Читать книгу The Mélamare Mystery - Морис Леблан - Страница 6

Table of Contents

THE afternoon was over at the Maison Chernitz, and people were drifting out of the big showrooms in the Rue du Mont-Thabor. In the room allotted to the mannequins, Arlette Mazolle and her companions, set free from the ardours of showing off Chernitz creations, were seeking distraction. Fortune-telling was in progress, and a subdued munching indicated the consumption of chocolate by all concerned.

“Look, Arlette,” cried red-headed Irène, “you’re in luck! The cards say your life will be a round of adventures, happiness and good fortune.”

“That’s coming true, too,” said little Charlotte. “Arlette’s luck began the other evening when she won first prize in that show at the Opéra!”

But Arlette was not inclined to be cockahoop.

“I didn’t really deserve to win,” she said. “Régine Aubry was the best.”

“Oh, rot! Every one voted solid for you.”

“People didn’t know what they were doing. That false alarm of fire half-emptied the theatre. It wasn’t a fair vote at all.”

“Well, really, Arlette, you are the modest violet and no mistake,” remarked Irène, almost exasperated. She added maliciously: “I expect Régine Aubry’s pretty sick!”

“You’re quite wrong, my child. She came round to see me, and was awfully decent about my success. I like her.”

She unfolded an evening paper which one of the messengers had just brought in.

“Why, look!” she cried. “Here’s some more about it. They give a long rigmarole, explaining what must have happened.”

“Read it out, Arlette,” besought the others.

Nothing loath, she began:

“The police are still investigating the mysterious occurrence at the Opéra. Both at the Parquet and at the Préfecture the general opinion is that there was a prearranged plot to steal Régine Aubry’s diamonds. There is no means of identifying the man who carried off the well-known actress, since he kept his face hidden. It is thought that he entered the Opéra as a messenger with great sheaves of flowers which he set down in one of the wings. Mademoiselle Aubry’s maid vaguely remembers seeing him and thinks he wore light spats. The flowers were artificial and specially prepared so as to take fire easily. The man took advantage of the panic let loose by the alarm of fire and snatched the actress’ fur cloak from her maid’s arm. There are no further clues. Régine Aubry has already been questioned several times. She finds it impossible to give the route followed by the car in which she was borne off, or to describe her abductor or his accomplice. She can only furnish a few unimportant details about the big house where she was robbed of the precious corselet.”

“Ooh! I should have been scared to death, all alone in that house with that man and woman, wouldn’t you, Arlette?” said Julie, a mouse of a girl.

“Of course I should. But I should have put up a fight, I think. I’m brave enough when it comes to the point, though I go all of a doodah once the danger’s over.”

“I say,” said Irène suddenly, “didn’t you notice the thief running across the stage at the Opéra?”

“I didn’t realize anything at the time,” replied Arlette. “I just saw one shadowy form carrying another, and I never even wondered who they were. I had quite enough to think about with looking after myself. You see, the fire ...”

“Was there nothing that struck you?” persisted Irène.

“Oh, I saw Van Houben out in the passage.”

“Do you know him?”

“No. But he was shouting: ‘My diamonds. They’re worth a fortune! Oh, my God!’ ” Arlette was an amusing mimic. “He was hopping first on one foot, then on the other, like a cat on hot bricks. Every one was fairly hooting with mirth.”

She jumped up and gave a graphic imitation. Even in the plain little frock she wore now—a straight black serge, rather like a child’s gym. tunic—she was the same miracle of grace as in the dress she had worn at the Opéra. Her slim, perfect little body resembled the statue of some antique dancing girl. Her skin was peach-like; her eyes smoky; her mouth rather a pale rose; her nose fine and small. Her hair was silky-golden and curled softly about her head.

“Now you’re up, Arlette, give us a dance!” begged Charlotte.

Arlette smilingly acceded. She was no dancer, really, but she moved and gestured in fantastic exaggeration of her mannequin poses. The other girls were never tired of watching her. They all admired her immensely and regarded her as a being singled out by Fate for glad and golden days in the future.

“Fine!” they cried, “you’re just marvellous!”

“And you’re a real sport, old thing,” added Irène, “for fixing it so’s three of us are going to hit the high spots in the Sunny South!”

Arlette sat down, her face flushed, her usually pensive eyes sparkling. When she spoke it was to take them half-ironically, half-wistfully, into her confidence.

“I’m no better than any of you,” she began. “I’m not cleverer than you, Irène; I’m less conscientious than you, Charlotte, and I haven’t Julie’s self-respect. I have boys like the rest of you ... who want more than I’m ready to give ... and yet I somehow give more than I mean to! I’ll come to a bad end one day, I guess. But what can you expect? We’re not the sort men marry. They see us here in our glad rags and they’re scared!”

“Why worry?” said Julie. “The cards say you’ll be a rich woman.”

