Hugger-Mugger in the Louvre (15 page)

To say that the anecdote had a bracing effect on the Alsatian would be beggarly, indeed. “Why, that's a perfect motive for the crime,” he shouted, fishing around for buttons to press and, in his excitement, getting his right hand glued up in a pan of a sticky substance the nature of which Toudoux would not have even dared to hazard a guess about. “And this Lazare, who acted so suspiciously in the presence of the corpse, spends his time embalming all kinds of gruesome animals. Of course he's our man, the ideal suspect. Why did no one inform me before about his grievance against the Marquis and all the family? No doubt he's been brooding and scheming all these years.”

The doctor was aghast, and did what he could to defend the taxidermist, but nothing he could say was effective. Within five minutes the dragnet was spread and officers were galloping up the steep stairs of the Hotel du Caveau, where, finding their quarry had fled, they completed the disarray of notebooks, plans, specimens, relics and papers. Coincidentally the flimsy grille had been crashed and the door forced open of the shop
Au Sens de Mesur
in the
place
St. André des Arts and another squad of policemen was peering behind stuffed zebras, cassowaries, tigers, loons and adjutant cranes, in the hope that the proprietor had hidden himself in his place of business, which they found not at all banal.

After those initial failures had been reported, the chase became general and spread to all quarters of Paris. Old men with sparse gray hair were spotted and inconvenienced, until the numbers of them ran into the hundreds, and all young American girls wearing blue tailored clothes were questioned and asked for passports and identity cards. All but thirty-six of them were able to convince the officers that they were not Mademoiselle Montana, and none of them was carrying a gun, but the unlucky three dozen were taken to the prefecture where Schlumberger, dreading the press interview that was imminent, could not tell one from the other and in desperation ordered all of them to be held.

Miriam, filled with compassion for the demoralized Lazare, had taken him to Evans' apartment where, after almost exhausting the resources of her gentle nature, she had calmed the old man to the point where he was able to sit quietly in a chair. There, she had told him that she knew about the tragedy of his youth, the mention of which set him off again. Lazare tried to control himself, but the wound was too deep and too raw. When for a second time Miriam had quieted him, she sat down at the piano and began to play. She tried Mozart, Bach and Haydn, with negligible effect. The taxidermist responded slowly to musical therapy. At her wits' end, Miriam suddenly remembered a piece she had learned from the Seek and Ye Shall Find Correspondence School, which, before she had come abroad to study, had mailed her lessons all the way from Omaha to the Montana ranch. The title of the piece was the
Ben Hur Chariot Race.

At the sound of the stirring introduction, Lazare began to blink and twiddle his fingers, much as Miriam's father had done under similar circumstances. Before the chariots were neck and neck, it seemed to the girl that her charge was working himself slowly away from the deep end. She redoubled her efforts. First Ben was ahead, then the other chap. They were rounding the bend on one wheel . . .

The door burst open and four officers in uniform bustled into the hallway, followed by Evans' indignant concierge. The close finish of the chariot race had drowned out their knocking. That both Miriam's hands and her mind were fully occupied undoubtedly saved the lives of all five of the intruders. Her gun was ready in its holster but she saw the color of the uniforms and controlled her reflexes in time.

“What does this mean?” she asked, her eyes blazing.

Two officers had already laid hands on Lazare and when they told him he was wanted in connection with a murder, the old man suffered a relapse. Cringing and muttering, and acting in every way as a trapped culprit is supposed to act just before his confession, Lazare was bundled into a police car, handcuffed and whisked away to the prefecture. Miriam followed in another vehicle and the ride was so short that, on the way, she was able to tell the officers only a part of what she thought of them.

Schlumberger, with an air of reproachful dignity, was closeted with the gentlemen of the press. He told them about finding the mutilated remains of the Marquis de la Rose d'Antan, wrapped in yards of linen and hidden in a mummy case. Then he regaled them with a recital of the behavior of Lazare, taxidermist of the
place
St. André des Arts, of his deep grudge against the family of the late Marquis, and the evidences in his room and his shop, of how he had studied feverishly the mysteries and questionable practices of the ancient Egyptians. The official photographer passed out prints of the body, before and after unwrapping, with painted mummy cases and relics in the background. The reporters apologized profusely for their shabby treatment of Schlumberger the day before and promised him full credit on the morrow. As they were filing out, they met the officers bringing in Lazare, more dead than alive. The policemen who had found the wanted taxidermist cowering in a Montparnasse apartment were questioned, and flashlights illumined the dim corridor as the old man was hustled into the Goldfish Bowl. Miriam, who was determined to carry out Evans' instructions and stick close to the old man, insisted on being allowed to occupy the adjacent cell.

