Diane and Her Friends/The Twelve Green Russian Garnets
V
THE TWELVE GREEN RUSSIAN GARNETS
IT was called the "Hôtel d'ltalie et d'Angleterre." Why? Neither Italians nor Englishmen frequented it. Nor had M. Achille, its proprietor, ever visited these countries except in imagination. Why not "Peking and Timbuctoo?"
It possessed a terrace extending to the river, where it was a delight to dine on summer evenings, especially if one selected a table by the railing, from which one could see the reflections of the lights on the bridge and hear the lapping of little waves against the wall. Its front was overwhelmed by vines, which almost entirely obscured the letters of its Anglo-Italian appellation, and dropped their leaves and blossoms on the awning sheltering the tables on either side of the entrance.
Seated at one of these tables behind the protecting row of box trees, his hands clasped over his white waistcoat, Inspector Joly could observe people walking in the shade of the allée or gossiping on the stone seats. M. Joly preferred society to solitude. He loved movement and the sun. Under ordinary circumstances he would certainly have been amused at the little army of school-children, their knapsacks bulging with books, gathered in awe about the yellow omnibus, which, after so many fruitless journeys to the station beyond the bridge, had returned groaning under such a load of baggage that its passage beneath the low arch of the clock-tower had been accomplished only by a miracle of skill.
M. Achille was beside himself with importance. His entire first floor had been taken. When not adding to the confusion by the multiplicity of his orders, he stood in an attitude of silent contemplation which reminded one of the colored print in the salle-à-manger—Napoleon watching the preparations for the embarkation of the army at Boulogne.
All this tumult, however, failed to interest M. Joly. He was reflecting. He had come to Freyr to make an important arrest, and as his hand closed upon the criminal an order from Paris had set this criminal free. M. Joly respected authority, but he was annoyed. He did not approve of pardons. Society was of more importance than the individual. According to his theory, when one has once definitely entered the criminal class one remains there. To open the cage door is to let loose the hawk. For the woman who had set the machinery of mercy in motion, however, he had conceived a profound respect, having fallen in twenty-four hours under the spell of that public sentiment of Freyr which took it for granted that whatever the Countess Anne did was right. Sitting alone behind the box trees, M. Joly shrugged his shoulders with the air of Pilate washing his hands of all responsibility.
Meanwhile a valet de chambre in a green apron, having dismantled the pyramid of baggage of the lesser objects which decorated its sides, assisted by the driver of the yellow omnibus, was attacking the enormous trunks which formed its core.
"Yes," M. Achille was saying in answer to a question from the sergent de ville, "an American family—monsieur, his secretary, madame, mademoiselle, the valet of monsieur, and two maids."
"Sapristi! it is a caravan," commented the sergent. "From America! from Brazil probably, or Chile!"
"No, from North America, from New York."
"Ah, what a people! to incommode themselves, to cross the sea—"
"Nowadays it is nothing," interrupted M. Achille loftily.
"There is always the danger of shipwreck, to say nothing of seasickness. I prefer travel by land," persisted the sergent, whose journeying, to and fro, under the lindens of the allée, resembled those of the pendulum.
If M. Joly observed and heard all this, it was from force of habit, for he gave no sign. Mechanically he looked at his watch—two o'clock; there was still an hour before the train. Rising, he took a few turns back and forth under the awning, still preoccupied, his hands crossed behind him. On the terrace a young officer was reading the feuilleton of the "Écho de Paris." At his feet a little girl with a wooden shovel was excavating for hidden treasure, regardless of the consequences to her white frock. Leaning against his chair was a red parasol, whose owner was crumbling M. Achille's bread to the minnows at the foot of the wall, her pointed shoes projecting through the railing. The picture was a pretty one and M. Joly adored the picturesque. When off duty, as it were, he found infinite relief in idealizing. Seeing him contemplating this scene, one expected to hear him exclaim, "Que c'est beau, l'amour et la paix!" But he only shrugged his shoulders again, crossed the terrace to the bureau, and demanded his bill.
"Monsieur does not wait for the omnibus?"
"No, I prefer to walk."
