crazy street to the hills beyond. He might have been posing for a study of a great man in thought.

Commodore Jasen laid down the fishing tackle which he had been stretching out upon the billiard table, removed his pipe from his mouth and glanced at the card which was handed to him soon after nine o'clock on the following morning.

Monsieur Georges

Commissaire de Police.

"Show the gentleman in at once," he directed. "Always pays to be civil to the police," he added to Jake Arnott, who was lounging in a chair at the farther end of the room.

There was a lightning-like flash from the other's eyes.

"What the hell do the police want here?" he muttered under his breath.

"So far, I haven't an idea," the Commodore replied coolly. "Together we'll hear what the gentleman has to say."

The Commissaire was ushered in. The Commodore welcomed him pleasantly and pointed to a chair.

"What can I do for you, sir?" he enquired.

"I am engaged in investigating an unfortunate affair which occurred up at St. Paul last night," the Commissaire explained. "You have no doubt heard about it. I understand that a young lady named Mademoiselle Adams—one of the dancers, in fact, at the small cabaret there—is staying with you. I should like a few words with her."

"By all means," Commodore Jasen assented, leaning over towards the bell and pressing the knob. "I cannot say that the young lady is exactly staying with me, but she, with a friend and an elderly lady who acts as chaperone, are my guests in the annex here."

The butler presented himself, always the same—sombre, taciturn—with an air of great reserve.

"Find Miss Adams, if she's not gone out to bathe," his master instructed, "and ask her to come here for a few minutes. If she is not in the place, you'd better go down to the bathing pool."

"Very well, sir."

"May I ask," the Commissaire continued, as the man left the room, "whether it is under your auspices, Commodore, that these two young ladies have started this cabaret entertainment up at St. Paul?"

Jasen pushed the cigar box toward his guest who, however, declined the civility. The former considered his reply for several moments.

"Well, I don't know that I can exactly say that it was under my auspices," he said at last, with some deliberation. "I invited the young ladies to come here to entertain my guests in the evenings, expecting to have a much larger house party, but that unfortunate accident a short time ago—I daresay you remember that a young man staying at the hotel was drowned whilst aquaplaning with us—was rather a shock to us all, and I have not been entertaining as much as I expected. The girls wanted to do something, as they are both very talented, so they tried this scheme up at St. Paul."

"Was there a performance last night, can you tell me?"

"Fortunately, no."

"Then neither of the young ladies was up at St. Paul?" the Commissaire continued.

The door was suddenly opened and Miss Zoë Adams, in loose pyjamas with very wide legs, a little cap on the side of her head which only partially concealed her very attractive yellow hair, came gaily into the room. She threw a kiss at Arnott and looked at the Commissaire as though he were some sort of natural curiosity.

"Here is the young lady herself," Commodore Jasen observed, by way of introduction. "She can answer your questions better perhaps than I can. This is the Commissaire of Police, Zoë," he continued. "You must tell him anything he wants to know."

She threw herself into a chair and withdrew her cigarette from her lips. To any one but the closest observer her deportment was both natural and indifferent. The lines of her tight little mouth, however, were drawn close together and, underneath her slightly questioning frown, her small shrewd eyes were filled with a cautious light.

"Shoot," she invited briefly.

"The young lady speaks French?" the Commissaire asked.

"Eloquently, but with a ferocious accent," the Commodore assured him. "Her mother was a Niçoise."

Zoë made a grimace at her patron. The police official asked his questions in French which was eloquently suggestive of his local birth.

"You were acquainted with Monsieur Paul Legarge who was murdered last night at the Pomme d'Or?"

"Yes, I knew him," the girl answered.

"When did you know that he had been murdered?"

"When every one else in the house did, I suppose—at the time of the petit déjeuner this morning."

"Where and how did you meet him?"

"I never met him, if you mean by that introductions and that sort of thing," the girl replied carelessly. "In my profession, Monsieur le Commissaire, if a member of our small audience compliments us upon our dancing civilly and says pleasant things, the acquaintance is made."

"It was in such fashion that you met Legarge?"

