The Mystery of the Boule Cabinet: A Detective Story, Burton Egbert Stevenson [general ebook reader .txt] 📗

we can run her down and get her secret out of her. We can find why Rogers is trying to shield her. All that is comparatively simple. But when we have done it all, when we have all these facts in hand, I am afraid we shall find that they are utterly unimportant."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Ah, if we only knew!"

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

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

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

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

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

"And closed again after Vantine opened it?"

"Yes."

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

"But at least it's possible."

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

"Well?" I asked, as he paused.

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

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

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

"The gang?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

He smiled good-naturedly at my tone.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"A look?"

"Yes; for the secret drawer!"

I stared at him fascinated, shrinking.

"And we shall find it!" he added.

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

"Well?"

"And they're both dead!"

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

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

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

"That would be even worse!"

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

His shrill laugh told how excited he was.

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

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

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

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

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

He clapped me on the shoulder, his face beaming.

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

"Agreed!" I said.

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

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

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

Dizzily I went to bed. But my sleep was broken by a fearful dream—a dream of a serpent, with blazing