Just beyond the box trees, leaning amicably against the side wall of M. Achille's establishment, was a little shop of one story bearing the sign "Perrin—Antiquaire." M. Joly stopped before its one dingy window, not because he was interested in antiquities, but because he had time to spare, when suddenly his round eyes, wandering over the motley collection of bric-à-brac, became fixed, riveted, upon an object suspended by a string from one of the shelves. It was a Japanese gold coin, rectangular in shape, surrounded by twelve green Russian garnets.
M. Joly had an astonishing memory, which stored up automatically impressions of no apparent importance. This lumber-house of unforgotten things, so invaluable to one of his profession, had not infrequently afforded him precious assistance. At this moment he had precisely the air of a man searching for something in a heap of rubbish. Yes! now he remembered. The recollections evoked by this object dangling from its string had arranged themselves in their proper places. Madame Raymonde, living in the Impasse Bertrand,—one of those pieces of wreckage, the press had said, which storms leave stranded in obscure places,—found dead one morning in her room. The medical examiner had reported death from natural causes, the autopsy having revealed a weak heart. The dead woman had no known enemies, no visitors, no acquaintances even. Robbery was impossible, for she possessed nothing. So the affair was forgotten.
But M. Joly had not forgotten. Standing before this window, his eyes half closed, he had succeeded in dragging out from his storehouse a fact to which these green garnets gave a new significance. Contrary to all the evidence, a neighbor occupying an adjoining room had insisted that Madame Raymonde's death was not a natural one. Why? Had she seen any one? No. Had she heard anything? No. But Madame Raymonde possessed a jewel and this jewel had disappeared. She had seen it once only, by accident, when madame was dressing, concealed in her bosom beneath her dress, and could therefore give but the vaguest description of it; but on one point she was persistent—it was of gold, with a border of stones like green flames. This theory, contributed by an outsider, the police treated with scant courtesy. The story was pronounced incredible and the jewel a myth. Jewels were invented for display, not concealment. There was nothing to prove that madame possessed any such ornament at the time of her death. No one else had seen it, and it was impossible to possess what never had been seen.
M. Joly smiled as he recalled this conclusion. Professional pride did not prevent him from smiling in secret at the mistakes of his colleagues. Was it, indeed, a mistake? One circumstance certainly had given body to suspicion. According to the version in the press, just before her death Madame Raymonde had engaged a bonne and this bonne had disappeared as completely as the jewel. It was not possible to pronounce the bonne also a myth, yet every effort to discover her had proved fruitless, and M. Joly knew from experience that when the police do not succeed they forget. He admitted that to connect this bit of jewelry with the events of the Impasse Bertrand was a pure speculation; but, methodical as he was, he believed in irresistible impulses—and opened M. Perrin's door.
For a quarter of an hour he examined in turn a Zaghwan embroidery, a Louis XV snuffbox, a decanter of La Granja glass, learning in the meanwhile that M. Perrin had an establishment in Paris, 117 Rue Lafayette. About to take his leave, he paused a moment at the window.
"It is curious, this," he said, detaching the garnet pin from its string.
"It is nothing, it is modern," remarked the shopkeeper, reaching for a chain of seed-pearls spaced with Indian amethysts.
"But it amuses me. At what do you value it?"
"Two hundred francs."
"Come, now, these are garnets, not emeralds." M. Joly was an expert in precious stones.
"That is true," admitted M. Perrin, with increased respect, "but—"
"You have a record of your purchases," interrupted M. Joly curtly.
"Certainly."
"That is prudent. Let us see it. Here is my card."
Having adjusted his spectacles and examined the card, the hesitation of M. Perrin disappeared.
No. 1798. Bought of Jean Dufresnes, concierge, 5 Impasse Bertrand.
Then followed the date and a character in cipher indicating the price.
"Good," said M. Joly, taking a hundred-franc note from the folds of his pocketbook and putting in its place the garnet pin. "You have your professional secrets and I have mine. Good-day, Monsieur Perrin."
"Good-day, Monsieur l'Inspecteur."
