Hugger-Mugger in the Louvre (31 page)

The auto driven by Homer Evans contained Helene de la Poussière, whose delight because she was to take part in a modern adventure had revived the faded roses on her cheeks so noticeably that she had been forced to wear a brighter scarf than usual, to match. She sat on the left-hand side of the rear seat, almost dazed by the loveliness of the fields and villages, the winding roads on the hillsides and tangents across the plains, the summer fragrance and the river mists. In the center was the professor, who was trying to figure out when the moon would rise that night on the stretches of the upper Nile and wondering if the shin bone and skull of Neferkesokar were just as he had left them. Dr. Hyacinthe Toudoux was by far the most promising passenger, from Luna's point of view, since he was muttering about livers and tripes and toying with a couple of foils in a meaningful way. Notwithstanding all the dark deeds she had witnessed, the goddess had never seen one man run through another with two swords at once, so she resolved to stick close to the dynamic medico and his companions. Miriam, of course, was in the front seat beside Evans, just close enough so he would be constantly aware of her presence, not pressed against him so tightly that his thoughts would be sidetracked or addled.

* Let the buyer beware.

“In five minutes, we'll be at the hotel,” he said. And when she said “Oh” there was no tremor in her voice. She held her right-hand palm up, and as far as she could discover by moonlight, it was as steady as American Jar and Bottle stock, which had not budged from 32 all day long.

Against the bar of the Hotel Sérieux at Luneville-sur-Seine, Tom Jackson was leaning, in the act of wiping off his glasses. He glanced at the clock, which indicated the hour as being ten forty, then asked the proprietor if it was correct. The proprietor's watch said ten twenty-five.

“In that case, I'll have another,” Jackson said. He wanted to be in good shape for the raid on the asylum, but even more he wanted to forget that he had lost his job. The afternoon spent with Bonnet, in pursuit of Xerxes, had done the trick. The
Herald
would stagger along without him, and that was that. When he was about half way outside the whiskey and soda, he heard an outburst of Russian song the words of which, had he but known it, dealt with folks dying young or living to be too old, in inverse ratio to their merits and good fortune. Coincidently another voice, not as well trained but quite as powerful, was singing “Samuel Hall.” The proprietor's face lighted, and a second later the door opened and the ex-reporter was greeted by Hjalmar and Kvek. They had scaled the asylum wall by means of the Volga boatman's sash, fed beer and sandwiches to the taciturn Gus, who had been installed aboard the
Deuxieme Pays,
firmly lashed to a stanchion. Neither one had tasted alcohol, figuratively speaking, since the day before. The first couple of whiskies they took straight, swallowing boiled eggs and
brioches
practically whole the while. Then they settled down to wait for Homer Evans.

The first arrivals were Bonnet with Xerxes and Mathilde, the former of which was warning the woman not to damage the Armenian, who had become public property by virtue of the sergeant's authority. He made it clear, however, that were it not his official duty to protect his prisoner, he would offer no personal objections to anything she might care to do. Mathilde catching sight of Kvek and Hjalmar, forgot her anger and paused in the doorway, her head slightly tilted to show her winning profile, which was as good as that of Isis, and maybe better. Without ado, the Russian and the big painter flipped a coin and Hjalmar won.

“Hello, kid,” he said. “Where you from?”

The Maitre François Ronron and the officials from the prefecture pulled up at the hotel entrance almost simultaneously, and the lawyer noticed that Sergeant Schlumberger was glowering at him ferociously. That was a good sign that the sergeant was worried about his evidence, Maitre François Ronron concluded, and the resulting smile caused the Alsatian to splutter with rage.

Dr. Hyacinthe Toudoux, who was first out of the other limousine, started hell bent into the darkness, foils in hand, in the direction of the Sens Unique, until overtaken by Evans and persuaded to bide his time, since it would be short. Miriam joined Kvek and Jackson at the bar for a bracer, and smiled tolerantly as she saw Hjalmar and Mathilde at a table in the corner, the latter in the act of asserting that she had not found such a droll and amusing companion, and big and strong to boot, since she had been silly enough to marry a watchman, and such an ineffectual watchman that paintings were stolen right from under his nose. Hjalmar was pointing out that, on the other hand, if one has to have a husband, it is better to have one with fixed hours of work which can fairly well be counted upon not to vary.

