The Mystery of the Boule Cabinet: A Detective Story

by Burton Egbert Stevenson

All this I thought over a little sadly, as I sat at home that night; and not without some self-questioning as to my own place in the world. Most of us, I think, are a little saddened when we realise our unimportance; most of us, no doubt, would be a little shocked could we return a day or two after our death and see how merrily the world wags on! I would be missed, I knew, scarcely more than Vantine. It was not a pleasant thought, for it seemed to argue some deficiency in myself.

Then, too, the mystery of Vantine's death had a depressing effect upon me. So long as there seemed some theory to build on, so long as there was a ray of light ahead, I had hoped that the tragedy would be explained and expiated; but now my theory had crumbled to pieces; I was left in utter darkness, from which there seemed no way out. Never before, in the face of any mystery, had I felt so blind and helpless, and the feeling took such a grip upon me that it kept me awake for a long time after I got to bed. It seemed, in some mysterious way, that I was contending with a power greater than myself, a power threatening and awful, which could crush me with a turn of the wrist.

Vantine's will was probated next morning. He had directed that his collection of art objects be removed to the museum, and that the house and such portion of its contents as the museum did not care for be sold for the museum's benefit. I had already notified Sir Caspar Purdon Clarke of the terms of the will, and the museum's attorney was present when it was read. He stated that he had been requested to ask me to remain in charge of things for a week or two, until arrangements for the removal could be made. It would also be necessary to make an inventory of Vantine's collection, and the assistant director of the museum was to get this under way at once.

I acquiesced in all these arrangements, but I was feeling decidedly blue when I started back to the office. Vantine's collection had always seemed to me somehow a part of himself; more especially a part of the house in which it had been assembled. It would lose much of its beauty and significance ticketed and arranged stiffly along the walls of the museum, and the thought came to me that it would be a splendid thing for New York if this old house and its contents could be kept intact as an object lesson to the nervous and hurrying younger generation of the easier and more finished manner of life of the older one; something after the fashion that the beautiful old Plantin-Moretus mansion at Antwerp is a rebuke to those present-day publishers who reckon literature a commodity, along with soap and cheese.

That, of course, it would be impossible to do; the last barrier to the commercial invasion of the Avenue would be removed; that heroic rear-guard of the old order of things would be destroyed; in a year or two, a monster of steel and stone would rise on the spot where three generations of Vantines had lived their lives; and the collection, so unified and coherent, to which the last Vantine had devoted his life, would be merged and lost in the vast collections of the museum. It was a sad ending.

"Gentleman to see you, sir," said the office-boy, as I sat down at my desk, and a moment later, M. Félix Armand was shown in to me.

I have only to close my eyes to call again before me that striking personality, for Felix Armand was one of the most extraordinary men I ever had the pleasure of meeting. Ruddy-faced, bright-eyed, with dark full beard and waving hair almost jet black—hair that crinkled about his ears in a way that I can describe by no other word than fascinating—he gave the impression of tremendous strength and virility. There was about him, too, an air of culture not to be mistaken; the air of a man who had travelled much, seen much, and mixed with many people, high and low; the air of a man at home anywhere, in any society. It is impossible for me, by mere words, to convey any adequate idea of his vivid personality; but I confess that, from the first moment, I was both impressed and charmed by him. And I am still impressed; more, perhaps, than at first, now that I know the whole story—but you shall hear.

"I speak English very badly, sir," he said, as he sat down. "If you speak French…."

"Not half so well as you speak English," I laughed. "I can tell that from your first sentence."

"In that event, I will do the best that I can," he said, smiling, "and you must pardon my blunders. First, Mr. Lester, on behalf of Armand et Fils, I must ask your pardon for this mistake, so inexcusable."