Meanwhile, Homer Evans, not suspecting what had happened to Lazare, or that he, himself, was wearing the clothes of the defunct gangster, made his way to the
rue
de la Huchette. The Hotel du Caveau, the host of which was the gay Savoyard, M. Henri Julliard, stood back to back to the buildings in which was the Bal St. Severin. Up to the time of the gang's exposure, the Bal St. Severin had been the headquarters of the St. Julien Rollers. M. Julliard listened with great interest to Evans' story of the shooting in the
place
Dauphine, once he had got over his astonishment at the perfection of Homer's disguise. And the Savoyard, after consulting his Serbian
garçon,
who knew everything that took place in the quarter, had two items to contribute. The St. Julien Rollers had reorganized, and were being led by a mysterious man called Le Singe (The Monkey) who kept himself completely out of sight. And the new headquarters were not far away, because a girl named Nicole, who consorted with the gangsters, still lived in Julliard's hotel.

“Here's a letter for her now,” the Savoyard said, indicating a plain manila envelope, carefully lined with purple tissue paper. “It came in this morning,” the hotel keeper added.

“I'm going out to find Nicole. Could I deliver the letter to her?” Evans asked. “If I don't find her, I'll bring it right back.”

“Why not? But don't lose it,” M. Julliard said.

With the letter in his pocket, Homer gave just the right twist to his incredible cap and started for the
place
de la Contrescarpe, where, on entering the Hotel Murphy et du Danube Bleu, he startled Bridgette Murphy so badly that she attacked him with a broomstick. Once having been admitted, his appearance proved no more reassuring to Hydrangea, who was lying face downward on the bed and moaning when, in response to her invitation, he opened the door and went in.

After a few comforting words which soothed the sorrowing ex-Blackbird to the point where she hurried to the washstand to bathe her eyes and arrange her hair, Evans sat down at the back window and tried to put himself in Frémont's frame of mind. Harassed by enforced proximity to objects of art, and especially oil paintings, and unnerved by Evans' own suggestion that back of the theft of
The Pansy
was a malicious master mind, the chief of detectives had been too distraught for sleep. He had gone to the window for a breath of air, looked out, and . . . at that moment Evans caught sight of the Bal des Vêtements Brulés. There were other buildings in view: a parochial school with a high-walled yard and half-grown trees, a residence or two that once had been respectable but had fallen into disrepair, a store in which were sold articles of piety, and a fruit and vegetable stand. Among all those, the dance hall held Homer's keen attention.

“What did the Chief say, when he came in last night?” Evans asked.

“The poor man was too exhausted to say a word,” Hydrangea said. “I rubbed his head with this tonic . . . Smell it. . . .” She held out the bottle, unstoppered, and Evans sniffed. It was not for him, or any Anglo-Saxon, but if the Chief liked it, why spoil his fun? Homer thought.

“What time does the dance hall close?” he asked.

“Two o'clock,” Hydrangea said. “That's when the music stops. Sometimes they keep on talking and drinking for hours after that. I don't mind. Let 'em make all the noise they like. It reminds me of Harlem, on a warm summer night. Don't tell the Chief that, though. He's scared sick that I'll go back some time.”

There was no shaking either Hydrangea's or Bridgette Murphy's stories. The former repeated that Frémont had come in at three o'clock, and had walked all the way from the prefecture, the Franco-Irish proprietress insisted she had seen him enter hurriedly at five-thirty, leaving a taxi ticking at the door. Both tales were true, Evans felt sure, and based his conjectures accordingly. Frémont had seen something that drew him from his sweetheart's bedroom and brought him back there later. What could it have been? At that moment the orchestra of the Bal des Vêtements Brulés hit up the first tune of their afternoon grind, a popular Java with words containing much sound sense, to the effect that one cannot tell from where one is sitting, how one's picture is going to turn out. The moment had come, decided Evans, to investigate the dance hall and its clientele.