In the billiard room, Homer assembled the members of the party and gave them their instructions. Frémont and Schlumberger, with Professor de la Poussière, were to go to the main entrance of the Sens Unique and present the document the Chief had secured from the court, authorizing him to visit the suspect, Lazare, and question him. Maitre François Ronron, as Lazare's attorney, was to accompany them and assure Dr. Truc that the defense had consented to the examination.

Bonnet was told to take Mme. de la Poussière, Mathilde and Xerxes, the latter to be handcuffed and hobbled, to the asylum boathouse, there to wait the signal for their entrance through the front gate. Then, after escorting them inside, the sergeant was to fetch Gus, securely tied, from the
Deuxieme Pays.

Homer, Miriam and Dr. Hyacinthe Toudoux saw the first two detachments on their way before they joined Jackson, Hjalmar and Kvek in the bar.

“Let's go,” Evans said simply. “Hjalmar, show us the way.”

In single file they passed along the moonlit pathway, Jansen in the lead and Dr. Toudoux, foils still in hand, bringing up the rear. A rope ladder had been rigged and one by one they scrambled over the wall and let themselves down into Courtyard Seven, at the entrance of which they were met by Sofia Alexandrovna.

“Where's the doctor?” asked Evans, in a whisper.

“In his private wing,” the nurse replied.

“And Seldon?”

“In his room, reading the same ungainly blue book. I don't know what he finds so fascinating in it. My English is not bad, but I couldn't make head or tail of it,” said Sofia, whose tone indicated that she considered
Ulysses
a waste of time.

“Let him out,” said Evans.

“But he hasn't any clothes. He wouldn't want to appear in company in his night shirt. He's very shy. I like that in a man,” Sofia said.

Hjalmar put in a helpful suggestion. “He's just about the size of that Armenian,” he said.

Since it was not practicable to retrieve Xerxes and strip him just then, they had to fall back on the Volga boatman's costume, more or less adjustable in size, that Kvek had hidden in his cousin's room.

Cautioning the others to make no unnecessary noise, Evans concealed them in the corridor by the telephone booth while he and Miriam tiptoed upstairs, skirted the violent ward in which howls rose to Heaven, ranging from those of ecstasy to despair, and including several shades and kinds of feeling Miriam, young as she was, had not yet experienced. The volume of sound increased as the moon rose higher and faded from henna to platinum. Homer felt her hand on his arm and patted it reassuringly.

“We're going to see Lazare,” he said.

The taxidermist-savant was not in a general ward, where mad-folk of moderate resources were herded together. Lazare had a private room, since his bill would be paid by the Third Republic, if the latter survived the annual financial crisis which was due in the fall. Dr. Truc had selected No. 14-A, which had no view to distract a nervous patient and was sound-proofed against incoming or outgoing howls, prayers, imprecations or soliloquies. For once, and entirely by accident, Dr. Truc had hit upon just the treatment the patient needed, namely, solitude. With his piece of chalk and a wall on which to write hieroglyphics, Lazare could have lived on a diet of roots and herbs. In fact, he had wished absent-mindedly for a wholesome root to gnaw when he had tasted the asylum bread and coffee. The old man had improved rapidly, being left to his own devices. He didn't worry about his shop, because in the new dispensation of things there seemed to be no need for ready money. His rent had been paid up two months in advance, just after the sale of a large chimpanzee. The sympathetic young lady who had gone to jail with him had even promised to bring him some books. Lazare was simply letting things ride. He allowed his thoughts to stray, not too often, to the stuffed Marquis and regretted faintly that he had not done the job himself, for at a glance he had noticed that in mixing the stuffing, some amateur had forgotten the sesquicarbonate of sodium, which always contains sulphate and chlorides of sodium. The mummy de la Rose d'Antan would look pretty crummy before five hundred years had elapsed, was Lazare's opinion. He was just as well pleased.

He heard a tap on his door, which was not according to Hoyle. Regular attendants peeked in, then opened the door without knocking. When in response to the taxidermist's “Come in,” Miriam appeared on the scene, followed by Homer Evans, the old man rose to greet them and apologized for the trouble his temporary lapse had given them.

