Hugger-Mugger in the Louvre (24 page)

Miriam was young and had by no means lost her capacity for surprise and astonishment. This was fully utilized when, on entering the corridor leading to the office of Doctor Balthazar Truc, she passed between Hjalmar Jansen and Lvov Kvek, both attired in starched white uniforms. The painter had his finger to his lips and the Russian winked his off eye meaningfully, so the girl's remarkable presence of mind, which had stood her in good stead many times on the prairie, did not let her down in the Sanitorium. Her pardonable agitation was not soothed, exactly, when, after the formalities of Lazare's registration had been accomplished and a stack of documents four inches thick had been signed and witnessed, a large handsome woman, also in white duck, entered precipitously and greeted her effusively.

“My darling Miriam,” the stranger said. “Whatever brings you here? You must come to my room for a chat before you go away.”

Dr. Truc, who was nervous whenever two of his acquaintances met, seemed displeased but made no oral objection when the woman in white led Miriam away. But a moment later, Miriam was weeping with relief in Soma's rocking chair, having been informed that Homer Evans was safe and had dined in Luneville that very evening.

T
HE
firm of Lewson-Phipps & Xerxes had a swanky store in the avenue de l'Opéra just far enough from the American Express and the Café de la Paix so that tourists, in reaching it, would be stimulated but not exhausted by the short walk involved. The windows on either side of the entrance were filled with gaily colored objects of art from Cathay and the Indies, Tibet, Mongolia, Cochin-China and Persia. There were rugs and carpets, some of which were Oriental and others which looked so much like the real thing that only experts could tell the difference. Phoenicia was represented by a collection of votive statuary and coins, many of which had been made by Phoenicians; Egypt by a remarkable exhibition of paintings and sculpture and, on the back shelves, where they would not frighten the ordinary customers, reposed primitive charms, ornaments and statues from the Congo.

By a system of mirrors, carefully concealed, the Armenian Xerxes and his British partner were able to see clearly each customer as he or she entered the store. Hamborough, with his cold
savoir faire
and public-school English, stepped forward if the purchaser's eyes were blue or gray. Members of other races were met by Xerxes, whose ancestors had been traders when those of his partner were in that wing of the primitive inhabitants of the British Isles who held out longest for the caves, suspicious of innovations.

The showiest of their stock the importers kept in their windows and shelves. The rest was carefully stored away in their large loft in the
rue
Réaumur. It was to the warehouse that Homer Evans and Tom Jackson made their way, after a careful inspection of the windows in the avenue de l'Opéra. Chief of Detectives Frémont met them in the gloomy doorway and followed them up four long flights of stairs. The watchman did not prove difficult to deal with. When the Chief showed his badge, the man turned pale and made a dive for the window, only to be restrained and reassured by Evans, who promised him that if he kept his mouth shut about the visit, the police would overlook the past and would not even ask to see his papers. With relief and alacrity, the watchman agreed and opened the huge loft protected by fireproof metal doors, automatic sprinklers and a set of burglar alarms which would have done credit to the Bank of England.

To have searched the place thoroughly would have required many days. Thin moonlight filtered through the large skylights and Frémont's torch revealed rows of bundles and cases of odd shapes and with prices and contents lists scrawled or stenciled in a code known only to Hagup Bogigian. The nimble-witted Xerxes had tried, once or twice, to explain it to his partner and had relinquished the project. On the other hand, it is only fair to state that Bogigian had proved to be a hopeless washout at tennis and golf, and could not have ridden to the hounds unless a camel had been furnished him, and the capture of the fox had involved a pecuniary prize.

Evans, followed by Jackson and Frémont, peered into corners, glanced at labels and finally, from behind a barricade of packing cases in one of the least accessible corners, Homer came forth triumphantly with a mounted chimpanzee. To say that Frémont greeted his discovery with enthusiasm would not be candid.

“You do not seem to be impressed,” Evans said, smiling.

“I'm not bowled over,” the chief of detectives said. “We have a Marquis on our hands, stuffed with paving materials. Now you drag out a monkey, filled, as likely as not, with excelsior. The connection is too remote.”

