Hugger-Mugger in the Louvre (21 page)

“Now, you fatheads. Do I see The Singe, or don't I? I'm going to let one of you go, and if he doesn't come back with the man I want in five minutes, the other two get plugged. Understand? You can settle it between yourselves who goes and who stays, but quick. For that you get one minute,” Evans said, narrowing his eyes.

For three men who had their hands up, the gangsters put up a wonderful argument. No two of them, it appeared, were willing to take a chance on the third.

“All right, you, in the middle there. Get going.” Homer said. “Five minutes . . .”

“Have a heart. We can't make it in less than ten,” the middle gangster said. The others nodded confirmation.

“I'll make it eight, just to give these guys a break,” said Homer, indicating with his gun the pair he had selected to remain. “And time is called right now.” With that he kicked a sheet of steel that roared like a gong.

The messenger dived through the doorway and the others tried to plead with Evans to be lenient in the matter of time, and they did succeed in convincing him that The Singe was a good ten minutes' distance from the blacksmith's shop, allowing for a round trip. The relief of the captive pair, when footsteps were heard outside, was so eloquent that Evans could not keep from smiling.

A tall well-built Norman, sturdy and tanned and in early middle age stepped in brusquely. No doubt of it. He was the boss.

“Well?” he asked, his blue eyes cold in the lantern light, his voice steady.

“Thank God, here's a man one can talk sense to,” said Evans quite as cool and much more suave.

“Start talking,” The Singe said, ignoring completely the gun in Homer's hand.

Evans, not to be outdone, tossed the weapon to the floor between them. “Send these bloody fools away. I'll talk to nobody but you.”

“Get going,” The Singe said to the three bewildered Rollers and they had not received an order that season that had been as musical to their ears. They simply vanished. No other word is adequate.

“Well?” The Singe said again.

“Listen,” Evans said. “You've got the chief of detectives and you don't know what to do with him.”

“You talk, and make it fast,” The Singe said, non-committally.

“After all, what can you do with him? You can't bump him off. You can't let him go. Either way, you lose.”

“So what?”

“I am offering to take him off your hands, no questions asked.”

Even as cool a customer as The Singe could not hide a flicker of interest. “And who are you?”

“A friend of his.”

“The dick who sent my pals to Devil's Island,” said The Singe, but with little emotion.

“Do they like it down there?” Evans asked. “There must be lots of room.”

“You haven't got a thing on me,” said The Singe.

“You've only kidnapped the chief of detectives. That's all. What a droll idea. I thought better of you than that,” Evans said. “That's one of the few things even you know well that you can't get away with.”

The slur on The Singe's judgment was a little more than he could stand. Like other professionals, he took pride in his technique.

“What could I do? The damn fool stumbled in on my boys in the dark. One of them slugged him before he knew who it was. Anyone would have done the same.”

“I appreciate that you're not entirely to blame. Your boys are careless. One of them took a shot at me from a treetop. I hope you have cautioned the survivors about trying that again . . . But let's not quarrel. I'm making you a
bona fide
offer to take Frémont off your hands, and give you my word and his that the incident will be closed. I'm not after you, this time. I want at least two other fellows. Now think my proposition over. You've nothing to lose, and much to gain.”

The Singe was thinking hard, and there was much intelligence behind his steady eyes. It was apparent that it was not concerned with the brotherhood of man, but neither was it likely to muff a golden opportunity. The Singe was not simple enough to imagine that Evans had suddenly decided to do him a favor. And if Evans wanted Frémont badly enough to risk his life and good looks, he might be willing to raise the ante. Swiftly The Singe whipped into shape a counter proposition and one that would have done credit to a Richelieu.

“I'll tell you what I'll do,” he said. “I've got another duffer who's a drug on the market. Never mind who he is, but he's not a crook or anything. And he hasn't been missing so long that it can't be explained by a guy as bright as you seem to be.”

Evans nodded, and tried to restrain his laughter. He felt sure The Singe was referring to none other than Professor de la Poussière. But instead of appearing overanxious Homer resorted to poker tactics, although he despised the game.

