The Cask, Freeman Wills Crofts [snow like ashes series .txt] 📗

window of the café which had so often served in a similar capacity, he watched the office staff take their departure. For a long time his victim did not appear, and he had almost come to the conclusion she must have gone, when he saw her. She was with two other girls, and the three, after glancing round the street, tripped off daintily citywards.

When they had gone a fair distance La Touche followed. The girls stood for a moment at the Simplon Station of the Metro, then the pretty typist vanished down the steps, while the others moved on along the pavement. La Touche sprinted to the entrance and was in time to see the gray dress of the quarry disappearing down the passage labelled Porte d’Orléans. He got his ticket and followed to the platform. There was a fairly dense crowd, and, after locating mademoiselle he mingled with it, keeping well back out of sight.

A train soon drew up and the girl got in. La Touche entered the next carriage. Standing at the end of his vehicle he could see her through the glass between the coaches without, he felt sure, being himself visible. One, two, five stations passed, and then she got up and moved towards the door ready to alight. La Touche did the same, observing from the map in the carriage that the next station was not a junction. As the train jerked and groaned to a standstill he leaped out and hurried to the street. Crossing rapidly, he stopped at a kiosk and asked for an evening paper. Bending over the counter of the stall, he saw her emerge up the steps and start off down the street. He remained on the opposite side, cautiously following until, after about two blocks, she entered a small, unpretentious restaurant.

“If she is going to dine alone,” thought La Touche, “I am in luck.”

He waited till she would have probably reached her second or third course and then entered the building.

The room was narrow, corresponding to the frontage, but stretched a long way back, the far end being lighted with electric lamps. A row of marble-topped tables stretched down each side, with six cane chairs at each. Mirrors framed in dingy white and gold lined the walls. At the extreme back was a tiny stage on which an orchestra of three girls was performing.

The place was about half full. As La Touche’s quick eye took in the scene, he noticed the typist seated alone at a table three or four from the stage. He walked forward.

“If mademoiselle permits?” he murmured, bowing, but hardly looking at her, as he pulled out a chair nearly opposite her and sat down.

He gave his order and then, business being as it were off his mind, he relaxed so far as to look around. He glanced at the girl, seemed suddenly to recognise her, gave a mild start of surprise and leant forward with another bow.

“Mademoiselle will perhaps pardon if I presume,” he said, in his best manner, “but I think we have met before or, if not quite, almost.”

The girl raised her eyebrows but did not speak.

“In the office of M. Boirac,” went on the detective. “You would not, of course, notice, but I saw you there busy with a fine typewriter.”

Mademoiselle was not encouraging. She shrugged her shoulders, but made no reply. La Touche had another shot.

“I am perhaps impertinent in addressing mademoiselle, but I assure her no impertinence is meant. I am the inventor of a new device for typewriters, and I try to get opinion of every expert operator I can find on its utility. Perhaps mademoiselle would permit me to describe it and ask hers?”

“Why don’t you take it to some of the agents?” She spoke frigidly.

“Because, mademoiselle,” answered La Touche, warming to his subject, “I am not quite certain if the device would be sufficiently valuable. It would be costly to attach and no firm would buy unless it could be shown that operators wanted it. That is what I am so anxious to learn.”

She was listening, though not very graciously. La Touche did not wait for a reply, but began sketching on the back of the menu.

“Here,” he said, “is my idea,” and he proceeded to draw and describe the latest form of tabulator with which he was acquainted. The girl look at him with scorn and suspicion.

“You’re describing the Remington tabulator,” she said coldly.

“Oh, but, pardon me, mademoiselle. You surely don’t mean that? I have been told this is quite new.”

“You have been told wrongly. I ought to know, for I have been using one the very same, as what you say is yours, for several weeks.”

“You don’t say so, mademoiselle? That means that I have been forestalled and all my work has been wasted.”

La Touche’s disappointment was so obvious that the girl thawed slightly.

“You’d better call at the Remington depot and ask to see one of their new machines. Then you can compare their tabulator with yours.”

“Thank you, mademoiselle, I’ll do so tomorrow. Then you use a Remington?”

“Yes, a No. 10.”

“Is that an old machine? Pardon my questions, but have you had it long?”

“I can’t tell you how long it has been at the office. I am only there myself six or seven weeks.”

Six or seven weeks! And the murder took place just over six weeks before! Could there be a connection, or was this mere coincidence?

“It must be a satisfaction to a man of business,” La Touche went on conversationally, as he helped himself to wine, “when his business grows to the extent of requiring an additional typist. I envy M. Boirac his feelings when he inserted his advertisement nearly as much as I envy him when you applied.”

“You have wasted your envy then,” returned the girl in chilly and contemptuous tones, “for you are wrong on both points. M. Boirac’s business has not extended, for I replaced a girl who had just left, and no advertisement was inserted as I went to M. Boirac from the Michelin School