Tom Jackson, Hjalmar and Lvov Kvek were showing admirable restraint, and when Homer found them, in the small cafe near Bridgette's hotel, they were as sober as they ever needed to be. The reporter had called the day city editor and by giving him the story about the Marquis de la Rose d'Antan had got another feeble clutch on his job. The editor, however, had refused to let him follow up the case, saying that the
Herald
would clip the murder news from the French papers, and had given him an assignment he had accepted with relief. He had been instructed to find K. Parker Seldon, chairman of the board of directors of the American Jar and Bottle Corporation and ask his opinion about the five-point drop in Jar and Bottle stock that had occurred the day before.

“Don't come back until you find him,” the editor had said. “The boss has bottle stock, and he's tearing his hair.”

“I'll hold you to that,” Jackson had said, and smiled for the first time that day.

Evans' plan for entering the Bal des Vêtements Brulés was as follows: Hjalmar, who was most convincing in his underworld disguise, and who had a slight edge on the lusty Kvek in throwing the hammer, the discus, cops, siphons or whatever needed throwing, was to enter first, alone, and take a seat as near the door as possible, with his back to the wall. He was to appear drowsy and show no signs of paying attention to what was going on, until he got a signal from Evans.

The big Norwegian started down the slight incline of the
rue
Cardinal Lemoine toward the entrance of the Bal des Vêtements Brulés, whistling somewhat gaily for a drowsy man, but otherwise in character. The fight at the Dôme the evening before had raised his spirits, he had passed a comfortable night at the prefecture, the discovery that the mummy in the Louvre was a dead Marquis had given promise of further adventure. In short, Hjalmar was himself again and vowed, as he walked and whistled, that when the present case was over he would paint whiskers as whiskers had never been painted before. He pushed the swinging doors, swept the assembled dancers and drinkers with a noncommittal glance, and selected a small table near the entrance and not too far from the bar, behind which the proprietor, M. Trouvaille, was pouring drinks in the best French style, so that they overran the brim of the glass, messed up the tray, the table and the drinker's clothes and fingers. Noticing Trouvaille's technique, the big painter ordered cognac, which evaporates quickly and is not very sticky.

The sharp-edged voice of the accordion, tracing variations on a popular air, was abetted by a brace of shrill violins. A drummer was doing what he could with the snare, the bass drum, cymbals and a modest array of kitchen utensils. A shuffling sound arose from the floor, where several pairs of dancers were locked in picturesque postures.

“They keep good time,” Hjalmar said, for he liked to dance as well as he liked to paint, and for such a big man was light on his feet.

According to the plan, Tom Jackson, as a prosperous and reckless American, and Kvek as a Russian doorman who was acting as his protector were to come in several minutes later, after the customers had got accustomed to seeing Hjalmar around. So the latter, catching the eye of a dark-eyed curly-haired girl, decided he'd have time for one dance before his act went on. He walked over to the girl, rolling a bit from side to side because of his years at sea, and looked down, half-amused, at her escort, a slim pale young man with a face too old for his years and long nervous hands that twitched with disapproval.

“How about it?” Hjalmar asked.

The pale young man shot him a venemous look, tried to refuse, and lacking the nerve, gave the girl a slight shove in Hjalmar's direction.

“What's your name, kid?” Jansen asked, as they glided easily among the dancers.

“Nicole,” she said, raising the fringe of her long lashes as she looked up at his face. The other men dancing, having seen Nicole's former escort make a sign with his thumb, one by one left their girls in the middle of a measure and formed a hostile group near the door of the back room. After whispering there a moment, they found their girls again and finished the dance.

“That mug you were with is sore,” Hjalmar said, happily.

Nicole was not as cheerful about the situation. She might have communicated her misgivings to Hjalmar had not the music stopped at that moment, just as the swinging doors opened and Tom Jackson came in, followed closely by Lvov Kvek in Volga boatman's costume. In the general silence that followed, Tom Jackson yelled, “Whoopee.”