Hugger-Mugger in the Louvre (30 page)

Miriam was trembling with excitement. In actual emergencies she was as cool and steady as Homer himself, and had even quicker reactions. But to be told in advance that after a meal of rice and shellfish a murderer was to be run to earth and old wrongs righted caused a momentary flutter. “Oh,” she said, paused a while and repeated, “Oh.” That was all she could seem to contribute, since questions were forbidden in the progress of a case.

Acquaintances nodded or paused at their table to pass the time of day, tourists stared at them admiringly, being sure at first glance that they belonged in Montparnasse and were acquainted with all its mysteries. The hour passed pleasantly but Miriam's excitement did not subside. On the contrary it rose, and when, in the ladies' room she held out her hands, palms up, experimentally, she saw with dismay that they were shimmering. “Steady, my girl,” she said to herself, unconsciously imitating her father, who had pronounced the same words so many times in the cattle and sheep men's clashes. She wondered if Homer had noticed her agitation, and if he would blame her or be disappointed. Could she shoot straight, with her hand wobbling to and fro, she wondered. There was no possibility of taking a practice shot in the ladies' room of the Dôme, where a bullet would ricochet viciously between marble slabs and metal fixtures.

A moment later, when she rejoined Evans he had lost all inclination to tease her. They walked slowly to his apartment, where he took a package from the table in his outer corridor. This, the contents of which were unknown to Miriam, he tucked under his arm.

“And now,” he said, “we've just time for a ride in the Bois. A turn or two around the lake, at thirty miles an hour, no more, no less, should put me in a frame of mind to solve the one remaining problem, the riddle confronting our friend, Dr. Hyacinthe Toudoux. About the livers, you know. Do they swell or shrink, and are they streaked with heliotrope or honeysuckle? Truc wouldn't dare to fake his experiments, not that I would put it beyond him, but he couldn't get away with it. Ah, well. Forget it. I'll work it out somehow. Toudoux's been very decent about Lazare.”

As they rode side by side in the taxi, Miriam felt the strange chill that always came over her when Evans brought his powerful mind to a focus, and the focus was distant from her. She sat erect, hands motionless in her lap, and breathed as lightly as she could. Should she have continued to wear blue? A marksman could see beige two hundred yards away. What, exactly, was before them? When suddenly Homer turned to her, obviously elated, she was startled so that she felt a tingling around the roots of her hair.

“You've got the answer,” she said.

“I don't see how I could have failed to get it instantly,” he said. “It's so simple it's fairly ludicrous. Dr. Truc will be laughed out of the Academy, if he ever sees the Academy again. You see, he tried the Eureka wine on guinea hens, gibbon apes, donkeys, Belgian hares and calves. Toudoux got his data from human beings, or what was left of them.”

“But,” objected Miriam. “Dr. Truc's first post mortem was on a man, according to his column.”

“Exactly,” said Evans, “and, unless I lose my guess, one will find on investigation that the benighted chap was a vegetarian, as are the gibbon apes, guinea hens, the donkeys, etc. Toudoux got hold of a good lusty meat eater. That's the answer. I'll tip him off this very evening. In fact, I'll insist that he trail along.”

Miriam bit her lips with mortification. At the mention of the evening, her nerves began to vibrate again. As if Homer understood what was taking place within her, he asked the driver to seek a secluded roadway, stopped the taxi, and led Miriam into a thick grove of tall moss-stained trees. At a distance of thirty yards, a couple of grasshoppers had lit on the lower part of a venerable tree trunk and were clinging there, side by side. Without warning, Evans whipped out his automatic and shot the grasshopper on his, the right-hand, side. The report of his gun was followed so closely by another that the two shots could hardly be distinguished. Miriam, aghast, found herself holding her smoking automatic and saw that the second, or left-hand grasshopper, was no more.

“Now, for the rice, in the mariner's style, with shrimp and lobster meat,
almejas,
and the sausage of Perdrazo,” Evans said and, although there were tears in her eyes, Miriam knew that her self-confidence had returned to stay.

The rice, when it was brought on, decorated with strips of roasted scarlet peppers that enhanced the glow of the saffron and the pinkness of the shrimps, was all that Evans had promised it would be, and they left the restaurant gaily, almost like a pair of irresponsible children. The package, however, was still tucked safely under Homer's arm.