"Precisely. On the night he spoke to us, he took my friend and myself and Madame Ferber, who goes with us every night when we dance at St. Paul or Vence, to the Pomme d'Or for a drink after the show. I remember thinking," she went on, "that he seemed more opulent than any of the painters I had ever met, for he gave us champagne."

"Since then you have seen him how often?"

"I do not keep a diary," she replied. "Half a dozen to a dozen times, perhaps. He was quite agreeable."

"Of what nationality was he?" the Commissaire asked.

She looked at him in surprise.

"Is it possible that you are ignorant of that? American, of course."

"Did you admire his skill as a painter?"

"Some of the things in his room seemed pretty good," was the indifferent rejoinder.

"Do you believe them to be his own work?"

"And why not?"

"Why did you have a key to his room?" the Commissaire asked, with a sudden change of subject.

The girl looked at him with upraised eyebrows.

"You are indeed inquisitive," she remarked. "Well, I am good-natured. I will tell you. Probably not for the reason you think. We give our show in two parts and there is nowhere to rest in the barn. Paul gave me the key to his room so that I could go in and sit there if I wanted to be alone between the performances."

"Was Paul Legarge your lover?" the Commissaire demanded.

"Mind your own business," the girl replied promptly.

For the first time, to judge from his set and gloomy features, it might have been the first time in his life, the Commissaire smiled.

"You decline to answer that question, Mademoiselle?"

"I certainly do."

"Now, think before you answer this one. Were you in Legarge's room last night?"

"I do not need to think," was the prompt rejoinder. "I was not. Apparently the poor fellow was not there himself after dinner."

"Were you in St. Paul?"

"I was not. Ask the Commodore. Ask any one. There was no performance last night. I dined here. Afterwards we sang songs. You do not need to take my word. You can ask any one."

The Commissaire was disappointed.

"Do you know of any one else who has a key to the murdered man's room?"

"I do not. It is difficult to imagine that there would be more than two. He kept one himself and the other is at the present moment in my room."

The Commissaire frowned and pulled at his under lip.

"If the young lady's word," Commodore Jasen intervened, "should need any confirmation, I can assure you as to the truth of what she has told you. She dined here with her young companion, Mr. Wilson, a neighbour of ours, and myself. We had quite a pleasant little evening's music. Certainly the young ladies were not out of our sight until long after the murder had taken place."

The official thought of that ransacked room, remembered the key which had been found in the murdered man's pocket, and abstained from speech. The Commodore glanced at him deprecatingly.

"There is no reason, Monsieur," he pointed out, "for you to take the young lady's word, or even mine. If we two are not to be believed, the butler who waited upon us, the chef who cooked the dinner, the second man who served the coffee and liqueurs, are all here and at your disposal. Mr. Wilson you will know yourself where to find. It can be abundantly proved," he concluded, "that the two young ladies dined here and did not leave these premises until after midnight. We were inclined to be light-hearted last night. I think it must have been half-past twelve before we broke off."

The Commissaire listened in stony silence, saluted stiffly and turned away.

"Mademoiselle is not leaving the neighbourhood?" he enquired, as he waited at the door for the servant whom his host had summoned.

"You bet I'm not," the young lady assured him. "I beg your pardon," she added, repeating her intentions in French. "So long as the bathing remains good and the Commodore is agreeable, this is my home."

The butler threw open the door. The uninvited visitor took conventional but ungracious leave. The Commodore resumed the unravelling of his fishing line.

"A type," he murmured.

The inky black cloud which had thrown its protecting gloom over the murderer of the Pomme d'Or the night before had not crawled across the sky for nothing. The flawless serenity of the long spell of summer weather seemed at last to be disturbed. The Commissaire took his departure from the Château to the salute of rolling mutterings of thunder, and down at the Cap the bathing beaches were deserted. Commodore Jasen, after a brief visit to the terrace, abandoned his plans for a day's fishing with a sigh and considered the matter of a visit to Monte Carlo. Before he could make up his mind, however, another visitor was announced. Caroline Loyd, a little breathless from her scramble over the rocks, was ushered in. For a moment the two men were speechless. Then Commodore Jasen, with a smile of welcome, stepped forward and raised his visitor's fingers to his lips.

