Hugger-Mugger in the Louvre (22 page)

“Good evening, sir,” the professor said, politely, looking around him in a bewildered way. He knew all about gold and copper, those metals having been used freely in ancient Egypt, but iron work was a closed book to him, so he squinted uneasily at the bellows and the forge.

“Professor de la Poussière, I believe,” said Evans, shaking hands. At the sound of Evans' voice, the trussed-up chief of detectives began a sort of rigadoon and had Homer not caught him and steadied him, would have stumbled headlong into the cinders. Rapidly Evans snatched off the blindfold, took the gag from Frémont's mouth and cut the cords from his ankles and wrists.

The chief of detectives was anything but proud of himself. His thanks to Evans he mumbled as graciously as he could, then he stared at the tall professor who was peering up the chimney of the forge and reaching for another pair of spectacles.

“Have you two met?” Evans asked, for it was evident that The Singe had kept his prisoners separate and that Frémont did not know who his companion in the back seat of the delivery car had been. In fact, the Chief had never heard of de la Poussière, and knew nothing of the developments in the case beyond the mere theft of
The Pansy
and the dressing down he had received at the hands of the newspaper men. Frémont's mind, in fact, was torn between two impulses. One had to do with phoning Hydrangea to inform her that he was safe, the second was to take up the trail and get even with the gang who had sandbagged and kidnapped him in the midst of an important investigation.

“Not so fast,” Evans said, as the Chief hit for the door. “There's much for you to hear and assimilate before you barge into any more dens. By the way, perhaps first you'll tell me how you contrived to get yourself removed from our midst?”

“Have you found that insufferable painting?” counter-questioned the Chief, who was not cooling off to any noticeable degree.

“Oh, the painting,” Homer said. “I'd almost let the painting slip my mind. Time has not been standing still while you were the guest of the Rollers, you know.”

“Must we stand here and talk? Those crooks will all get away,” said the Chief.

“A heart to heart talk is often helpful,” Evans replied. “Besides I took the liberty of promising, in your name, that the little incident of your forcible removal would be overlooked. Wiped from the slate of our memory, in fact. And, if it makes you feel better, I don't mind saying that your impromptu adventure has helped, no end, in unraveling this tangle of iniquities. Now please calm yourself, my friend, and tell me about your late indiscretions, which have turned out so luckily for all concerned.”

Frémont's face had turned a deep shade of old rose and was showing some purple streaks and patches. He reached for a horseshoe, but the winning smile on Homer's face recalled him to his senses and he was forced to struggle with a rueful grin himself. He recounted what he had seen from Hydrangea's window and the hunch that had caused him to follow the young man with the tight coat and cap. When he got as far as the blood stains in the
place
Dauphine, he was surprised to see Evans nod with satisfaction. Succinctly the Chief wound up with the tale of the taxi ride, his entrance into the Bal des Vêtements Brulés, and his subsequent awakening in a motorboat.

Homer, in turn, told the Chief about his scrutiny of the mummies in the Egyptian room of the Louvre, and that brought the professor to his side in an instant.

“The fourth from the left. Ha, ha! The fourth from the left, you say. Ho, ho! Excuse me, gentlemen,” and holding his sides the savant sank down on an anvil and laughed so heartily that the Chief began spluttering and turning purple again.

“What is there to laugh about?” he demanded.

“The fourth from the left was Tout-or-Nada,” said the professor, between gasps. “Oh, dear me. Bless my soul.” And he clutched his tired ribs again.

“I noticed that your amusing friend, Tout-or-Nada, was wrapped in a kind of linen that was much inferior to that of his social equals all around him,” Evans went on.

“Oh, no. The best was none too good for him,” said de la Poussière.

“Hear me out, I beg of you, gentlemen,” said Evans, earnestly.

At that, his hearers struck an average between the professor's merriment and the Chief's indignation. The latter, however, could not refrain from asking what Egyptian mummies had to do with a Watteau painting less than a foot square.

“That's the point,” Homer said. ‘Tm glad you are showing an intelligent interest, at last. According to the emergency plans worked out in advance by the guards in the Louvre, an alarm coming from the Hall of Pills would remove both guards from the Egyptian room and the rooms adjoining.” He sketched rapidly a plan of the rooms and stairways. “You see,” he continued. “That would give any evil-minded visitors in the Egyptian room a perfect avenue of escape toward the west. And since the painting was and is completely unsalable, little else could be accomplished by stealing it and by the resultant hue and cry. Do I make myself clear?”

“Go on,” urged the Chief, now thoroughly alert.

“I simply examined the room in question in the hope of finding some suspicious circumstance. And all I found, that did not seem to be in order, was a cheap modern wrapping on what was supposed to be an ancient pharaoh. I snipped off a sample of the bandages from Tout-or-Nada and another chap, the second from the left . . .”

“Ah, yes. Suph, or Chefre, if you prefer,” murmured the professor.

The look on the Chief's honest face seemed to indicate that Suph or Chefre were all the same to him.

“With my samples,” Evans continued, “I went to Dr. Hyacinthe Toudoux and asked him who was tops on Egyptian questions.” Homer bowed to Professor de la Poussière. “The doctor was kind enough to refer me to you,” he said.

“Too generous,” the professor said, and bowed. The Chief nearly twisted off his neck in turning from one to the other.

“I won't bore you with details,” Evans said. “I walked across the
place
Dauphine to find the professor and was informed by his charming wife that he had not been home since early morning.”

“I trust Hélene was not unduly anxious,” de la Poussière said.

“We reassured her. Miriam . . . Miss Leonard was with me. We returned to the
place
Dauphine, disappointed at not finding you in, and some unlucky man in one of the trees took a shot at me, missing by only the narrowest margin.” He turned to the Chief. “You know how Miss Leonard is. She shot the fellow dead and he crashed to the pavement. That accounts for your bloodstains, and the interest of your young chap with the cap.”