Alone in the compartment of a second-class carriage M. Joly smiled again. He stood for a while at the window watching the receding meadows of Freyr, then ensconcing himself in a corner opened his pocketbook. It was most certainly a curious thing—this Japanese coin, with its strange characters and green garnets ranged along its sides. No jeweler would invent a combination so unconventional, so meaningless. And precisely because so unconventional, it must have a meaning—a meaning due to some exceptional circumstance, some personal experience, which it was perhaps designed as a gift to commemorate and keep in perpetual remembrance. Why else should this strange ornament lie concealed in a woman's bosom? M. Joly did not share with some of his colleagues their scorn for speculation. For the very reason that certain facts were missing he found speculation a necessity. He maintained that the role of the imagination was as important for him as for the scientist, whose hypothesis is a fire-ball thrown out into the outlying dark—to illuminate that darkness, not to attract attention to itself by its own brilliancy. His preliminary inspection completed, he took out his microscope. Ah! by turning slightly one of the garnets a spring was released and the back slid gently in its grooves. Inside? Nothing. His curiosity satisfied, he composed himself in his corner, folded his hands, closed his eyes, and went to sleep.
{[dhr]} When M. Joly inquired for the concierge at No. 5 Impasse Bertrand an old man sitting before the doorway in the sun rose and took off his hat.
"You are Monsieur Dufresnes?"
"At your service, monsieur."
The man leaned heavily upon a stick, his hat trembling in his hand. Beneath his thin white hair a pair of faded blue eyes produced in M. Joly a kind of shock, for this benevolent face assuredly did not conform to the criminal type. In abandoning one theory M. Joly said to himself, "Come, come, now you are forming another." Then aloud, "You have been here a long time?"
"A long time, monsieur."
"Perhaps, then, you can tell me something about one of your former lodgers. "
"It is possible."
"Madame Raymonde."
"Ah."
"Why do you say 'ah'?"
"Your pardon, but—you knew Madame Raymonde?"
"Let us say I am a relation," said M. Joly.
M. Dufresnes made no reply. He seemed dazed, looking toward the door of the lodge as if appealing for help.
"Shall we go in?" said M. Joly, leading the way.
A woman was standing before the charcoal fire, a spoon in her hand. "My wife," said M. Dufresnes. She was much younger than he. Her face retained a certain freshness. It was a pleasant face, even a happy one. "Marie, monsieur is a relation of Madame Raymonde. He has come to make some inquiries."
"Ah." The woman laid down her spoon, wiping her hand on her apron.
"Why do you say 'ah'?" repeated. M. Joly.
"I did not know that Madame Raymonde had any relations."
"One always has relations," smiled Monsieur Joly.
"That is true," observed M. Dufresnes.
His wife gave him a quick glance of impatience. In the pause which followed, a clock ticking conscientiously on the mantel seemed to be saying, "What next! what next!"
"She died very suddenly," remarked M. Joly, taking a chair.
"What is it you wish to know?" exclaimed the woman, almost fiercely, approaching her visitor, her hands on her hips.
"It is so dark here. Shall we have a little light?" M. Joly spoke in his most affable manner. There was but one small window and he abhorred shadows. The woman obeyed sullenly, placing the lamp on the table among the vegetables laid out for the evening soup.
ONE ALWAYS HAS RELATIONS
"What do I wish to know?" repeated M. Joly, taking from his pocketbook the green garnet pin and laying it softly beside the lamp on the table. "I wish to know what price Monsieur Perrin paid you for this."
M. Dufresnes's eyes were glued upon the garnets, shining in the dull light of the lamp; his wife's, fixed upon M. Joly, asked, "Who are you and what do you want?"
"I am Inspector Joly," he said.
The woman's eyes filled with anxiety. Even to the innocent the presence of the police is disturbing. One begins to imagine vaguely some unsuspected danger, some forgotten incident, some terrible mistake. Suspicion affrights innocence as accusation terrifies guilt.
"Your husband is ill."
The woman turned quickly, leading the trembling man to the recess, where he sank into a chair. "It is nothing," she said reassuringly; "I will talk with monsieur."
