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

the same way in which he himself inflicts it—by means of a poisoned stab in the right hand. Imagine the effect upon his gang. He is nowhere near when the act of treachery is performed, and yet the traitor dies instantly and surely! Why, it was a tremendous idea! And it was carried out with absolute genius."

"But," I questioned, "what act of treachery was it that Armand feared?"

"The opening of the secret drawer."

"Then you still believe in the poisoned mechanism?"

"I certainly do. The tragedy of this afternoon proves the truth of the theory."

"I don't see it," I said, helplessly.

"Why, Lester," protested Godfrey, "it's as plain as day. Who was that bearded giant who was killed? The traitor, of course. We will find that he was a member of Armand's gang. He followed Armand to America, lay in wait for him, caught him in the net and bound him hand and foot. Do you suppose for an instant that Armand was ignorant of his presence in that house? Do you suppose he would have been able to take Armand prisoner if Armand had not been willing that he should?"

"I don't see how Armand could help himself after that fellow got his hands on him."

"You don't? And yet you saw yourself that he was not really bound —that he had cut himself loose!"

"That is true," I said, thoughtfully.

"Let us reconstruct the story," Godfrey went on rapidly. "The traitor discovers the secret of the cabinet; he follows Armand to New York, shadows him to the house on Seventh Avenue, waits for him there, and seizes and binds him. He is half mad with triumph—he chants a crazy sing-song about revenge, revenge, revenge! And, in order that the triumph may be complete, he does not kill his prisoner at once. He rolls him into a corner and proceeds to rip away the burlap. His triumph will be to open the secret drawer before Armand's eyes. And Armand lies there in the corner, his eyes gleaming, because it is really the moment of his triumph which is at hand!"

"The moment of his triumph?" I repeated. "What do you mean by that,
Godfrey?"

"I mean that, the instant the traitor opened the drawer, he would be stabbed by the poisoned mechanism! It was for that that Armand waited!"

I lay back in my chair with a gasp of amazement and admiration. I had been blind not to see it! Armand had merely to lie still and permit the traitor to walk into the trap prepared for him. No wonder his eyes had glowed as he lay there watching that frenzied figure at the cabinet!

"It was not until the last moment," Godfrey went on, "when the traitor was bending above the cabinet feeling for the spring, that I realised what was about to happen. There was no time for hesitation —I sprang into the room. Armand vanished in an instant, and the giant also tried to escape; but I caught him at the door. I had no idea of his danger; I had no thought that Armand would dare linger. And yet he did. Now that it is too late, I understand. He had to kill that man; there were no two ways about it. Whatever the risk, he had to kill him."

"But why?" I asked. "Why?"

"To seal his lips. If we had captured him, do you suppose Armand's secret would have been safe for an instant? So he had to kill him—he had to kill him with the poisoned barb—and he did kill him, and got away into the bargain! Never in my life have I felt so like a fool as when that door was slammed in my face!"

"Perhaps he had that prepared, too," I suggested timidly, ready to believe anything of this extraordinary man. "Perhaps he knew that we were there, all the time."

"Of course he did," assented Godfrey grimly. "Why else would there be a snap-lock on the outside of the door? And to think I didn't see it! To think that I was fool enough to suppose that I could follow him about the streets of New York without his knowing it! He knew from the first that he might be followed, and prepared for it!"

"But it's incredible!" I protested feebly. "It's incredible!"

"Nothing is incredible in connection with that man!"

"But the risk—think of the risk he ran!"

"What does he care for risks? He despises them—and rightly. He got away, didn't he?"

"Yes," I said, "he got away; there's no question of that, I guess."

"Well, that is the story of this afternoon's tragedy, as I understand it," proceeded Godfrey, more calmly. "And now I'm going to leave you. I want you to think it over. If it doesn't hold together, show me where it doesn't. But it will hold together—it has to—because it's true!"

"But how about Armand?" I protested. "Aren't you going to try to capture him? Are you going to let him get away?"

"He won't get away!" and Godfrey's eyes were gleaming again. "We don't have to search for him; for we've got our trap, Lester, and it's baited with a bait he can't resist—the Boule cabinet!"

"But he knows it's a trap."

"Of course he knows it!"

"And you really think he will walk into it?" I asked incredulously.

"I know he will! One of these days, he will try to get that cabinet out of the steel cell at the Twenty-third Street station, in which we have it locked!"

I shook my head.

"He's no such fool," I said. "No man is such a fool as that. He'll give it up and go quietly back to Paris."

"Not if he's the man I think he is," said Godfrey, his hand on the door. "He will never give up! Just wait, Lester; we shall know in a day or two which of us is a true prophet. The only thing I am afraid of," he added, his face clouding, "is that he'll get away with the cabinet, in spite of us!"

And he went away down the hall, leaving me staring after him.

CHAPTER XXII "CROCHARD, L'INVINCIBLE!"

