Chapter Six.
In the “Personal” Column.
I had a good deal to do before I could leave for England.
From Marseilles I left for St. Étienne and Chartres, in both of which towns Jules Cauvin had been known in pre-war days. But little additional information which was of value could I pick up, though I was specially struck by the fact that all who knew him laughed at the bare idea of his having blossomed out into a motor expert. They all seemed equally convinced on this point. One man even ventured the suggestion that, if Cauvin was indeed making huge sums of money from a motor invention, he must have stolen the idea from someone else.
“And, believe me, monsieur,” ejaculated the voluble Frenchman, “he would not be above doing so. Jules Cauvin an inventor! Phew! he is too lazy; he never did any work if he could help it.” However, as I was tolerably sure in my own mind that Cauvin was being handsomely paid for services of quite another kind, this did not help me much.
At length, after a journey of a week, during which time I spent only one night in bed, I found myself late one afternoon back in Paris, chatting with my colleagues, Madame Gabrielle Soyez and Henri Aubert, in the former’s cosy little flat au troisième, in the Boulevard Péreire. To both I gave certain very definite instructions. To the elegant little Frenchwoman I added:
“You will proceed to the Grosvenor Hotel in London, and from there will keep the surveillance I have indicated. Remain there until you hear from me. Report progress frequently—at least every other day—in the personal column of The Times.”
I could scarcely refrain from smiling as I turned from the vivacious Frenchwoman—a Parisian in every detail of her chic appearance—to Henri Aubert, who was to be our colleague in the undertaking we had in hand. Aubert was a sad-faced, rather melancholy looking middle-aged man, with a face from which every shred of intelligence seemed to have vanished. He looked, indeed, exactly like one of those middle-class nonentities, colourless and featureless, who, by the mysterious workings of the mind of the great god Democracy, manage to get themselves elected as municipal councillors, or by superhuman endeavour rise to the position of advocate—and never do any good. But behind his unpromising exterior, which, in fact, was one of his chief assets, since it practically freed him from any possibility of suspicion, was a keen intelligence, trained in every detail of our craft, a patience that knew no wearying on the trail, and a judgment which closed like a steel trap on the essential factor in a complicated situation, and, once having secured a hold, never let go. I knew him well and esteemed him highly, and he possessed the entire trust of the astute Armand Hecq, a trust difficult to win, but, once won, fully and freely given.