“If I'm going to take two, you ought to do something for me,” said Homer.

“Go on,” said The Singe.

“There's a girl I've taken a fancy to, a kid named Nicole in the Bal des Vêtements Brulés. Do I get her too?”

The Singe searched his mind a moment, then nodded, and even brightened. “Why, sure,” he said. “To tell you the truth, I'm glad she's struck a bit of luck. She never was tough enough for my business.”

“You'll send word to the gang? I don't want her to be afraid to go out of doors.”

“Say, when I give a girl away, it don't mean maybe. And if she makes you any trouble, just let me know.”

“Thanks. I will,” said Evans. “Then it's a deal. I'll take Frémont and the other bozo, and for that I get Nicole.”

The Singe stepped forward and shook hands. “I don't know what your game is, but I'm not curious. How soon can you take this pair of guys?”

“Right away.”

“I'll fetch 'em,” The Singe said, and left the shop.

L
VOV
K
VEK
stood on the bank of the Seine, a limp card clutched in his hand, and eyed with dismay his dripping Volga boatman's costume. In the waning light of a quiet evening, in a strange locality, he was ruefully aware that it would not do. He must think, and for that purpose, he would have to get out of sight. Near by was an ivy-covered wall, six meters high, which seemed to enclose some sort of an imposing institution. Not far from the wall was a clump of trees. The Russian jumped for a sturdy limb, hauled himself upward and climbed into the thickest of the foliage, from which he could see over the wall and into a number of empty courtyards.

The period of exercise and recreation was short in the Sanitorium Sens Unique, and for the afternoon in question it was over. Dr. Balthazar Truc had found through long experience that if he kept his patients in good physical condition they gave more trouble to the guards, the nurses and himself. And furthermore, a
corpore sano
was more than likely to restore a
mens sana,
which put an end to fees.

Thus it was that Kvek, in a near-by tree and drying slowly, beset with questions as to how he should proceed, saw only the empty courtyards and a dim face or two behind heavily screened windows. He had swallowed a quantity of river water but that had not slaked his thirst. Neither did the words “K. Parker Seldon” on the card he had retrieved serve to make his forced inaction more bearable. His surprise and joy cannot be over-estimated when he saw, leaning from one of the unscreened windows, a familiar head and set of shapely shoulders. It was only by clutching his own throat tightly with his free hand that he choked off a wild cry of “Sofia Alexandrovna. Sonia, my pigeon. My lost cousin Sonshka.”

These were one and the same person, namely Sofia (or Sonia or Sonshka) Alexandrovna Dargomyzshkov, one of his first cousins, whose fate he had not known since she had escaped from Odessa, through Constantinople in 1917.

The sight of her, so radiant and clothed in white, prompted him to cross himself fervently and was nearly instrumental in causing him to fall from his perch in the tree. At once, he saw an objective. To get into communication with Sonia and, after embracing her and weeping, to ask her what she could do for him in the way of procuring suitable clothes.

Now Dr. Truc had taken elaborate precautions against any of his patients getting out of the Sanitorium Sens Unique, but had never found it necessary to guard against outsiders coming in. Working himself perilously from tree to tree, Lvov reached another limb which was only a meter from the wall around the courtyards. Unwrapping his long Volga boatman's sash, he tied one end firmly to the tree and threw the other inside the wall. It was the work of a moment for him to swing over to the wall and descend to within ten feet of the ground. From there he jumped down.

Sofia Alexandrovna was about to let out a shriek when she recognized her cousin Lvov, and nearly swooned with joy. She ran down the stairs, upsetting an attendant with a tray, and opening the door, beckoned Kvek to enter. Inside, they hastily wept and embraced and she led him through an unfrequented corridor and into her room. There they repeated with less haste and more fervor their embrace of reunion and mingled their tears with a torrent of whispered words. Eventually they got to the point where Lvov thought it best to explain his attire and his presence in the neighboring tree. At his mention of K. Parker Seldon and the sight of the damp calling card, Sofia's tear-stained face lighted up with fresh joy. By her woman's intuition, rather than any resemblance between the American business man described by Lvov and the game little party who had pummeled the doctor, the nurse arrived at a swift conclusion. She was sure that the new patient was the man her cousin sought.