“Now for the gathering of our forces,” he said. “We shall take with us Chief Frémont, of course, and Schlumberger. They both will be surprised, and the latter, I fear, will return sadder but wiser. Bonnet and Tom Jackson I have asked to collect Xerxes,
chez
Madame Dubonnet, and bring them both along. Professor de la Poussière must be on hand, to help us when we get out of our depth in forgotten centuries, and his good wife, Hélène, has had so little recreation that the excursion would cheer her no end.

“The Alsatian auctioneer who has been so clever as to trace the linen in which the Marquis was wrapped will be absent, also the wholesome family who dwell on the ‘Poor but Honest.' Melchisadek, naturally, will pilot his chief and Hydrangea, who refuses point blank to let Frémont enter the borders of Luneville again unless she is present. You see, to the simple mind nourished on Harlem tradition, a story to the effect that a notorious bandit kidnaps a man, holds him a day or two, then sends him on his way and is not prosecuted, sounds a bit fishy. I fear the former Blackbird suspects there is a woman in Luneville, most likely a blonde. The fact that Frémont was slugged so deftly that there is absolutely no bump or scar does much to make his explanation of his absence unconvincing. Ah, well. There is so much virtue in a childlike nature that its few inconveniences may be forgiven.”

“We shall have a small army,” Miriam said.

“In Luneville we shall find K. Parker Seldon, Hjalmar, Kvek, his cousin Sofia Alexandrovna, to say nothing of Lazare and Dr. Balthazar Truc, the Marchioness, and a husky named Gus.”

“But my lawyer,” said Miriam. “He's drawing Weiss's money. Can't we get some work out of him?”

“Ah, Maitre François Ronron. By all means. A fine old gentleman of a school almost extinct. I have never complimented you on your choice of attorneys, but you couldn't have done better.”

Astonished, Miriam glanced at Homer's face and saw that he was entirely in earnest. “But,” she objected, “he hasn't done a thing except to get poor Lazare locked up in the trickiest bughouse this side of Vienna, with slim prospects of ever getting out again. That poor inventor, Passepartout, was all right when he went into the Sens Unique in 1919. Now look at him.”

“Perhaps the virtues of your counselor-at-law will disclose themselves more fully as the evening wears on,” Evans said.

“He'd better show some stuff, since his fees will pass through my hands,” Miriam said. “I was smart enough for that, at least.”

The prefecture, when Homer and Miriam arrived there shortly after eight o'clock, was steeped in gloom. Chief Frémont, having just concluded a telephonic bout with Hydrangea, sat morosely at his desk wondering why it was that women who had cause for jealousy were blind, deaf and dumb, while those fortunate enough to possess an honest man's entire affection never tumbled to that simple fact. If ever he got slugged again, he swore silently, he would see to it that he came back with a scar, even if he had to inflict it himself.

Near him, his face buried in his hands, was Schlumberger. He was cocky, but disappointed. He had counted heavily on the Alsatian linen, as evidence against Lazare, but his auctioneer had found that it had been woven by a harmless old woman who, in order to get funds to have her spectacles repaired, had sold several meters of the cloth to a passing Englishman who wanted to make a shroud for his doodlesack collection, to protect it from dust and sunshine when he was away for the shooting in the fall.

Both of the good officers were worried about Bonnet, who had not reported his success in finding Xerxes because of Homer's instructions.

Evans was not crude enough to be breezy, but did his best to inject a bit of cheer into the atmosphere. “Meet me at the Hotel Serieux at Luneville promptly at eleven o'clock,” he said.

“What for?
The Pansy
?
”
asked Frémont, without hope.

“The murderer,” Evans said. “But no telling what else we may find.”

“You can't take the murderer out of the asylum,” Schlumberger said. “He's sent there by the court, although God knows why. You're just wasting your time.”

“Better come along, anyway,” said Evans, and led Miriam toward the laboratory of Dr. Hyacinthe Toudoux. On the way, they paused to glance through the bars at Angorre, who was reading the
En-Tout-Cas
to find out how long his overtime was likely to continue, and Dubonnet who was counting in a mechanical way on his fingers, from A to X.

“What's the noise about?” asked Miriam, as they traversed the bleak area of deserted officers. A clatter such as travelers attribute to angry flocks of birds in the jungles or Arctic wastes was rising and swelling. Opening the door of the laboratory gently, they saw the medical examiner in his shirtsleeves, hair awry, chucking guinea hens out of the open window and into the night. It turned out that the doctor had ordered a crate of the hens, in order to show up Dr. Truc, and had found that, actually, California wine did tend to shrink their livers and that the livers, when extracted, showed a detestable mustard-colored stain which Toudoux, in his rage, and not seeing Miriam in the doorway, described quite otherwise. His joy, when Homer offered the simple explanation, was equaled only by his impatience to get at Dr. Truc. Again grasping the sharp pointed foils and tearing them from the wall, he hustled himself into his coat and started down the stairs.