“Tom,” said Evans, addressing the reporter. “In your profession you see the affairs of the world go ticking and revolving like the works of a watch. The spectacle, according to tradition, is supposed to sharpen the wits and heighten the faculties. Does the presence here of this excellent specimen of the genus
anthropopithecus troglodytes
mean anything to you?”

“I can't say that it does,” Jackson said.

“Look around you, gentlemen,” continued Evans. “Every object in this large warehouse, if we can believe the labels and the samples we saw in the display windows, has been shaped by an artist of some distant land. It has an aesthetic value, a decorative quality, an exotic appeal. They represent art, not nature. Does it not seem strange that, in the midst of masterpieces in faience, porcelain, bronze and precious metal, there should be hidden carefully a single chimpanzee? And not a stuffed chimpanzee, but one which has been skillfully mounted. In fact, so skillfully that only one man in Paris could have done it. I refer to Monsieur Lazare.”

“I'm sorry,” Frémont began. “I had intended to tell you but it slipped my mind. That lunkhead Schlumberger arrested Lazare while we were away. Said he acted suspiciously when the body of the Marquis was found, had a grudge against the family, God knows what.”

“You mean he's accused Lazare of the murder?” asked Evans, incredulously. “Preposterous. Let the old man go at once.”

Frémont was even more uncomfortable. “I'd gladly let him go, but he's out of our hands,” the Chief said.

“In whose hands is he then? I insist that he be released,” said Homer.

“The court has sent him for observation to the Sanitarium Sens Unique. Mademoiselle Montana went with him, so they say,” the Chief said.

“But the poor chap's in danger of a nervous breakdown. We must get him away from Dr. Truc, or he will go crazy. He's pathologically shy,” insisted Evans.

“You'll have to apply to the court. In fact, the commitment was made on motion of Lazare's own lawyer.”

“His lawyer?” exclaimed Evans.

“The Maitre François Ronron,” Frémont said. “He was dragged into the case by Miss Montana, according to Schlumberger.”

“We shall have to wait until morning,” Homer said, disgustedly. “Just now we've got business.”

He pointed to the chimpanzee. “When I am in the course of an investigation and find a fact or an object as incongruous as this, I examine it closely. If you will do the same, you will see, concealed in the fur at the back of the neck a thin strong linen cord. And if you examine the cord you will find, suspended where the hair is thickest, two keys, both for old-fashioned padlocks. Now you'll admit that if those keys are well hidden, the man who hung them around the monkey's neck would not risk putting them in one of his pockets, or a drawer of his desk. He obviously did not have occasion to use them frequently.”

“No one would lock up valuables with a padlock having such a key, or a padlock of any description,” objected Frémont. “Look at the locks in this place. The best on the market.”

“Another reason for suspicion when two old-fashioned keys of a flimsy lock are guarded and hidden so elaborately,” Homer said. “Do you mind, Frémont, if I take away these keys and later tonight substitute another pair that look like them?”

“By all means, take the monkey too if you like,” said Frémont, disappointed.

“That would be crude,” said Evans. “I don't want to warn the chap who hid those keys. In fact, I want you to plant one of your best men in here. He can keep out of sight behind the packing cases. Have him report at once if anyone goes near the chimpanzee.”

After the mounted chimpanzee had been replaced exactly where Evans had found it, the Chief warned the watchman once more not to disclose the fact that the warehouse had been searched and made arrangements for the entrance of an officer to carry out Homer's instructions. Then they made their way to the prefecture, got two padlocked keys that would pass muster, and handed them to the officer assigned to the vigil in the
rue
Reaumur. They were giving the detective his final instructions when the door of Frémont's office flew open and Miriam came in.

“I'm sorry,” she began . . .

“Is it a comfortable madhouse where you left Lazare?” Evans asked, with a smile.

“I don't like it at all,” said Miriam, almost on the verge of tears.

“Don't worry. We'll soon get him out. And I think,” he said, turning to the Chief, “that we'd better send Schlumberger to Alsace to help his friend, the auctioneer, trace samples of linen. Otherwise, he may take it into his head to make another absurd arrest.”

“Absurd!” repeated Schlumberger vehemently. He had entered unnoticed as Homer was speaking. “Absurd, indeed! You were fortunate in solving the Weiss case last year, Monsieur Evans, but the one before us now requires a lowlier brand of thinking than yours. It is not my fault that the court has seen fit to give the murderer a loophole for pleading insanity. But it may interest you to know that I have proven Lazare's guilt beyond the shadow of a doubt. Would you mind,” the sergeant said, facing Frémont, “calling Dr. Hyacinthe Toudoux?”

