Fantômas, Pierre Souvestre [suggested reading .TXT] 📗

had murdered Lord Beltham create so little excitement as this? Nibet longed to rush up the flights of stairs to number 127 and interrogate the warder who had gone on duty after himself, and whom he was now about to relieve in turn. He must surely know all about it. But it would not do to create suspicion, and Nibet had sufficient self-control left to go upstairs at his usual leisurely pace. Outwardly calm and steady, he reached his post just as the clock was striking twelve; he was ever punctuality itself, and he was due on duty at noon.

"Well, Colas," he said to his colleague, "here I am; you can go now."

"Good!" said the warder. "I'll be off at once. I'm on again at six to-night," and he moved away.

"Everything all right?" Nibet enquired, in a tone he tried to make as casual as possible, but that trembled a little nevertheless.

"Quite," said Colas, perfectly naturally, and he went away.

Nibet could contain himself no longer, and the next second he threw caution to the winds: rushing to Gurn's cell he flung the door open.

Gurn was there, sitting on the foot of his bed with his legs crossed and a note-book on his knees, making notes with the quietest attention: he scarcely appeared to notice Nibet's violent invasion.

"Oh! So you are there?" stammered the astonished warder.

Gurn raised his head and looked at the warder with a cryptic gaze.

"Yes, I'm here."

All manner of notions crowded through Nibet's brain, but he could find words for none of them. Had the plot been discovered before Gurn had had time to get away, or had a trap been laid for himself through the medium of one of the prisoners to test his own incorruptibility? Nibet went white, and leaned against the wall for support. At last Gurn spoke again, reassuring him with a smile.

"Don't look so miserable," he said. "I am here. That is a matter of absolutely no importance. We will suppose that nothing passed between us yesterday, and—that's an end to it."

"So you haven't gone, you didn't go?" said Nibet again.

"No," Gurn replied; "since you are so interested, all I need say is that I was afraid to risk it at the last minute."

Nibet had cast a keen and experienced eye all over the cell; under the washstand he saw the little bundle of clothes which he had brought the prisoner the previous day. He rightly opined that the first thing to do was to remove these dangerous articles, whose presence in Gurn's cell would appear very suspicious if they happened to be discovered. He took the bundle and was hurriedly stowing it away under his own clothes, when he uttered an exclamation of surprise; the things were wet, and he knew from his own experience that the rain had never ceased throughout the whole of the night.

"Gurn," he said reproachfully, "you are up to some trick! These things are soaked. You must have gone out last night, or these things would not be like this."

Gurn smiled sympathetically at the warder.

"Not so bad!" he remarked; "that's pretty good reasoning for a mere gaoler." And as Nibet was about to press the matter, Gurn anticipated his questions, and made frank confession. "Well, yes, I did try to get out,—got as far as the clerk's office last evening, but at the last minute I funked it, and went back on to the roof. But when I got into number 129 again I found I could not get back into my own cell, for, as you know, 129 was locked outside; so to avoid detection I returned to the roof and spent the night there; at daybreak I took advantage of the little disturbance caused by the workmen coming in, and slipped down from the roof just as they were going up. As soon as I found myself on this floor I ran along this corridor and slipped into my cell. When your friend Colas brought me my broth he did not notice that my cell was unlocked,—and there you are!"

The explanation was not altogether convincing, but Nibet listened to it and pondered the situation. On the whole, it was much better that things should be as they were, but the warder was wondering how the great lady, who paid so mighty well, might take the matter. She most certainly had not promised so large a sum of money, nor paid the good round sum of ten thousand francs down in advance, merely in order that Gurn might have a little walk upon the tiles. What was to be done with regard to that personage? With much ingenuousness Nibet confided his anxiety to the prisoner, who laughed.

"It's not all over yet," he declared. "Indeed, it is only just beginning. What if we only wanted to test you, and prove your quality? Make your mind easy, Nibet. If Gurn is in prison at the present moment it is because he has his own reasons for being there. But who is able to predict the future?"

It was time for Gurn to go to the exercise yard, and Nibet, reassuming the uncompromising attitude that all warders ought to maintain when in custody of prisoners, led the murderer down to the courtyard.

In his office at the Law Courts, M. Fuselier was having a private interview with Juve, and listening with much interest to what the clever detective inspector was saying to him.

"I tell you again, sir, I attach great importance to the finding of this ordnance map in Gurn's rooms."

"Yes?" said M. Fuselier, with a touch of scepticism.

"And I will tell you why," Juve went on. "About a year ago, when I was engaged on the case of the murder of the Marquise de Langrune at her château of Beaulieu, down in Lot, I found a small piece of a map showing the district in which I was at the time. I took it to M. de Presles, the magistrate who was conducting the enquiry. He attached no importance to it, and I myself could not see at the time that it gave us any new evidence."