“Where are you going?” Homer asked.

“Luneville,” the medical examiner said. “I shall offer that scoundrel two alternatives. Either he shall eat without butter or sauce of any kind an entire copy of
En-Tout-Cas, in
which shall be printed his apology to me and an unequivocal admission that he made an ass of himself with herbivores, or I shall churn his tripes . . . On second thought, I shall churn them anyway.” And he made off again.

“I'm going that way. Let me drive you down,” Evans said, and the doctor, who had made no plans for transportation, calmed himself and proffered his thanks.

W
HEN
Luna, pale goddess of the moon, surveyed the land from the dusky horizon, her first glance was directed toward the Sanitorium Sens Unique. For between those grim walls, with bars to streak the silver light sent by their symbol and protector, were her favorites among men. The goddess, in contrast with her rival, the pink-fingered Aurora, took little interest in humans whose lives had the traditional beginning, middle and ending. She would shine disdainfully, if at all, upon bores who insisted that two and two were four. In Dr. Truc's asylum dwelled a company exactly to her taste, whose actions were unpredictable, whose conversation was by no means confined to “Yea yea” and “Nay nay” but had a satisfactory range and variety, and who showed more verve when the moon was shining than Aurora could ever evoke from them.

As the goddess attained the altitude necessary for an effective entrance into the sky's great amphitheater and her most beloved among rivers, the Seine, sent back to her a beauteous reflection as tribute, Luna was startled to observe that the narrow road leading into Luneville was carrying unusually heavy traffic that evening. Silently she raised the back curtain of a roadster that had a large baggage compartment where the rumble seat used to be and peeped inside, annoyed by the impudent tail-light that winked in her face. Hastily she lowered the curtain and turned away, for sitting three abreast, left to right, were Hagup Bogigian, or Xerxes, at the wheel; Mathilde Dubonnet, a natural blonde whose face was extraordinarily familiar to the goddess, in fact, so familiar that Luna scarcely recognized her wayward devotee in a sitting position; and Sergeant Bonnet of the Paris police, an organization in excellent standing with the celestial guardian of eccentrics. Mathilde had been upbraiding Xerxes for having got himself and her in the toils of the law. At the time Luna ceased eavesdropping, the young woman was asserting that if Dubonnet got wind of the affair and threw her out of the house, Xerxes would have to marry her, even if it made her an Armenian. The negative was being argued by Xerxes, as hotly as was consistent with safe night driving. Bonnet, who had slipped up once that day, was taking no chances. His gun was in his hand and ready.

At random, Luna selected a long limousine that was proceeding deliberately, perhaps two miles behind the roadster just touched upon. In its cushioned interior the gaze of Luna lingered with pleasure, the sole occupant, not counting an anonymous chauffeur, being Maitre Francois Ronron of the boulevard St. Germain. When lawyers started night riding into the country, Luna knew she was in for some kind of a treat. Legal phraseology was her particular delight, such sonorous words and phrases as “with malice aforethought,” “felonious intent,” etc., and of all the ladies on Olympus she held most rigidly to the doctrine of
caveat emptor.*
But Maitre Ronron was not talking to himself just then, so she passed along a few more kilometers and spied Melchisadek at the wheel of the chief of detectives' car. Beside him, and much easier to spot by moonlight, was Sergeant Schlumberger, formerly of Alsace. The back seat offered a spectacle so intimate that even Luna smiled and turned away. Hydrangea had concluded, since Frémont had shown a willingness to take her along to Luneville, that he must have been slugged, after all, and the Blackbird was trying with all the resources of her affectionate nature to make the Chief forget her unwarranted suspicions. She had not only succeeded in that objective, but was well on the way toward making him forget
The Pansy,
the Marquis de la Rose d'Antan, and the fact that Mrs. Frémont was on the rampage and that a talk with her, face to face, could not be postponed much longer. In a way, the Chief was dreading the moment when the papers would announce that the case was over. He did not expect Evans to exonerate Lazare but figured that if Homer failed to do so, he would offer no further objections to having the taxidermist tried.