It seemed for once that Godfrey was destined to be wrong, for the days passed and nothing happened—nothing, that is, in so far as the cabinet was concerned. There was an inquest, of course, over the victim of the latest tragedy, and once again I was forced to give my evidence before a coroner's jury. I must confess that, this time, it made me appear considerable of a fool, and the papers poked sly fun at the attorney who had walked blindly into a trap which, now that it was sprung, seemed so apparent.

The Bertillon measurements of the victim had been cabled to Paris, and he had been instantly identified as a fellow named Morel, well-known to the police as a daring and desperate criminal; in fact, M. Lepine considered the matter so important that he cabled next day that he was sending Inspector Pigot to New York to investigate the affair further, and to confer with our bureau as to the best methods to be taken to apprehend the murderer. Inspector Pigot, it was added, would sail at once for Havre on La Savoie.

Meanwhile, Grady's men, with Simmonds at their head, strained every nerve to discover the whereabouts of the fugitive; a net was thrown over the entire city, but, while a number of fish were captured, the one which the police particularly wished for was not among them. Not a single trace of the fugitive was discovered; he had vanished absolutely, and, after a day or two, Grady asserted confidently that he had left New York.

For Grady had come back into the case again, goaded by the papers, particularly by the Record, to efforts which he must have considered superhuman. The remarkable nature of the mystery, its picturesque and unique features, the fact that three men had been killed within a few days in precisely the same manner, and the absence of any reasonable hypothesis to explain these deaths—all this served to rivet public attention. Every amateur detective in the country had a theory to exploit—and far-fetched enough most of them were!

Grady did a lot of talking in those days, explaining in detail the remarkable measures he was taking to capture the criminal; but the fact remained that three men had been killed, and that no one had been punished; that a series of crimes had been committed, and that the criminal was still at large, and seemed likely to remain so; and, naturally enough, the papers, having exhausted every other phase of the case, were soon echoing public sentiment that something was wrong somewhere, and that the detective bureau needed an overhauling, beginning at the top.

The Boule cabinet remained locked up in a cell at the Twenty-third Street station; and Simmonds kept the key in his pocket. I know now that he was as much in the dark concerning the cabinet as the general public was; and the general public was very much in the dark indeed, for the cabinet had not figured in the accounts of the first two tragedies at all, and only incidentally in the reports of the latest one. As far as it was concerned, the affair seemed clear enough to most of the reporters, as an attempt to smuggle into the country an art object of great value. Such cases were too common to attract especial attention.

But Simmonds had come to see that Grady was tottering on his throne; he realised, perhaps, that his own head was not safe; and he had made up his mind to pin his faith to Godfrey as the only one at all likely to lead him out of the maze. And Godfrey laid the greatest stress upon the necessity of keeping the cabinet under lock and key; so under lock and key it was kept. As for Grady, I do not believe that, even at the last, he realised the important part the cabinet had played in the drama.

But while the Boule cabinet failed to focus the attention of the public, and while most of the reporters promptly forgot all about it, I was amused at the pains which Godfrey took to inform the fugitive as to its whereabouts and as to how it was guarded. Over and over again, while the other papers wondered at his imbecility, he told how it had been placed in the strongest cell at the Twenty-third Street station; a cell whose bars were made of chrome-nickle steel which no saw could bite into; a cell whose lock was worked not only by a key but by a combination, known to one man only; a cell isolated from the others, standing alone in the middle of the third corridor, in full view of the officer on guard, so that no one could approach it, day or night, without being instantly discovered; a cell whose door was connected with an automatic alarm over the sergeant's desk in the front room; a cell, in short, from which no man could possibly escape, and which no man could possibly enter unobserved.

Of the Boule cabinet itself Godfrey said little, saving his story for the dénouement which he seemed so sure would come; but the details which I have given above were dwelt upon in the Record, until, happening to meet Godfrey on the street one day, I protested that he would only succeed in frightening the fugitive away altogether, even if he still had any designs on the cabinet, which I very much doubted. But Godfrey only laughed.

"There's not the slightest danger of frightening him away," he said. "This fellow isn't that kind. If I am right in sizing him up, he's the sort of dare-devil whom an insuperable difficulty only attracts. The harder the job, the more he is drawn to it. That's the reason I am making this one just as hard as I can."

"But a man would be a fool to attempt to get to that cabinet," I protested. "It's simply impossible."

"It looks impossible, I'm free to admit," he agreed. "But, just the same, I wake every morning cold with fear, and run to the 'phone to make sure the cabinet's safe. If I could think of any further safeguards, I would certainly employ them."

I looked at Godfrey searchingly, for it seemed to me that he must be jesting. He smiled as he caught my glance.

"I was never more in earnest in my life, Lester," he said. "You don't appreciate this fellow as I do. He's a genius; nothing is impossible to him. He disdains easy jobs; when he thinks a job is