M. Joly was perplexed by the collapse of the man, by the calmness of the woman, standing between him and the alcove in the attitude of an animal defending its young.
"Sit down," he said politely.
She took the chair indicated, waiting, her hands folded in her lap, as if to say: "Interrogate me."
"Well, proceed," said M. Joly. There was in his tone none of the authority with which he had addressed the shopman. "Tell me all that you know about Madame Raymonde. You have nothing to fear."
She began without reserve, in a low voice and an accent of sincerity. The first shock of alarm gone, the words came freely, as from one who, long troubled by some secret burden, had expected the hour of deliverance.
"Madame came alone, in May. She lived very quietly, doing her own work, going out always at nightfall to make her purchases."
"The evening is not a favorable time to visit the markets," observed M. Joly.
"That is true. I also remarked that. But madame was not communicative. If I questioned her she became silent. Regularly every week she paid the rent. At other times, in passing, she would say, 'Good-evening, Madame Dufresnes,' and I, 'Good-evening, Madame Raymonde,' that was all. The only person in whom she showed interest was my little Rosalie, whom she would send for whenever possible. Often I asked, 'What does Madame Raymonde say to you up there, Rosalie?' 'She sews, and kisses me and tells me stories.' 'What stories?' 'Of great plains and forests where are wolves and much snow.'"
"She was a Russian?"
"I do not know, monsieur. She spoke French as I do. At first she was not cheerful. She had always the same anxious expression. Afterward she became more tranquil and smiled at me in passing. 'Madame is better,' I said to her one day. 'I shall leave you this week; I am going home,' she replied gayly. That evening when she returned she was much agitated. It was the 11th of June. I remember the day well because on Sunday of that week my Rosalie went to her first communion. It was not her habit to come into the lodge. I thought she had received some bad news. 'What has happened?' I said to her, seeing her look about like an animal that is hunted. She took my hands in hers, which were cold. 'Dear madame,' she said, 'I beg of you to listen to me'; then she took this"—Madame Dufresnes touched the garnet pin—"from beneath her dress, opened it, and showed me a paper within. 'If anything should happen to me—' 'What should happen to you, madame?' I said. Her manner terrified me. 'No one can tell what may happen. Is it so uncommon a thing to die? See, this is how it opens,' showing me and pressing the pin into my hand; 'promise me, if anything should happen, to deliver this paper to-morrow to the person whose address is written on the back.' What could I do! At such moments one promises everything. I thought her mad. Well, I promised; she embraced me and was gone. Afterward I regretted. I said to myself: 'If, indeed, something should happen, something terrible! It is better not to be mixed up in such matters.' Scarcely had she gone when a woman came asking for Madame Raymonde. 'The fourth floor, the door to the right,' I said. It was so sudden, so unexpected, I answered from habit. The jewel was still in my hand. But I collected myself. 'I think she is ill,' I said; 'I will go and see.' 'Certainly she is ill,' replied the woman; 'I am the bonne she has sent for,' and she went up the stairs. I told my husband it was strange madame had not informed me that this bonne should come. 'Why do you always worry about the affairs of other people?' he said. Nevertheless, all the night I reproached myself for allowing that woman to enter. But you know how it is, monsieur, when one is concierge. Some one comes, asks for some one, and one answers. Early in the morning I said to Rosalie, 'Go and see if anything is wrong with Madame Raymonde; there is a bonne there; ask if madame is ill.' When the child came back she said she had knocked, that there was no sound within. Ah, then I was truly alarmed. I called my husband. It was quite true, as Rosalie had said, there was no sound. The door was not locked; we went in together. The bonne was not there. Madame was alone in bed. I touched her; she was dead. My husband ran into the street. I called for help. Then the police came, the doctor—the whole house was in an uproar."
The woman paused, as though she expected to be questioned.
"Go on," said M. Joly.