“I'm quite all right now,” he said, “but please, if you can, avoid a public trial. This place has done me a world of good, but you know how I feel about crowds. I've never grown accustomed to them. I should not appear at my best. Most likely I'd cause embarrassment to Maitre Ronron, make him lose face, perhaps.”

“You'll be back in your shop in the morning,” Evans said, “unless you care to take a holiday.”

“Oh, no, thanks,” said Lazare. “I'm rested and fit. I'd been in a rut for years, and I'll admit, now that I've seen what a short stay in a sanitorium will do for a man, that I'd overdone it a bit preparing notes on Tout-or-Nada. Ha! ha! ha! Ho! ho! Well worth a collapse, that chap.”

Evans chuckled and agreed. “I'm going to hold a little meeting in the doctor's salon tonight,” he said. “I hope you'll be present. Professor de la Poussière will be there, and there will be several interesting points brought up concerning Egypt.”

“By all means,” Lazare said. “What an amazing institution! I confess that I had not realized that our madhouses had reached such a cultural level. By all means.”

“Miss Leonard will call for you when the time comes,” Homer said.

“I hope she'll play that piece I like, if there's a piano,” said Lazare. “Let me see. How does it go? Tatatata
la
mi
tum
tum (Boom!).
Tatatata la
mi
tee
tee. (Wham!) Totototo
to
la
tee
tee, (rest) la tum tum, (rest), la tee tee, (Zowie).”

“That's
Ben Hur.
You remember the tune,” said Miriam. “It was my father's favorite.”

In the hallway, their voices safely covered by the wails and whoops from Ward 9, Homer and Miriam completed their final plans. White-coated attendants and soft-footed nurses passed them by, assuming that they had brought with them, or were about to bring, a new patient for whom the resplendent full moon had proved to be the last straw.

“Oh, Homer. You are so satisfactory,” Miriam said. “Why couldn't I have known that, if you were not worrying about Lazare, I could be sure he was all right?”

“Dr. Truc slipped up badly, for once,” Homer said. “I've seldom seen such an improvement in so short a time.”

In the old mossy boathouse by the river bank, the chorus of frogs would have delighted Aristophanes. On Mathilde, who had spent her life in the city, it produced the opposite effect and necessitated the raising of her voice to a pitch unbecomingly shrill as she upbraided the handcuffed Xerxes. It was already apparent that whatever else might be accomplished by the Luneville pilgrimage, the suspect Dubonnet would have nothing more to worry about between his wife and M. “X.” Madame de la Poussière, who was of the patient and fore-bearing school of womanhood, listened in amazement, and even at moments secretly envied her outspoken, if wayward, sister. Two hundred yards upstream, Gus, trussed up in the official motorboat, was cursing his luck. For the first time since he had been employed in the Sens Unique he had money in his pocket, and a couple of roughnecks had tied him so securely that he couldn't use it. The knowledge that Sofia was betrothed to a medium-sized and violent patient had stirred in him an old lust for rum and riot. Gus was a frustrated man, with no relief in sight. He could feel the roll of bills by stooping and bending one elbow, and his mind, that worked slowly at best, had come to a full stop in trying to figure out why a couple of bruisers would take the trouble to fan him into insensibility, bung him into a telephone booth and then shanghai him without rolling him.

When the signal was given from the window of Sofia Alexandrovna (two dots and a dash, repeated, with the light), Frémont, waiting resolutely near the outside gates, was suffering a fit of despondency. True, he had pacified Hydrangea, who was being well guarded by Melchisadek in the limousine, parked near the boathouse. But the Chief did not see what was to be gained by crashing an asylum. Madhouses made him nervous.

Schlumberger, grunting and muttering to himself, was eager to break in, confident that his arrest of Lazare would be more than justified and that Evans would go down in history with his compatriot, the athlete Snodgrass. The professor was puzzled by the unconventional approach of the party to the institution, attributing it to a change of local customs he had not previously noticed in his brief contacts with the workaday world. Hélène had looked well and charming, he reflected, and he attributed her excellent state of nerves and preservation to the tranquillity of her life with him. Just lately, for some reason he could not fathom, she had mentioned more than once a voyage to New York. In fact, the chap known as Evans had said something about it, too.