"Our friend the enemy," he murmured. "Welcome, dear Caroline. It is not often you favour us like this."

She nodded to Arnott and accepted a chair. She was wearing a white pullover, a white cap of the béret type and a linen skirt. The shine and odour of the sea still lingered with her.

"Ostensibly," she remarked, "the reason for my visit is because there will be no more bathing at the Cap to-day. Incidentally, however, I have come to have a very serious word with you both."

Jake Arnott strolled across the room and sat on the edge of the billiard table close to his host. Caroline watched sympathetically his glance towards the closed door.

"I have always the same feeling about this Château of yours, Commodore," she confided. "It seems full of corners and odd places. A perfect Paradise for eavesdroppers, I should think."

The Commodore nodded.

"Come this way," he invited. "I approve and I agree. There is not an indoor servant in this place who does not belong to us and who has not been thoroughly tested, but the police have been here this morning already, and one never knows."

He led the way to a small room which opened out from the larger apartment and closed the door carefully. The windows here were of the ordinary type and there was no outside terrace. The walls were lined with bookshelves.

"This," he pointed out, "is more intime. May I commence by asking you a question?"

"Just as you like," she assented.

"How did you get to know that Pullertons had sent a man over here?"

She looked at him steadily for a moment.

"How did you?" she countered.

The Commodore frowned.

"Caroline Loyd," he said earnestly, "in a matter like the one with which we are concerned at the moment, it is necessary that there should be complete confidence between us, because we are equally threatened. I will give you a lead if you will permit me. Last night a man posing as an artist and calling himself Paul Legarge was killed up at St. Paul. My little Zoë, who is one of the brightest children that ever fooled the world, had been suspicious of him from the first. An hour before he was killed, she had searched his room and discovered, in a secret hiding place, his badge and the envelope of a letter which he had received only that morning from Police Headquarters in New York."

Caroline Loyd's eyes were troubled. Her manner lost something of its serenity.

"I thought it must be that," she murmured. "But, Commodore, aren't you bringing the extreme measures of Chicago and New York into a country where they are barely necessary? One might at least have had an explanation with this man Legarge. One might have bought him, or if he wouldn't talk reason, after all he could only cramp your style a little. The only one of us who was liable for extradition, so far as we know, was poor Ned, and he's gone."

The two men were equally and genuinely puzzled. There was no doubt that their visitor was speaking in all sincerity. Jake Arnott had paused in the act of filling a pipe and looked towards his partner for enlightenment. He found none. The Commodore was also seeking for understanding.

"Look here, Caroline," he said, "we don't need any dope from you. You hate us like hell, I know that, but you will play the game. What we want to know—Jake and I—is what have you got to complain of? The man was just as likely to have been after you as us."

"The man ought to have had a chance," Caroline declared coldly. "I never cared about this promiscuous killing. You know that. So long as you had him marked down, he could never have got away."

Jake Arnott suddenly stiffened; the lines in his face seemed to grow deeper.

"Look here," he said, "let's have this straight between the three of us. Caroline Loyd, do you think that I or any one of our gang bumped off that man last night?"

"Of course I do," she replied.

The Commodore shook his head slowly.

"Chuck that, Jake," he begged. "It isn't worth while with Caroline."

"Chuck it be damned!" was the fierce reply. "We're great on alibis round here; in fact, we have built up our safety on them, but I don't need one this time. I was down at the Casino at Juan from dinner time till three o'clock this morning. I never went near St. Paul. If this guy Legarge was done in by any one of our crowd, it was without my knowledge."

Commodore Jasen relapsed slowly into an easy-chair. The power of speech appeared to have left him. Caroline stared at Arnott with wide-open eyes.

"Damn it all," the latter went on, "there were a dozen people there saw me dining, and a whole table full of people with whom I played 'chemie.' There is not any one else on this outfit who would have tackled the man except myself, unless they had orders. I should have had him this week sure, but I was waiting for his next advices from New York. That's the solid truth. Some one got in ahead of me."