"The next day I went, as I had promised, to the Rue Saint-Denis, No. 219—the address on the paper. It was the 12th of June. I asked for Monsieur Meller. 'Yes,' said the concierge, 'he arrived last night.' His room was under the roof. 'Monsieur,' I said, 'I have come from Madame Raymonde.' 'Madame Raymonde?' he replied; 'I do not know her.' 'But I have a message from her,' I said, opening my hand in which was the pin. On seeing it, instantly his manner changed. 'It is well,' he said. Then I took out the paper, as madame had shown me, and gave it to him—but he did not look at it. 'Go,' he said; 'it is not good for you to be seen here.' I was so agitated I could not speak, even to say Madame Raymonde was dead. I was astonished also that he did not take the jewel."
She stopped abruptly.
"And you did not see what was written on this paper?"
"No, monsieur."
"That is all?"
"That is all, monsieur."
"And you said nothing to any one?"
"Why should I say anything? Did I know anything? All these events terrified me."
"You were not afraid to dispose of this?" asked M. Joly, replacing the garnet pin in his pocketbook.
"My husband said: 'Why not? No one knows of it. We will add the money to the dot of Rosalie.' It is the truth, monsieur."
M. Joly was buttoning up his coat. "I believe you," he said, simply.
"The devil!" he exclaimed, on the way home, "I forgot to ask how much Monsieur Perrin contributed to the dot of Rosalie."
Madame Joly generally shared her husband's professional perplexities. In this instance he had kept silent, all because of the hundred francs paid M. Perrin. It would, he knew, be impossible to explain how the green garnets came to occupy a place in his pocketbook without mentioning that sum. It must not be supposed that these two were not of one mind. On the contrary, the same ambition animated them both, this ambition being a sort of castle in Spain to be realized when, at a certain indefinite age, M. Joly should retire from active work. Having no children, all their economies had this castle in Spain in view—a little villa, in a garden, inclosed by a high wall. Every night, after pulling his nightcap well over his ears and closing his eyes, M. Joly took a key from his pocket, and having paused just long enough to read the word "Monrepos" in white letters on a blue ground beside the gate, opened the latter cautiously and closed it proudly behind him. Straight before him was a gravel path, with a basin midway between the gate and the house. Other paths meandered between parterres—to each one of which he had assigned its particular arrangement of flowers—on one side to an arbor where he would pause again to sip an imaginary syrup or smoke an imaginary cigar; on the other to a well, destined to furnish the water necessary for the plants. Having finished his cigar and listened to the music of the fountain, M Joly began his duties as gardener, and all this required so much time that he invariably fell asleep before reaching the perron of the house—which thus remained a veritable castle in Spain.
But, on the night of his return from the Impasse Bertrand, he was not thinking of "Monrepos." Who was this woman without resources who paid her rent regularly and whose death, originally the sole object of his inquiries, opened the door to a greater mystery? What was the message, so jealously guarded, delivered to the lodger of the Rue Saint-Denis? Long after Madame Joly had fallen asleep he groped alone in the obscurity of conjectures. He knew that he was not dealing with the amateur who blunders into the clutches of the police as a young partridge flutters into the jaws of the fox; nor with the ordinary criminal who, destitute of originality, commits over and over the same crimes from the same motives by the same methods, and whose capture is only an incident of professional routine.
MONREPOS
M. Joly sometimes obeyed impulses, but he did not wait for them; nor did he trust to chance. He began, therefore, a careful investigation of No. 219 Rue Saint-Denis. Within a week the name, age, occupation, associates, habits of its every occupant were in his possession. Among these names was that of M. Meller. The information concerning the latter was incomplete. Was he a commercial traveler? For he was to be seen only for a few days, usually about the middle of the month, and in the interim disappeared completely from sight. M. Joly contended that his best thoughts came, not logically from established facts, but from God knows where—motherless and fatherless offspring. It was thus that the idea came to him to call upon M. Meller on the 12th of the month. He treated this idea at first with contempt, then with incredulity, and finally, seeing that it refused to depart, he adopted and justified it. Madame Dufresnes had delivered the message on that date—M. Meller was in the habit of returning the middle of the month—and about the Japanese coin were twelve Russian garnets. His ordinary procedure would have been to examine M. Meller's room in his absence. One often obtains interesting information from a room whose tenant is absent. But he resisted this temptation, and on the morning of the 12th descended the slope of the Boulevard and turned into the Rue Saint-Denis. Believing with Napoleon that Providence is on the side of the stronger battalions, he took with him two agents of the secret service.