“And how!” rejoined Arlette, a little cynically. “Some old tightwad of ninety? Not on your life. And yet, I do want money. But I want love as well!”

“Both at once! Hark at her! What for, may one ask?”

“Love to make me happy!”

“And money?”

“That I’m not so sure about. I have my dreams and schemes I’ve so often told you about. I’d like to be rich, but not for myself. I want to be rich for others ... for you, my dears.... I want ...” Her eyes seemed to darken and widen, and she was silent.

“Go on, Arlette!” they clamoured.

She shook herself, and laughed.

“Oh, it’s absurd, of course.... I’m acting like a kid. But I’d like to have a lot of money which wouldn’t actually belong to me, but which I was to handle. For instance, I’d like to be the director—the head—of a big dressmaking place organized on quite new lines, with everything wonderful ... and with dots for the girls so that each of you could marry any man you liked.”

She laughed again at her riotous fancy. The others, however, grew serious. One of them even wiped away a tear.

Arlette went on:

“Yes, dots, real ready-money dots.... Of course, I’m not properly educated, but I’ve made out a whole scheme with plenty of plain figures in between the spelling mistakes. At twenty a girl gets her dot. Then there’s a layette for the first child—then——”

“Arlette, you’re wanted on the ’phone!”

The directrice of the ateliers had opened the door and was calling her.

Arlette sprang up, suddenly pale with anxiety.

“That must mean Mother’s ill!” she said.

At Chernitz’ it was a rule that employees received no messages except in the case of something serious, such as the death or severe illness of a near relation. The girls knew that Arlette worshipped her mother. She herself was illegitimate, and had two elder sisters who had been mannequins and had disappeared into the void to practise another and older profession.

There was a sudden silence, and Arlette hardly dared move.

“Hurry up,” said the directrice.

The telephone was in the next room. Clustering round the half-open door, the other girls could hear Arlette’s voice, speaking in broken accents.

“You say Mother’s ill? ... Is it her heart? ... Who is it speaking? ... Is it you, Madame Louvain? ... I don’t recognize your voice.... What about getting a doctor? ... Who did you say? ... Doctor Bricou, 3a Rue du Mont-Thabor? ... He knows already? ... He’ll bring me with him, then? ... Right, I’m coming.”

Without another word, Arlette, pale and trembling, grabbed her hat from the cupboard and sped downstairs. Her friends rushed to the window and a moment later saw her running down the street, peering at the numbers of the houses. At the end of the road she stopped on the left-hand side, doubtless at the door of 3a. There was a car drawn up at the kerb, and a man standing by it on the pavement. They could just make out his silhouette in the twilight and the light streak of his spats. He raised his hat to Arlette and spoke to her. They both got into the car and drove off in the opposite direction from Chernitz’.

“That’s funny,” said Julie reflectively. “I pass that way every day, and I’ve never noticed a doctor’s plate on any of the doors. Doctor Bricou, 3a—do you know the house, Irène?”

“Can’t say I do,” rejoined that damsel. “P’r’aps the brass plate is behind the courtyard door.”

“Anyhow,” suggested the directrice, who was still in the room, “we can look up in the telephone book ... and in the street directory....”

They hurried into the next room and feverishly seized hold of the two tomes lying on the little table.

“If there is a Doctor Bricou at No. 3, or even any doctor at all, he’s not on the ’phone,” pronounced Charlotte.

And Julie echoed her:

“No Doctor Bricou in the directory, either in the Rue du Mont-Thabor or anywhere else.”

There was a wave of upset and anxiety. Every one was ready with suggestions. The whole thing looked distinctly fishy. The directrice thought she had better tell Chernitz, and up he came at once. He was quite a young man, sallow and gawky, and abominably dressed. He aimed at perpetual impassivity, and prided himself on always knowing exactly what to do in any emergency. He could act without reflection, and was a man of few words.

With icy calm, he took the telephone and called a number. When he got it, he said:

“Hullo ... Is that Madame Régine Aubry’s? ... Will you tell Madame Régine Aubry that Chernitz, the couturier Chernitz, wants to speak to her? Right.”

He waited a minute, then began again:

“Yes, madame, Chernitz the couturier. Although I have not the honour of your patronage, I thought that in view of what has happened I ought to get in touch with you. The thing is this—one of my mannequins ... Hullo! Yes, it’s about Arlette Mazolle.... You’re too kind, but I must tell you I voted for you myself.... Your dress, that evening ... But permit me to be brief. There is every reason to think, madame, that Arlette Mazolle has been kidnapped, doubtless by the same man who abducted you. I thought it was to your own interest, and to that of your friends, to know of it.... Hullo! .... You’re expecting Chief Inspector Béchoux? Good.... I’ll come right along and give you all particulars.” And, as he hung up, “That, let me tell you,” said Chernitz, “was the One Right Thing to Do!”