Caroline pointed to the Commodore.

"How is it that he doesn't believe you?" she asked.

The Commodore pulled himself together.

"I believe him if he says so," he declared. "Jake's never told me a lie. They don't pay in our profession."

"But you must have talked it over since last night," Caroline objected. "What I mean is, that if Jake was dumb, you must have asked him questions."

"That's just what we didn't do and never have done," Jasen pointed out quickly. "A clean job like that is never mentioned. I am not supposed to know what my men do. I ask for no report and none is ever made to me unless there is a necessity. I knew that Jake was out all night, but I thought that he was covering up his tracks after St. Paul."

Caroline looked across towards the man standing by the mantelpiece.

"If you didn't kill Legarge, who do you think did, then?" she asked.

"Why, one of your men, of course," was the confident reply. "I saw that little chap of yours who looks like a Frenchman, up at St. Paul the other day, and I never doubted but that he was on Legarge's track too. When I heard the news this morning, well, I rather thought that you had found your nerve again. That's all there was to it."

Commodore Jasen sat forward in his chair.

"This is a serious and is becoming an alarming affair," he pointed out. "Let us have it, as it were, in black and white. Not one of us three is fool enough to tell lies; besides, it's not done in our world. Jake, you spent the night at Juan Casino, you never went to St. Paul, you didn't push that knife into the New Yorker?"

"My word's good enough, Commodore," was the prompt reply. "I never set foot in St. Paul last night, nor dreamt of going there, and I have never set eyes on the man. As you know, it was pretty well understood between us that he had to be given his ticket, but I shouldn't have chosen a public place like that. You believe me, Caroline?"

"I must," she answered.

"So do I," the Commodore decided. "Now, listen here, Caroline. What about Ralph Joslin? He would be just the sort of fellow not to let on to you so that you should be kept clear."

"Ralph was with me from half-past seven last evening until after midnight," Caroline affirmed. "As a matter of fact, we went over to Palm Beach Casino."

"There we are then," the Commodore said, lighting a cigarette. "Some one else has done our job for us. It's uncanny. I don't like the feeling."

"Damned if I do either," Jake Arnott muttered.

Caroline glanced from one to the other in some distress.

"I think it's terrible," she declared.

The Commissaire of Police sat in his office, biting his nails. Never had there been a case so full of possibilities, never one in which a swift and prompt solution would bring such credit upon his office. Yet up till that moment, though all manner of strange happenings were connected with the affair, not one of them seemed to lead to a definite clue. His assistant disturbed his not too pleasant meditations.

"Gentleman to see you, sir," he announced. "It is the Monsieur from the Château d'Antibes."

The owner, even if he were only a temporary owner, of the great house of the neighbourhood, was deserving of consideration. The Commissaire shook hands with him once more when he was ushered in.

"I beg," Commodore Jasen said courteously, as he accepted a chair, "that you will not consider me in any way officious, but on thinking over your visit this morning and some of the details of this terrible affair in St. Paul, I am emboldened to offer you a suggestion. It is an idea which occurred to me, I must confess, only half an hour ago. I ordered a car and came at once to see you. I may say that if it should help you, I desire neither thanks nor credit. I pass on the idea to you—a free gift."

"I will hear it," the Commissaire, very much to his future benefit, conceded.

A night of inky, sulphurous blackness, low-hanging clouds, immovable, leaning menacingly from the sky. Every table at the Pomme d'Or was occupied, notwithstanding the tragedy of the previous night and although it was unusual to dine out of doors under such unpromising conditions. The shaded lights had been reinforced, but even then there were pools of darkness in many places. Conversation everywhere was restrained and scanty. Laughter was a thing unheard. Upon the spirits of every one there seemed to rest the memory of the recent tragedy. In a way it was a gruesome scene, the more gruesome because seated at the table under the tree, the light upon his table the feeblest of all, was a man dining alone in a claret-coloured shirt and blue trousers. There was something almost ghoulish about the highly charged atmosphere, the spasmodic conversation, the silences, the air of impending tragedy. One woman found it too much for her nerves and was led out, sobbing. Her place, however, was speedily taken by another. It was a feast of drama that night for the guests of the Pomme d'Or.