Frémont, impressed by Schlumberger's unusual confidence and self-assertion, phoned the medical examiner and in a moment the doctor's footsteps were heard in the corridor. Toudoux was anything but tranquil. He had cooled off a little since his trip to the Dôme with the foils. His expression as he entered the office showed more dismay than anger.

“Good evening,” he said sadly.

“Will you please tell the Chief and Monsieur Evans what I have found?” Sergeant Schlumberger said, his air of injured dignity deepening.

“A jar, containing the missing parts of the Marquis de la Rose d'Antan preserved in alcohol,” the doctor said, miserably.

Schlumberger looked defiantly at Evans, and was surprised to see the latter smile. “Shall I tell you where you found them?” Homer asked.

“Impossible! I have told no one except the doctor,” said the sergeant. “I was on my way to make my report.”

“Exactly. You found the tell-tale jar concealed on a shelf
in
the taxidermist's shop called
Au Sens de Mesur,
proprietor, the suspect Lazare. Am I right or wrong?” demanded Homer.

Not only Schlumberger, but everyone in the room except Toudoux gasped with astonishment. Frémont's face fell. “I guess that settles it,” he sighed. “It wasn't the St. Julien gang, after all.”

“I don't believe Lazare did it,” said Miriam, stamping her foot so hard that Jackson's glasses almost fell off his nose.

“Can I phone that to the paper?” the reporter asked. “The deadline's not far off.”

“By all means. Plaster the discovery all over the press. Lazare won't read the papers, so the news won't disturb him. The public surely is entitled to such an important fact,” Homer said. “But if any officer of the Paris police wants to avoid making himself ridiculous, I should suggest that he avoid being quoted as saying that the evidence is conclusive against Lazare.”

“I don't know what more you want,” said Schlumberger, and Frémont was inclined to agree.

“I was only making friendly suggestions,” Evans said. “Come, Miriam. We'd better find the murderer, if for no other reason, to protect our colleagues against their own ill-considered impulses.” To Jackson he said that he might as well get a good night's sleep, and to Frémont he made the same recommendation. The night telephone operator at the prefecture was instructed to tell Professor de la Poussière that there was no need of searching farther for Lazare. Then Homer and Miriam, arm in arm, walked slowly down the corridor and out into the square. The famous clock on the corner of the Palais de la Justice was striking one as they turned toward the
place
St. André des Arts.

The space in front of the grille at the taxidermist's shop was devoid of pedestrians at that hour, although the sidewalks on the boulevard St. Michel not thirty yards away were still fairly active. Homer reached for one of the padlock keys and tried it.

“A good omen,” he said, for the first key opened the grille. The second loosened the padlock on its hasp on the door of the shop. Miriam clung close to his arm as Evans traversed the front room and made his way to the back, where Lazare's littered desk stood among stuffed specimens of beasts and animals. Shielding his flashlight with one hand, he mounted a short stepladder and started examining the dusty jars on the shelves.

“Hm, I thought so,” was his only comment.

“What have you found?” asked Miriam.

“Two more sets of human inner organs, neatly pickled,” said Evans.

Miriam could not repress an exclamation of horror. “But what shall we do?” she asked.

“Nothing for the present. This will be a lesson to our Alsatian comrade. He should learn to be thorough,” Evans said.

They walked along the boulevard St. Michel toward Montparnasse and Miriam knew that Homer was entering one of his phases of intense concentration. She was dismayed that more of what she thought was incriminating evidence had been found on the premises of the harassed Lazare. There were dozens of questions she was eager to ask, but there was nothing to do except wait. As they passed the
terrasse
of the Coupole, the proprietor, M. Delbos, nodded hopefully, then noticed with satisfaction that the preoccupied couple did not turn in at the Dôme, either. In Homer's salon, a few minutes later, he motioned to Miriam to make herself comfortable in an easy chair while he selected a straight-backed wooden-seated chair for himself. Miriam was scarcely breathing, she was so anxious not to disturb him, but he looked at her presently, almost petulantly, and said: