CHAPTER XXII
"CROCHARD, L'INVINCIBLE!"
It seemed for once that Godfrey was destined to be wrong, for the days passed and nothing happened—nothing, that is, in so far as the cabinet was concerned. There was an inquest, of course, over the victim of the latest tragedy, and once again I was forced to give my evidence before a coroner's jury. I must confess that, this time, it made me appear considerable of a fool, and the papers poked sly fun at the attorney who had walked blindly into a trap which, now that it was sprung, seemed so apparent.
The Bertillon measurements of the victim had been cabled to Paris, and he had been instantly identified as a fellow named Morel, well-known to the police as a daring and desperate criminal; in fact, M. Lepine considered the matter so important that he cabled next day that he was sending Inspector Pigot to New York to investigate the affair further, and to confer with our bureau as to the best methods to be taken to apprehend the murderer. Inspector Pigot, it was added, would sail at once for Havre on La Savoie.
Meanwhile, Grady's men, with Simmonds at their head, strained every nerve to discover the whereabouts of the fugitive; a net was thrown over the entire city, but, while a number of fish were captured, the one which the police particularly wished for was not among them. Not a single trace of the fugitive was discovered; he had vanished absolutely, and, after a day or two, Grady asserted confidently that he had left New York.
For Grady had come back into the case again, goaded by the papers, particularly by the Record, to efforts which he must have considered superhuman. The remarkable nature of the mystery, its picturesque and unique features, the fact that three men had been killed within a few days in precisely the same manner, and the absence of any reasonable hypothesis to explain these deaths—all this served to rivet public attention. Every amateur detective in the country had a theory to exploit—and far-fetched enough most of them were!
Grady did a lot of talking in those days, explaining in detail the remarkable measures he was taking to capture the criminal; but the fact remained that three men had been killed, and that no one had been punished; that a series of crimes had been committed, and that the criminal was still at large, and seemed likely to remain so; and, naturally enough, the papers, having exhausted every other phase of the case, were soon echoing public sentiment that something was wrong somewhere, and that the detective bureau needed an overhauling, beginning at the top.
The Boule cabinet remained locked up in a cell at the Twenty-third Street station; and Simmonds kept the key in his pocket. I know now that he was as much in the dark concerning the cabinet as the general public was; and the general public was very much in the dark indeed, for the cabinet had not figured in the accounts of the first two tragedies at all, and only incidentally in the reports of the latest one. As far as it was concerned, the affair seemed clear enough to most of the reporters, as an attempt to smuggle into the country an art object of great value. Such cases were too common to attract especial attention.
But Simmonds had come to see that Grady was tottering on his throne; he realised, perhaps, that his own head was not safe; and he had made up his mind to pin his faith to Godfrey as the only one at all likely to lead him out of the maze. And Godfrey laid the greatest stress upon the necessity of keeping the cabinet under lock and key; so under lock and key it was kept. As for Grady, I do not believe that, even at the last, he realised the important part the cabinet had played in the drama.
But while the Boule cabinet failed to focus the attention of the public, and while most of the reporters promptly forgot all about it, I was amused at the pains which Godfrey took to inform the fugitive as to its whereabouts and as to how it was guarded. Over and over again, while the other papers wondered at his imbecility, he told how it had been placed in the strongest cell at the Twenty-third Street station; a cell whose bars were made of chrome-nickle steel which no saw could bite into; a cell whose lock was worked not only by a key but by a combination, known to one man only; a cell isolated from the others, standing alone in the middle of the third corridor, in full view of the officer on guard, so that no one could approach it, day or night, without being instantly discovered; a cell whose door was connected with an automatic alarm over the sergeant's desk in the front room; a cell, in short, from which no man could possibly escape, and which no man could possibly enter unobserved.
Of the Boule cabinet itself Godfrey said little, saving his story for the dénouement which he seemed so sure would come; but the details which I have given above were dwelt upon in the Record, until, happening to meet Godfrey on the street one day, I protested that he would only succeed in frightening the fugitive away altogether, even if he still had any designs on the cabinet, which I very much doubted. But Godfrey only laughed.
"There's not the slightest danger of frightening him away," he said. "This fellow isn't that kind. If I am right in sizing him up, he's the sort of dare-devil whom an insuperable difficulty only attracts. The harder the job, the more he is drawn to it. That's the reason I am making this one just as hard as I can."
"But a man would be a fool to attempt to get to that cabinet," I protested. "It's simply impossible."
"It looks impossible, I'm free to admit," he agreed. "But, just the same, I wake every morning cold with fear, and run to the 'phone to make sure the cabinet's safe. If I could think of any further safeguards, I would certainly employ them."
I looked at Godfrey searchingly, for it seemed to me that he must be jesting. He smiled as he caught my glance.
"I was never more in earnest in my life, Lester," he said. "You don't appreciate this fellow as I do. He's a genius; nothing is impossible to him. He disdains easy jobs; when he thinks a job is too easy, he makes it harder, just as a sporting chance. He has been known to warn people that they kept their jewels too carelessly, and then, after they had put them in a safer place, he would go and take them."
"That seems rather foolish, doesn't it?" I queried.
"Not from his point of view. He doesn't steal because he needs money, but because he needs excitement."
"You know who he is, then?" I demanded.
"I think I do—I hope I do; but I am not going to tell even you till I'm sure. I'll say this—if he is who I think he is, it would be a delight to match one's brains with his. We haven't got any one like him over here—which is a pity!"
I was inclined to doubt this, for I have no romantic admiration for gentlemen burglars, even in fiction. However picturesque and chivalric, a thief is, after all, a thief. Perhaps it is my training as a lawyer, or perhaps I am simply narrow, but crime, however brilliantly carried out, seems to me a sordid and unlovely thing. I know quite well that there are many people who look at these things from a different angle, Godfrey is one of them.
I pointed out to him now that, if his intuitions were correct, he would soon have a chance to match his wits with those of the Great Unknown.
"Yes," he agreed, "and I'm scared to death—I have been ever since I began to suspect his identity. I feel like a tyro going up against a master in a game of chess—mate in six moves!"
"I shouldn't consider you exactly a tyro," I said, drily.
"It's long odds that the Great Unknown will," Godfrey retorted, and bade me good-bye.
Except for that chance meeting, I saw nothing of him, and in this I was disappointed, for there were many things about the whole affair which I did not understand. In fact, when I sat down of an evening and lit my pipe and began to think it over, I found that I understood nothing at all. Godfrey's theory held together perfectly, so far as I could see, but it led nowhere. How had Drouet and Vantine been killed? Why had they been killed? What was the secret of the cabinet? In a word, what was all this mystery about? Not one of these questions could I answer; and the solutions I guessed at seemed so absurd that I dismissed them in disgust. In the end, I found that the affair was interfering with my work, and I banished it from my mind, turning my face resolutely away from it whenever it tried to break into my thoughts.
But though I could shut it out of my waking hours successfully enough, I could not control my sleeping ones, and my dreams became more and more horrible. Always there was the serpent with dripping fangs, sometimes with Armand's head, sometimes with a face unknown to me, but hideous beyond description; its slimy body glittered with inlay and arabesque; its scaly legs were curved like those of the Boule cabinet; sometimes the golden sun glittered on its forehead like a great eye. Over and over again I saw this monster slay its three victims; and always, when that was done, it raised its head and glared at me, as though selecting me for the fourth…. But I shall not try to describe those dreams; even yet I cannot recall them without a shudder.
It was while I was sitting moodily in my room one night, debating whether or not to go to bed; weary to exhaustion and yet reluctant to resign myself to a sleep from which I knew I should wake shrieking, that a knock came at the door—a knock I recognised; and I arose joyfully to admit Godfrey.
I could see by the way his eyes were shining that he had something unusual to tell me; and then, as he looked at me, his face changed.
"What's the matter, Lester?" he demanded. "You're looking fagged out.
Working too hard?"
"It's not that," I said. "I can't sleep. This thing has upset my nerves, Godfrey. I dream about it—have regular nightmares."
He sat down opposite me, concern and anxiety in his face.
"That won't do," he protested. "You must go away somewhere—take a rest, and a good long one."
"A rest wouldn't do me any good, as long as this mystery is unsolved," I said. "It's only by working that I can keep my mind off of it."
"Well," he smiled, "just to oblige you, we will solve it first, then."
"Do you mean you know…."
"I know who the Great Unknown is, and I'm going to tell you presently. Day after to-morrow—Wednesday—I'll know all the rest. The whole story will be in Thursday morning's paper. Suppose you arrange to start Thursday afternoon."
I could only stare at him. He smiled as he met my gaze.
"You're looking better already," he said, "as though you were taking a little more interest in life," and he helped himself to a cigar.
"Godfrey," I protested, "I wish you would pick out somebody else to practise on. You come up here and explode a bomb just to see how high I'll jump. It's amusing to you, no doubt, and perhaps a little instructive; but my nerves won't stand it."
"My dear Lester," he broke in, "that wasn't a bomb; that was a simple statement of fact."
"Are you serious?"
"Perfectly so."
"But how do you know…."
"Before I answer any questions, I want to ask you one. Did you, by any chance, mention me to the gentleman known to you as M. Félix Armand?"
"Yes," I answered, after a moment's thought; "I believe I did. I was telling him about our trying to find the secret drawer—I mentioned your name—and he asked who you were. I told him you were a genius at solving mysteries."
Godfrey nodded.
"That," he said, "explains the one thing I didn't understand. Now go ahead with your questions."
"You said a while ago that you would know all about this affair day after to-morrow."
"Yes."
"How do you know you will?"
"Because I have received a letter which sets the date," and he took from his pocket a sheet of paper and handed it over to me. "Read it!"
The letter was written in pencil, in a delicate and somewhat feminine hand, on a sheet of plain, unruled paper. With an astonishment which increased with every word, I read this extraordinary epistle:—
"My Dear Mr. Godfrey:
"I have been highly flattered by your interest in the affaire of the cabinet Boule, and admire most deeply your penetration in arriving at a conclusion so nearly correct regarding it. I must thank you, also, for your kindness in keeping me informed of the measures which have been taken to guard the cabinet, and which seem to me very complete and well thought out. I have myself visited the station and inspected the cell, and I find that in every detail you were correct.
"It is because I so esteem you as an adversary that I tell you, in confidence, that it is my intention to regain possession of my property on Wednesday next, and that, having done so, I shall beg you to accept a small souvenir of the occasion.
"I am, my dear sir,
"Most cordially yours,
"JACQUES CROCHARD,
"L'Invincible!"
I looked up to find Godfrey regarding me with a quizzical smile.
"Of course it's a joke," I said. Then I looked at him again. "Surely,
Godfrey, you don't believe this is genuine!"
"Perhaps we can prove it," he said, quietly. "That is one reason I came up. Didn't Armand leave a note for you the day he failed to see you?"
"Yes; on his card; I have it here!" and with trembling fingers, I got out my pocket-book and drew the card from the compartment in which I had carefully preserved it.
One glance at it was enough. The pencilled line on the back was unquestionably written by the same hand which wrote the letter.
"And now you know his name," Godfrey added, tapping the signature with his finger. "I have been certain from the first that it was he!"
I gazed at the signature without answering. I had, of course, read in the papers many times of the Gargantuan exploits of Crochard—"The Invincible," as he loved to call himself, and with good reason. But his achievements, at least as the papers described them, seemed too fantastic to be true. I had suspected more than once that he was merely a figment of the Parisian space-writers, a sort of reserve for the dull season; or else that he was a kind of scape-goat saddled by the French police with every crime which proved too much for them. Now, however, it seemed that Crochard really existed; I held his letter in my hand; I had even talked with him—and as I remembered the fascination, the finish, the distinguished culture of M. Félix Armand, I understood something of the reason of his extraordinary reputation.
"There can be no two opinions about him," said Godfrey, reaching out his hand for the letter and sinking back in his chair to contemplate it. "Crochard is one of the greatest criminals who ever lived, full of imagination and resource, and with a sense of humour most acute. I have followed his career for years—it was this fact that gave me my first clue. He killed a man once before, just as he killed this last one. The man had betrayed him to the police. He was never betrayed again."
"What a fiend he must be!" I said, with a shudder.
But Godfrey shook his head quickly.
"Don't get that idea of him," he protested earnestly. "Up to the time of his arrival in New York, he had never killed any man except that traitor. Him he had a certain right to kill—according to thieves' ethics, anyway. His own life has been in peril scores of times, but he has never killed a man to save himself. Put that down to his credit."
"But Drouet and Vantine," I objected.
"An accident for which he was in no way responsible," said Godfrey promptly.
"You mean he didn't kill them?"
"Most certainly not. This last man he did kill was a traitor like the first. Crochard, I think, reasons like this; to kill an adversary is too easy; it is too brutal; it lacks finesse. Besides, it removes the adversary. And without adversaries, Crochard's life would be of no interest to him. After he had killed his last adversary, he would have to kill himself."
"I can't understand a man like that," I said.
"Well, look at this," said Godfrey, and tapped the letter again. "He honours me by considering me an adversary. Does he seek to remove me? On the contrary, he gives me a handicap. He takes off his queen in order that it may be a little more difficult to mate me!"
"But, surely, Godfrey," I protested, "you don't take that letter seriously! If he wrote it at all, he wrote it merely to throw you off the track. If he says Wednesday, he really intends to try for the cabinet to-morrow."
"I don't think so. I told you he would think me only a tyro. And, beside him, that is all I am. Do you know where he wrote that letter, Lester? Right in the Record office. That is a sheet of our copy paper. He sat down there, right under my nose, wrote that letter, dropped it into my box, and walked out. And all that sometime this evening, when the office was crowded."
"But it's absurd for him to write a letter like that, if he really means it. You have only to warn the police…."
"You'll notice he says it is in confidence."
"And you're going to keep it so?"
"Certainly I am; I consider that he has paid me a high compliment. I have shown it to no one but you—also in confidence."
"It is not the sort of confidence the law recognises," I pointed out.
"To keep a confidence like that is practically to abet a felony."
"And yet you will keep it," said Godfrey cheerfully. "You see, I am going to do everything I can to prevent that felony. And we will see if Crochard is really invincible!"
"I'll keep it," I agreed, "because I think the letter is just a blind. And, by the way," I added, "I have a letter from Armand & Son confirming the fact that their books show that the Boule cabinet was bought by Philip Vantine. Under the circumstances, I shall have to claim it and hand it over to the Metropolitan."
"I hope you won't disturb it until after Wednesday," said Godfrey, quickly. "I won't have any interest in it after that."
"You really think Crochard will try for it Wednesday?"
"I really do."
I shrugged my shoulders. What was the use of arguing with a man like that?
"Till after Wednesday, then," I agreed; and Godfrey, having verified his letter and secured from me the two promises he was after, bade me good-night.