Yes, M. Meller occupied a room on the court, the fourth floor. Yes, M. Meller was in. "Shall I accompany monsieur?" added the concierge.
"I don't need you," said M. Joly.
"Very well—the second door from the landing, on the left."
At the head of the stairs, M. Joly said to the agents: "You will remain in the corridor. Should I need you, I will call."
At the door he knocked gently.
"Come in," said a voice.
He turned the knob, went in, and closed the door behind him. A man was sitting at a table, reading. M. Joly observed him attentively—a slight figure, narrow-chested, with stooping shoulders, reassuringly insignificant. On the pale face, however, was written tenacity and resolution.
"Monsieur Meller?"
"That is my name."
M. Joly took out his pocketbook. He had quite the manner of a lawyer announcing to some poor devil an unexpected legacy.
"Permit me to sit down," he said, drawing a chair to the opposite side of the table. "I have a message for you." At the sight of the garnet pin the man started, but said nothing. "Here it is." M. Joly released the spring carefully and took out a small roll of paper.
"Very well," said the man, without moving.
"But, monsieur, I beg you to examine it. Such were my instructions."
The man hesitated, then opened the roll. As he proceeded his face assumed a deadly pallor—the paper was a blank. He sprang trembling to his feet.
"Sit down, monsieur," said M. Joly, taking a pistol from his pocket and laying it on the table before him. The man uttered a groan that was terrible. He was not looking at M. Joly. He appeared to be invoking an invisible presence.
"Sit down," thundered M. Joly. "Do you wish me to put a hole through you?"
"If you wish, fire." The voice was that of a man indifferent to consequences, because hopelessly trapped. At the same instant he carried his hand quickly to his waistcoat pocket.
"Ah, wretch!" shouted M. Joly, dashing aside the table and seizing the man's wrist. "Help! help!"
At his cry the agents burst open the door. To their amazement they saw a man, his arms pinioned to his sides, in the strong grasp of their chief. The next moment this man lay panting on the floor, helpless, handcuffed, his feet bound. Beside him was a broken vial from which exhaled the bitter odor of almonds.
"Dame!" muttered M. Joly, wiping the perspiration from his brow, "here is another who came near having a weak heart."
"You are hurt, Monsieur l'Inspecteur?"
He shook them off roughly. "Ah, rascal!" apostrophizing the figure on the floor, "we nearly made a mess of it." He examined the room feverishly—the closet, in which hung only an overcoat, a wooden box studded with nails, containing a few insignificant articles of wearing apparel. The drawer of the table was empty, the book, a second-hand copy of "Monte Cristo." Watching these proceedings, the man on the floor smiled. In his pockets—nothing. Beside the broken vial lay the garnet pin and near by the pistol. M. Joly replaced these in the deep pocket of his overcoat. Then he sat down, in his customary attitude, his hands clasped over his waistcoat. His little plan had miscarried. He had expected to discover something, and he had discovered nothing. Often perplexed, for the first time in his career he was bewildered. But he understood now the sudden death of Madame Raymonde. What people! to bar with their own bodies, like desperate defenders of a fortress, the approach of the enemy. And this fortress which they defended, what did it contain?
The man's eyes were closed now. M. Joly, who had put on his hat, took it off, gazing at the pale face with involuntary respect.
A timid knock interrupted his reflections. Opening the door, he saw his own servant.
"Monsieur, madame wishes me to tell you that Monsieur le Préfet has sent for you, and that it is urgent."
"Good," replied M. Joly gruffly, shutting the door in the girl's face.
Although her husband had never received that thrust of the knife in the back, the fear of which often kept Madame Joly awake while her consort was watering the flowers of "Monrepos," yet she had never permitted him to leave his apartment without extracting from him the secret of his destination. While she was brushing his coat and straightening his cravat, there invariably occurred the following colloquy: "At what time will you return?" "Really, now, how should I know?" "You are going—?" "How can I tell! you know very well—" "But if any one should inquire for you." "True," and here M. Joly would confess his destination; after which madame would say, "Be prudent," and he would answer, "Assuredly." It was thus that the message from the prefect came to be delivered in the Rue Saint-Denis.
