The Secret of Chimneys, Agatha Christie [reading a book txt] 📗

“Quite ingenious,” admitted George condescendingly. “But it remains to be seen——”

Anthony laughed.

“The proof of the pudding’s in the eating—eh? Well, I’ll soon settle that for you.” He sprang to his feet. “I’ll go to the library——”

He got no further. M. Lemoine moved forward from the window.

“Just one moment, Mr. Cade. You permit, Lord Caterham?”

He went to the writing-table and hurriedly scribbled a few lines. He sealed them up in an envelope, and then rang the bell. Tredwell appeared in answer to it. Lemoine handed him the note.

“See that that is delivered at once, if you please.”

“Very good, sir,” said Tredwell.

With his usual dignified tread he withdrew.

Anthony, who had been standing, irresolute, sat down again.

“What’s the big idea, Lemoine?” he asked gently.

There was a sudden sense of strain in the atmosphere.

“If the jewel is where you say it is—well, it has been there for over seven years—a quarter of an hour more does not matter.”

“Go on,” said Anthony. “That wasn’t all you wanted to say?”

“No, it was not. At this juncture, it is—unwise to permit any one person to leave the room. Especially if that person has rather questionable antecedents.”

Anthony raised his eyebrows, and lighted a cigarette.

“I suppose a vagabond life is not very respectable,” he mused.

“Two months ago, Mr. Cade, you were in South Africa. That is admitted. Where were you before that?”

Anthony leaned back in his chair, idly blowing smoke rings.

“Canada. Wild North West.”

“Are you sure you were not in prison? A French prison?”

Automatically, Superintendent Battle moved a step nearer the door, as if to cut off a retreat that way, but Anthony showed no signs of doing anything dramatic.

Instead, he stared at the French detective, and then burst out laughing.

“My poor Lemoine. It is a monomania with you! You do indeed see King Victor everywhere. So you fancy that I am that interesting gentleman?”

“Do you deny it?”

Anthony brushed a fleck of ash from his coat sleeve.

“I never deny anything that amuses me,” he said lightly. “But the accusation is really too ridiculous.”

“Ah! you think so?” The Frenchman leant forward. His face was twitching painfully, and yet he seemed perplexed and baffled—as though something in Anthony’s manner puzzled him. “What if I tell you, Monsieur, that this time—this time—I am out to get King Victor, and nothing shall stop me!”

“Very laudable,” was Anthony’s comment. “You’ve been out to get him before, though, haven’t you, Lemoine? And he’s got the better of you. Aren’t you afraid that that may happen again? He’s a slippery fellow, by all accounts.”

The conversation had developed into a duel between the detective and Anthony. Every one else in the room was conscious of the tension. It was a fight to a finish between the Frenchman, painfully in earnest, and the man who smoked so calmly and whose words seemed to show that he had not a care in the world.

“If I were you, Lemoine,” continued Anthony, “I should be very, very careful. Watch your step, and all that sort of thing.”

“This time,” said Lemoine grimly, “there will be no mistake.”

“You seem very sure about it all,” said Anthony. “But there’s such a thing as evidence, you know.”

Lemoine smiled, and something in his smile seemed to attract Anthony’s attention. He sat up and stubbed out his cigarette.

“You saw that note I wrote just now?” said the French detective. “It was to my people at the inn. Yesterday I received from France the finger-prints and the Bertillon measurements of King Victor—the so-called Captain O’Neill. I have asked for them to be sent up to me here. In a few minutes we shall know whether you are the man!”

Anthony stared steadily at him. Then a little smile crept over his face.

“You’re really rather clever, Lemoine. I never thought of that. The documents will arrive, you will induce me to dip my fingers in the ink, or something equally unpleasant, you will measure my ears and look for my distinguishing marks. And if they agree——”

“Well,” said Lemoine, “if they agree—eh?”

Anthony leaned forward in his chair.

“Well, if they do agree,” he said very gently, “what then?”

“What then?” The detective seemed taken aback. “But—I shall have proved then that you are King Victor!”

But for the first time, a shade of uncertainty crept into his manner.

“That will doubtless be a great satisfaction to you,” said Anthony. “But I don’t quite see where it’s going to hurt me. I’m not admitting anything, but supposing, just for the sake of argument, that I was King Victor—I might be trying to repent, you know.”

“Repent?”