.........

Things went with Arlette much as they had gone with Régine Aubry. There was a woman inside the car. The pseudo-doctor introduced her:

“Madame Bricou.”

She was heavily veiled. Anyway, night had fallen and Arlette was completely taken up with anxiety for her mother. She began questioning the doctor, without even looking at him. He replied in a curiously hoarse voice that one of his patients, Madame Louvain, had telephoned to him to come at once to a sick neighbour, and on his way to pick up the woman’s daughter. That was all he knew.

The car went down the Rue de Rivoli in the direction of the Place de la Concorde. As they were crossing the latter, the woman flung a rug over Arlette, tied it tightly round the girl’s neck, and then pricked her shoulder with a knife-point.

Arlette struggled valiantly, but her terror was mingled with real relief, for she realized that her mother’s illness had been merely a ruse to get her away and there must be some other reason for her abduction. At last she gave up and lay still, listening intently.

Her impressions were similar to Régine’s. There was the same racing about Paris, with sharp swerves round corners. She could not see the hand of the woman who held her, but she caught a glimpse of a very pointed shoe.

She managed to catch a few words of a conversation between her abductors. They spoke in low voices, evidently assured she could not hear them. But one sentence came to her in its entirety.

“You’re making a mistake, I tell you,” said the woman. “You ought to have waited several weeks ... it’s much too soon after the Opéra business.”

Arlette thought she understood this; it must be the same couple whom Régine Aubry had reported to the police. The pseudo-doctor was the Opéra incendiary. But why were these people after her, a penniless girl with no diamond corselet or any other jewels for their taking? The very question calmed her. There was nothing to fear, and she would doubtless be set free when they found out their mistake.

The car slowed down and there was the sound of a heavy door opening. Arlette, remembering Régine’s adventure, guessed that they were coming into the paved court. Then she was helped down, still blindfolded by the rug, and propelled up a flight of six steps—she counted them. Then came a flagged hall.

By now she had completely recovered her nerve and felt so emboldened that she acted on impulse in a manner that might have proved disastrous. While the man was closing the hall door, the woman’s foot slipped on a tile, and for a second she let go Arlette’s shoulder from her vice-like grip. Without a moment’s hesitation, the girl shook off the rug that enfolded her, darted forward, and sped up a staircase. She raced across an ante-room and into a salon, the door of which she had sufficient presence of mind to close behind her.

A heavily shaded electric light radiated a dim circle which faintly lit the shadowy room. What was she to do? How escape? She tried to open one of the two windows, but failed to move it. Now she was thoroughly frightened, realizing that the couple would have already appeared had they begun by searching the salon, and that at any moment they would burst in and throw themselves upon her.

She could hear doors slamming through the house! At all costs she must hide herself! Leaping on to the back of an arm-chair against the wall, she climbed easily on to a great marble mantelpiece. With desperate haste she edged along the great glass to the other end, where there was a tall bookcase. With the courage of despair she placed one of her small feet on a bronze vase and managed to catch hold of the cornice of the bookcase. Then she hoisted herself up, she hardly knew how.

When the two criminals came rushing into the room, Arlette was crouched on top of the bookcase, half-hidden by the cornice.

They had only to look up to see her silhouette, but—they didn’t! They searched the far part of the salon, looking under sofas and arm-chairs, and behind curtains. Arlette could see them reflected in the great glass opposite. But their faces were indistinct and their words hardly audible, for they spoke low and tonelessly.

“She’s not here,” said the man, at last.

“Perhaps she’s jumped out into the garden,” suggested the woman.

“That’s impossible. Both windows are shut.”

“What about the alcove?”

On the left, between the mantelpiece and one of the windows, was one of those little shut-off recesses, common to old-fashioned drawing-rooms. The man slid back the alcove panel and peered inside.

“No one there.”

“Then what are we going to do?”

“I don’t know. It’s pretty serious—if she escapes.”

“But how can she?”

“How, indeed? Little devil! If I catch her, Heaven help her!”

They went out, turning off the light.

The clock on the mantelpiece chimed seven on a sharp, old-fashioned little note, sounding metallically clear in the stillness.

Arlette, crouched up there, was to hear it strike eight—and nine—and ten! She dared not move. The man’s threat held her there, cowering and shivering, heedless of her cramp. It was not until after midnight that she grew calmer, and realizing the necessity for action climbed down. This time she knocked down the bronze vase! It crashed to the floor, making such a noise that she stood petrified, shaking with agonized apprehension. But no one came, and she replaced it with trembling hands.

A bright light streamed into the room from outside. She went to a window and saw a garden lying in the moonlight—a lawn fringed with shrubs. This time she got the window open quite easily. Leaning out, she realized that the house must be built on rising ground, for she was not a full storey above the garden. Without hesitation, she climbed over the balcony and let herself drop. She landed on gravel, but did not hurt herself at all.