"Remain here, touch nothing," he said to the agents, "and"—pointing to the body on the floor—"pay attention; he is capable of something. I will go for the authorities."
On the way to the prefecture he was alternately elated and depressed. He held the end of a thread, that was certain; but he did not know where it led. What did M. Levigne want of him? Usually a summons of this kind meant some delicate mission. It was impossible that it should have any connection with the events which had just transpired, and to be interrupted in this manner, at a critical moment, annoyed him. He knew that the prefect thought well of him. He was not surprised, then, when his name was announced, to hear the familiar words: "Ah, it is Monsieur Joly. Let him enter."
M. Levigne was writing. He did not look up, nor did he cease writing. In the far corner of the room sat a woman, to whom, as etiquette required, M. Joly paid no attention. The silence, broken only by the scratching of the quill pen, was disconcerting. It was a reception to which he was not accustomed.
"It seems," said M. Levigne, at length, "that you are interested in the affair of the Impasse Bertrand."
"The devil!" thought M. Joly, "the place was watched."
"That in your leisure moments"—M. Joly winced at the fine note of irony in the prefect's voice—"you are making inquiries for a woman who disappeared there. Well"—with a wave of the pen to the figure behind him—"here she is. "
M. Joly began to understand why the disappearance of this woman had failed to excite the zeal of the police. He began also to realize the excess of his own. It was an excellent opportunity, however, to display his mastery of surprise, therefore he remained immobile and silent.
"We are not so stupid here." For the first time M. Levigne laid down his pen and, leaning back in his chair, fixed his eyes upon the inspector. "I repeat, we are not so stupid here as some appear to believe. We do not run after our own agents. Furthermore, we have better employment for your leisure." He paused, as if to allow these words to sink the deeper into M. Joly's consciousness. A vision of "Monrepos" receding into the distance passed before the latter's eyes. "These preliminaries being settled," resumed M. Levigne, taking up a memorandum from his desk, "let us pass to certain facts of which you are ignorant. On the 2d of May it came to our knowledge that the Paris representative of the Russian police was selected for assassination; that a member of the Central Committee in St. Petersburg, with instructions for its agent here, would arrive by the express of the 5th. Unfortunately this person—"
"Madame Raymonde!" muttered M. Joly, under his breath.
"What do you say?"
"I said, 'I understand,' Monsieur le Préfet."
"Unfortunately this person left the train beyond the frontier and for a time eluded us—madame will explain to you in what manner. We had counseled our Russian colleague to go and amuse himself elsewhere for a time. But he has returned, and it seems the farce is about to recommence. It would be mortifying to invite this gentleman to take so soon another vacation. What you have to do is to discover and apprehend this agent. I say apprehend, for these people have an inconvenient way of eluding the interrogations of justice. Madame, here, has given us a body—what we want is a man."
"I have both," said M. Joly.
"You have both! What do you mean? "
"I mean, Monsieur le Préfet, that the agent you seek is called Meller; that at this moment he lies on the floor of a room in the Rue Saint-Denis, No. 219, bound hand and foot and is at your service."
"Not possible!" exclaimed the prefect, less skillful than his subordinate in mastering surprise. "Explain yourself."
Concisely, modestly, as if making a commonplace report, M. Joly related the story of the green garnets from the hour when he first saw them dangling from the shelf in M. Perrin's window till, having finished his recital, he laid them respectfully on the prefect's desk.
M. Levigne examined them attentively, released the spring, and closed it again, with a deep sigh of mingled relief and astonishment.
"You have done a good piece of work, Monsieur Joly. For the present this belongs to the State. But we shall not forget you."
"Monsieur le Préfet," said M. Joly, twisting his hat in his hand, "if I might repeat a remark you have just deigned to make—"
"Repeat it."
"That we are not so stupid here as some would appear to believe."