Sofia Alexandrovna was impulsive, but she had a good head on her shoulders and immediately emphasized the need for caution. The man who tackled doctors and made nondescript noises had, she had learned from the records, been committed to Dr. Truc's care by a Paris official. The doctor, she knew, had never been known to slip up on the legal phases of his practice. To Lvov's appeal for clothes she was at loss for a reply. There were no men except the attendants who were of her cousin's stature. Then she thought of Gus. Gus would be on duty in a ward quite distant from his sleeping quarters, she knew. Hastily she left Kvek alone and in a few minutes returned with an outfit that, while it was not much of an improvement on the togs Lvov already had, was less conspicuous. Sofia knew that the doctor was short of male huskies. The spring and early summer are the seasons most often chosen by unfortunates to lose their minds and cut loose from drab reality. So the sanitorium had several new patients. Rapidly the cousin decided that Lvov should make his way outside, then present himself for employment and give Sofia as a reference. That would bring them together in a plausible way and obtain for Kvek the run of the institution.

A half hour later, Kvek, with certain pardonable misgivings, wearing Gus's clothes, pressed the bell at the outside gate and was ushered into the presence of Dr. Balthazar Truc, for whom the Russian felt an instantaneous aversion that almost amounted to a mania. The doctor, bruised and battered, had been thinking that he must put Gus in a ward where the patients were not so spry. He mistook Kvek's black looks for wholesome ferocity and hired him on the spot.

“I can give you as a reference my cousin, Sofia Dargomyzshkov,” Lvov said.

“Never mind references. Are you solid and strong?”

For answer, Lvov picked up a thick sheaf of index cards and tore the pack as if it were tissue paper.

“Those cards cost six francs fifty,” said the doctor, angrily. “That will be deducted from your first week's pay.” He was impressed, nonetheless, and promised himself that the obstreperous American, who was booked as S-K. Chaudron, nationality unknown, would promptly be discouraged from further demonstrations of dissatisfaction such as the one that had spoiled the doctor's morning and had lost for him at least three of the American Express checks.

It was just then that Hjalmar, roaring a ballad called “Samuel Hall,
^,,
and chagrined that he had so little to show for his voyage downstream, caught sight of the tower of Rouen and decided that it was time to awaken his companions.

“Where's Kvek?” he asked Tom Jackson, when the reporter sat up, reaching for his glasses.

“Oh, he must be around somewhere,” the reporter said.

“That's what I thought, but he isn't,” said Hjalmar, making a dash for the tiller to avoid a snag.

The big painter was alarmed at once, and so was Jackson as soon as he had roused himself enough to feel any emotion at all. In a panic, Hjalmar shoved over the tiller and the
Deuxieme Pays
nearly snapped off her rudder in making a sharp U turn.

In the blacksmith's shop, on the outskirts of Luneville, Homer Evans was waiting in the gathering darkness for the delivery of The Singe's two prisoners, and he didn't have long to wait. A nondescript car drove down the lane, without lights and turned in between two clumps of alders. The Singe got out and was followed by a stocky irate man who was protesting and resisting as best he could, considering that he was blindfolded, bound and gagged.

“Frémont, by God. And in the vilest of tempers,” Evans chuckled.

The struggling Chief was followed by a man of more phlegmatic temperament, a tall stoop-shouldered fellow who was hoodwinked and gagged in a perfunctory way and whose hands were bound behind him with his own flowing tie. The Singe, with skill and an instinctive gentleness, propelled the pair to the doorway of the blacksmith's shop and eased them in, and with a finger on his lips requested Evans to keep silent.

Before The Singe turned to go, he handed Homer a scrawled sheet of notepaper, then returned to the car with his firm athletic stride, waved his hand, and the chauffeur, who had kept the engine running, released the clutch and drove away. Evans, without saying a word, removed the gag from the professor's mouth, whisked off his blindfold and untied his hands.