At a table under the inner wall three men were seated together. Commodore Jasen was one, the Commissaire was another, and Jake Arnott the third. They had champagne in their glasses and food was placed occasionally on their plates by the stealthy-footed, subdued waiter. No one ate much that night, however. They were waiting for a signal which seemed slow in coming.

Monsieur Canis emerged from his secret lurking-place and stole like a ghost amongst his guests. The Commissaire summoned him. A big spot of rain had fallen. There was fear of more.

"He is there?"

"He watches all the time," Monsieur Canis answered, with a shiver.

"Let it be now," the Commissaire directed, and even his voice shook perceptibly.

The figure of the proprietor faded into the shadows. Suddenly there came what all had been warned to expect, but all had dreaded. The lights on every table went out.

"Such darkness," the police functionary muttered. "I never would have believed it possible. One can understand now."

The maid went by, sobbing with hysterical fright, keeping far away from the table by the tree, carrying a candle in her hand, which flickered out before she had taken very many steps. There was a low murmur of voices through the blackness. Here and there a white face was visible where some one had struck a match. Suddenly the Commissaire leaped to his feet. There was a shout from the table under the tree. The seated figure there had leaped to one side. There was a confused vision of men struggling, a cry that rang through the whole place, down the hillside and along the valleys.... The lights went on again. On the ground by the side of the table under the tree a white-faced man with a scraggy beard lay struggling with three gendarmes, the handcuffs already upon his wrists, a knife by his side. Over him stood the Commissaire.

"Jaques Courdon," he challenged, "it was you who killed the American artist at this table last night."

"I thought," came a pitiful voice, "that he was here again to-night."

"You came with the same idea in your mind?"

The Commissaire repeated his question, his shrill voice echoing portentously through the courtyard. The figure on the ground rocked helplessly from side to side.

"I thought I had killed him last night," he moaned. "I saw her steal away from his rooms and I came here to kill him. I came up the ramparts—I dropped over into the darkness and I thought I had killed him—and to-night some one brought me to the gate and pointed, and he was there in the same place! It must have been a dream!"

They hurried the man away. The Commissaire shook hands with many of the friends who had come to his aid—supers in a very ghastly show.

"Of all the reconstructions the history of the criminal world has ever known," the avocat from Nice told him, "yours, Monsieur Georges, has been the most wonderful. My congratulations. Many people shall know of this."

The Commissaire flushed with gratified pride, but he glanced furtively at Commodore Jasen. Commodore Jasen, however, was the second to congratulate him.

"That I should have lived to see the day," Caroline Loyd murmured, as they drove down the hill, "when my friend Commodore Jasen would lend his aid to the Law!"

"There were reasons," the latter explained. "I saw at once that if ever gossip stirred about the tenants of the Château—or the lady at the Cap—this undiscovered crime would count against us. I came up here and made a few enquiries. I heard of this poor wretch—the Mad Baker they call him—who lives here on sufferance amongst a good-hearted set of neighbours. In common with every one else, the people who keep the barn had been kind to him and he had a free seat every night my two young protégées danced. It was cruel perhaps to be amused, but many people were amused at his outrageous infatuation. He would sit without stirring during the whole performance, his eyes hungering after little Zoë every moment she was on the stage. He would trudge down the hill after her till she was in her car. Once or twice she had thrown him a kind word. Sometimes a kind word is fuel to madness.... Zoë, of course, supplied the idea. One night when she had dined with this fellow Legarge, she had seen the lunatic hiding in the shrubs below, looking at their table and at her companion with murder in his eyes. She said nothing for fear of getting him into trouble, but her recollection of the incident was opportune. For the rest, it seemed easy enough. The only trouble about our little show was—even if the night were dark, would he come again if he saw a figure at the table like the figure of the night before? That idea, I will admit, we put into his mind. A gamble, surely a gamble. Enfin—I have made the reputation of the Commissaire for life."

"It is a very sound asset," Jake Arnott remarked, "to have friends amongst the police."