"Quite so," said M. Fuselier. "There is nothing particularly remarkable in finding a map, or a piece of a map, showing a district, in the district itself."

"Those are M. de Presles' very words to me," said Juve with a smile. "And I will give you the same answer I gave him, namely, that if some day we could find the other portion of the map which completed the first piece we found, and could identify the owner of the two portions, there would then be a formal basis on which to proceed to base an argument."

"Proceed to base it," M. Fuselier suggested.

"That's very easy," said Juve. "The fragment of map numbered 1, found at Beaulieu, belongs to X. I do not know who X is; but in Paris, in Gurn's rooms, I find the fragment of map numbered 2, which belongs to Gurn. If it turns out, as I expect, that the two fragments of map, when placed together, form a single and complete whole, I shall conclude logically that X, who was the owner of fragment number 1, is the same as the owner of fragment number 2, to wit, Gurn."

"How are you going to find out?" enquired M. Fuselier.

"It is in order to find it out that we have sent for Dollon," Juve replied. "He was steward to the late Marquise de Langrune, and has all the circumstantial evidence relating to that case. If he has still got the fragment of map, it will be simplicity itself to prove what I have suggested, and perhaps to make the identification I suggest."

"Yes," said M. Fuselier, "but if you do succeed, will it be of really great importance in your opinion? Will you be able to infer from that one fact that Gurn and the man who murdered the Marquise de Langrune are one and the same person? Is not that going rather far? Especially as, if I remember rightly, it was proved that the murderer in that case was the son of a M. Rambert, and this young Rambert committed suicide after the crime?"

Juve evaded the issue.

"Well, we shall see," was all he said.

The magistrate's clerk came into the room and unceremoniously interrupted the conversation.

"It has gone two, sir," he said. "There are some prisoners to examine, and a whole lot of witnesses," and he placed two bulky bundles of papers before the magistrate and waited for a sign to call the various persons, free or otherwise, whom the magistrate had to see.

The first bundle caught Juve's attention. It was endorsed "Royal Palace Hotel Case."

"Anything new about the robbery from Mme. Van den Rosen and Princess Sonia Danidoff?" he enquired, and as the magistrate shook his head, he added, "Are you going to examine Muller now?"

"Yes," said the magistrate; "at once."

"And after that you are to examine Gurn, aren't you, in connection with the Beltham case?"

"Quite so."

"I wish you would oblige me by confronting the two men here, in my presence."

M. Fuselier looked up in surprise: he could not see what connection there could be between the two utterly dissimilar cases. What object could Juve have in wanting the man who had murdered Lord Beltham to be confronted with the unimportant little hotel servant who had really been arrested rather as a concession to public opinion than because he was actually deemed capable of burglary or attempted burglary? Might not Juve, with his known mania for associating all crimes with each other, be going just a little too far in the present instance?

"You have got some idea in the back of your head?" said M. Fuselier.

"I've got a—a scar in the palm of my hand," Juve answered with a smile, and as the magistrate confessed that he failed to understand, Juve enlightened him. "We know that the man who did that robbery at the Royal Palace Hotel burned his hand badly when he was cutting the electric wires in the Princess's bathroom. Well, a few weeks ago, while I was on the look out for someone with a scar from such a wound, I was told of a man who was prowling about the slums. I had the fellow followed up, and the very night the hunt began I was going to arrest him, when, a good deal to my surprise, I discovered that he was no other than Gurn. He escaped me that time, but when he was caught later on I found that he has an unmistakable scar inside the palm of his right hand; it is fading now, for the burn was only superficial, but it is there. Now do you see my idea?"

"Yes, I do," the magistrate exclaimed, "and I am all the more glad to hear of it, since I am to have both the men here now. Shall I have Muller in first?"

Juve assented....

"So you still refuse to confess?" said the magistrate at last. "You still maintain that your—extraordinary—order to let the red-haired waiter out, was given in good faith?"

"Yes, yes, yes, sir," the night watchman answered. "That very evening a new servant had joined the staff. I had not even set eyes on him. When I saw this—stranger——, I took him to be the servant who had been engaged the day before, and I told them to open the door for him. That is the real truth."

"And that is all?"

"That is positively all."

"We are only charging you with complicity," the magistrate went on, "for the man who touched the electric wires burned his hand; that is a strong point in your favour. And you also say that if the thief were put before you, you could recognise him?"

"Yes," said the man confidently.

"Good!" said M. Fuselier, and he signed to his clerk to call in another personage.

The clerk understood, and Gurn was brought in between two