“That’s the idea. Put yourself in King Victor’s place, Lemoine. Use your imagination. You’ve just come out of prison. You’re getting on in life. You’ve lost the first fine rapture of the adventurous life. Say, even, that you meet a beautiful girl. You think of marrying and settling down somewhere in the country where you can grow vegetable marrows. You decide from henceforth to lead a blameless life. Put yourself in King Victor’s place. Can’t you imagine feeling like that?”

“I do not think that I should feel like that,” said Lemoine with a sardonic smile.

“Perhaps you wouldn’t,” admitted Anthony. “But then you’re not King Victor, are you? You can’t possibly know what he feels like.”

“But it is nonsense, what you are saying there,” spluttered the Frenchman.

“Oh, no, it isn’t. Come now, Lemoine, if I’m King Victor, what have you against me after all? You could never get the necessary evidence in the old, old days, remember. I’ve served my sentence, and that’s all there is to it. I suppose you could arrest me for the French equivalent of ‘Loitering with intent to commit a felony,’ but that would be poor satisfaction, wouldn’t it?”

“You forget,” said Lemoine. “America! How about this business of obtaining money under false pretences, and passing yourself off as Prince Nicholas Obolovitch?”

“No good, Lemoine,” said Anthony, “I was nowhere near America at the time. And I can prove that easily enough. If King Victor impersonated Prince Nicholas in America, then I’m not King Victor. You’re sure he was impersonated? That it wasn’t the man himself?”

Superintendent Battle suddenly interposed.

“The man was an impostor all right, Mr. Cade.”

“I wouldn’t contradict you, Battle,” said Anthony. “You have such a habit of being always right. Are you equally sure that Prince Nicholas died in the Congo?”

Battle looked at him curiously.

“I wouldn’t swear to that, sir. But it’s generally believed.”

“Careful man. What’s your motto? Plenty of rope, eh? I’ve taken a leaf out of your book. I’ve given M. Lemoine plenty of rope. I’ve not denied his accusations. But, all the same, I’m afraid he’s going to be disappointed. You see I always believe in having something up one’s sleeve. Anticipating that some little unpleasantness might arise here, I took the precaution to bring a trump card along with me. It—or rather he—is upstairs.”

“Upstairs?” said Lord Caterham, very interested.

“Yes, he’s been having rather a trying time of it lately, poor fellow. Got a nasty bump on the head from some one. I’ve been looking after him.”

Suddenly the deep voice of Mr. Isaacstein broke in:

“Can we guess who he is?”

“If you like,” said Anthony, “but——”

Lemoine interrupted with sudden ferocity:

“All this is foolery. You think to outwit me yet again. It may be true what you say—that you were not in America. You are too clever to say it if it were not true. But there is something else. Murder! Yes, murder. The murder of Prince Michael. He interfered with you that night as you were looking for the jewel.”

“Lemoine, have you ever known King Victor to do murder?” Anthony’s voice rang out sharply. “You know as well—better than I do, that he has never shed blood.”

“Who else but you could have murdered him?” cried Lemoine. “Tell me that!”

The last word died on his lips, as a shrill whistle sounded from the terrace outside. Anthony sprang up, all his assumed nonchalance laid aside.

“You ask me who murdered Prince Michael?” he cried. “I won’t tell you—I’ll show you. That whistle was the signal I’ve been waiting for. The murderer of Prince Michael is in the library now.”

He sprang out through the window, and the others followed him as he led the way round the terrace, until they came to the library window. He pushed the window, and it yielded to his touch.

Very softly he held aside the thick velvet curtain, so that they could look into the room.

Standing by the bookcase was a dark figure, hurriedly pulling out and replacing volumes, so absorbed in the task that no outside sound was heeded.

And then, as they stood watching, trying to recognize the figure that was vaguely silhouetted against the light of the electric torch it carried, some one sprang past them with a sound like the roar of a wild beast.

The torch fell to the ground, was extinguished, and the sounds of a terrific struggle filled the room. Lord Caterham groped his way to the lights and switched them on.

Two figures were swaying together. And as they looked the end came. The short sharp crack of a pistol shot, and the smaller figure crumpled up and fell. The other figure turned and faced them—it was Boris, his eyes alight with rage.

“She killed my Master,” he growled. “Now she tries to shoot me. I would have taken the pistol from her and shot her, but it went off in the struggle. St. Michael directed it. The evil woman is dead.”

“A woman?” cried George Lomax.

They drew nearer. On the floor, the pistol still clasped in her hand, and an expression of deadly malignity on her face, lay—Mademoiselle Brun.