She stopped where she was till a cloud hid the moon, then dashed across a patch of open lawn and reached the dark belt of shrubbery. This she followed, bent double, and came out at the foot of a wall which was in full moonlight and too high for her to hope to scale. On the right was a heavily shuttered lodge, seemingly standing empty. She crept towards it. By the lodge there was a door in the wall, and in the lock of the door a great key! Arlette shot back the bolts, turned the key, and gave a tremendous pull.

She had only just time to open the door and rush through it into the road. Casting a backward glance, she had seen a shadow in pursuit....

The road was deserted. Twenty yards down, she looked back, and saw the shadow gaining on her! Terror lent her miraculous speed. Despite her thumping heart and failing limbs, she had the absolute and comforting certainty that no one could catch her.

Short-lived certainty! Suddenly her strength gave way, she sagged at the knees and nearly fell. But there were people passing in the busy road into which she had now come. An empty taxi crawled along. Swiftly Arlette gave the driver her address and sprang in. Kneeling on the seat inside, she saw through the window in the back that her pursuer was getting into another taxi, which started up at once.

Streets, and streets, and streets. Was she being followed? Arlette did not know, nor did she try to know. They turned suddenly into a little square where there was a taxi-rank. Arlette tapped on the window.

“Stop, please, driver. Here’s twenty francs. Now, drive on quickly—I want you to throw off some one who’s chasing me.”

She jumped into one of the other taxis and gave her address to the new driver.

“Montmartre, please—55 Rue Verdrel.”

She was out of danger, but exhaustion told at last and she fainted.

She returned to consciousness to find herself lying on the couch in her own little room. A strange man knelt beside her. Her mother, seeming most concerned, bent a worried gaze upon her. Arlette tried to smile, and the stranger said to her mother:

“Don’t question her yet, madame. No, mademoiselle, don’t try to speak. Listen to me first. Your employer, Chernitz, informed Régine Aubry that you had been kidnapped in the same way as she was. The police were at once notified. Later, when Régine Aubry—whose friendship I am privileged to enjoy—told me of the affair, I came straight here. Your mother and I have been up all night outside the house. I was hoping you would be set free as Régine Aubry was. I asked your driver where he came from, and he told me from the Place de la Victoire. That was all he knew. Now keep quite quiet. You can tell us everything to-morrow morning.”

Poor Arlette was moaning, feverish and racked with nightmare memories. She shut her eyes, murmuring:

“Some one’s coming up the stairs.”

And, forthwith, there came a ring at the door. Her mother left the room. The voices of two men were raised in the hall—one of them was saying:

“Van Houben, madame. That’s my name. Van Houben—you know, the owner of the diamond tunic. When I heard of your daughter’s abduction, I hit the trail with Chief Inspector Béchoux who had just come back from his holiday. We have run round to all the police stations and here we are. The concierge told us Arlette Mazolle had got back and we both came right along to inquire after her.”

“But, monsieur——”

“It’s pretty important, madame. This affair is closely connected with the theft of my diamonds. It was the same gang ... and we mustn’t lose a minute ...”

Without waiting for permission, he came into the little room, followed by Chief Inspector Béchoux. What he saw seemed to startle him not a little. A charming girl lay stretched full length on a couch, And kneeling at her side, he beheld—his friend, Jean d’Enneris, raining light kisses on the girl’s brow, her eyelids and her cheeks, with industrious absorption!

“You, d’Enneris!” exclaimed Van Houben. “You! What the hell are you doing here?”

D’Enneris motioned with his arm for silence.

“Shh! Not so much noise.... I am soothing the poor young thing.... My own method ... warranted to calm like a charm.... Watch her relax....”

“But—but——”

“To-morrow, to-morrow morning ... we’ll all meet at Régine Aubry’s. Until then, my patient is ordered complete rest.... We mustn’t jangle her nerves.... See you to-morrow.”

Van Houben was as one stunned. Arlette’s mother was in a state of complete bewilderment. There was one, however, whose astonishment and state of swoon exceeded theirs: Chief Inspector Béchoux.

Béchoux was a thin, pale man, who aimed at sartorial elegance. His enormous arms contrasted oddly with his slender frame. With ever-widening eyes he gazed on Jean d’Enneris, as though confronted with a nightmare apparition. And the apparition was at once foreign and familiar to him. Poor Béchoux! He was wondering helplessly whether this smiling stranger masked yet another manifestation of the man whom he was almost ready to identify with His Satanic Majesty!

Van Houben introduced his friend.

“Chief Inspector Béchoux ... Monsieur Jean d’Enneris.... But you seem to know d’Enneris, Béchoux?”

The latter longed to speak—to loose a flood of questions. But he was tongue-tied, and could only stare and stare at the strangely calm young man, intent on his curious “treatment.” ...