“The devil,” said the Chief.

“Why, that's strange,” remarked the professor. “I've walked through the
place
at all hours of the night for forty years, and never have been molested.”

“I must get on with my story,” said Evans. “Dr. Toudoux, although annoyed because his studies had been interrupted by the corpse from the tree, gave me a second-string Egyptian expert, a charming man named Lazare, who stuffs animals by day and roots in Egyptology at night. Miss Leonard and I found Lazare, just after breakfast time ...”

“You couldn't have done better,” murmured de la Poussière.

“Lazare was in a capital mood, just having received your letter about Tout-or-Nada, I presume,” Homer said to the professor, who nodded. “He told me promptly that skulduggery was afoot. Tout-or-Nada's wrapping was not Egyptian but Alsatian and had been manufactured thousands of years after Tout had died. You see, Frémont, that is like finding the body of Vercingetorix in Sascha Guitry's clothes.”

“That ham would do anything for publicity,” Frémont said.

“Publicity was Tout-or-Nada's longest suit,” interposed the professor.

Evans took the floor again. “Of course, an examination of the mummy who reposed fourth from the left was in order, and Lazare was the man to conduct it. Unfortunately, our case at that point was complicated further. A middle-sized business man, K. Parker Seldon, of the American Jar and Bottle Corporation . . .”

“I shall lose my mind,” said Frémont, clutching his forehead. “Egyptians are bad enough. Couldn't you spare me the American?”

“Mr. Seldon,” Evans continued severely, “arrived in Paris on the evening of the theft, accompanied by our old friend, Lvov Kvek.”

“Oh, vodka! Whiskey! Stuffed cold fish! Rioting in Montparnasse,” the chief of detectives groaned.

“Mr. Seldon,” Evans began again, “was the bearer of a message from Hugo Weiss to Professor de la Poussière.” The professor bowed again. “And the message was carved on sandstone in ancient Egyptian characters, first dynasty, I believe.”

“Not only I, but everyone has gone crazy,” sighed the Chief.

“Seldon disappeared, but we found the message. About that time our chief of detectives left us to carry on alone. I can't tell you how we missed him, and how the journalists seemed to resent his absence.”

The Chief buried his face in his hands and suffered.

“I did the best I could without official support,” Evans went on. “I took the sandstone tablet to Lazare and learned that it was a warning and a request addressed to the professor here. Weiss had got wind of a proposed sale of Egyptian relics to a rival collector and urged the professor to investigate secretly and report.

“Well, with Sergeant Schlumberger as our only salaried prop, I took Lazare, Miss Leonard and our Montparnasse friends who did us such good service last year, Messrs. Kvek, Hjalmar Jansen and Tom Jackson the reporter, to the Louvre. In the long corridor filled with statues and empty sarcophagi, just outside the Babylonian and Egyptian rooms, I paused to give last-minute instructions, sort of a pep talk, you know. There I noticed that a sarcophagus had been tampered with. Jansen and Kvek lifted off the lid and inside was the mummy of Tout-or-Nada wrapped in the finest Egyptian linen of his day.

“Lazare and I started on the hot foot for the Egyptian room and in the mummy case belonging to Tout-or-Nada we found the dead body of the Marquis de la Rose d'Antan, swathed and camouflaged by the tell-tale Alsatian grave clothes.”

“Impossible! Not the Minister of Beaux Arts,” said Frémont, in horror.

“If there had to be a sacrifice, the choice was not bad,” the professor said. “The Marquis, an old pupil of mine, was not the man to direct the Ministry of Beaux Arts. I trust that his successor . . .”

“I've got to get back to Paris. I'm disgraced. Ruined. Done for,” Frémont cried.

“Patience, Chief. You have covered yourself with glory. You will have Paris at your feet again, if only you'll develop a bit of poise. I have had your interests at heart and have not been idle an instant. Instead of probing the demise of the late Marquis, or chasing stray Watteaus, I bent my efforts toward finding you, with success, you must admit. No one except us and The Singe's cohorts knows you have been kidnapped. Posterity will marvel at how you have tracked down Professor de la Poussière and rescued him in a deserted blacksmith shop. Tell the press that presently you will also produce K. Parker Seldon, the missing American; the slayers of the Marquis; and the precious little picture. By the way, we should all have a look at the newspapers. Let's amble up to Luneville center, telephone the anxious women, snatch a bite to eat, lay plans for the future and read what the journalists, in the absence of facts, have turned out in the way of fiction and comment.”

Frémont sighed, and shamefacedly extended his hand. “I shall have you to thank, my inscrutable friend, if I escape humiliation and my dependents are not reduced to begging in the streets. There are times when I think my old father was right, and that I should have carried on his humble tobacco shop, as he counseled. There I should not have been continually in the public eye, not called upon to be at once a clairvoyant and a shelf of encyclopedias. The Marquis de la Rose d'Antan! Egyptians! Pansies! American bottle chairmen! Ah, well. Lead me by the hand, as if I were a wayward little child. But cover me with false glories no more. I cannot live up to them. This time, dear friend, the credit shall go to you . . . No. Don't protest. Your genius will be pro-claimed.”

“In that case, you will have to excuse me. I shall abandon the inquiry,” said Evans, firmly, and the Chief was obliged, reluctantly, to yield.

“One thing I haven't made clear,” Homer continued. “The Singe, who leads the reorganized St. Julien Rollers, is a fine upstanding man. I like him, and in this case he's not to be badgered. You see, I only agreed to take you back, friend Frémont, on certain conditions, and you are the last man to suggest that an honorable bargain should not be fulfilled.”

“As you say,” said Frémont, meekly, and followed Evans to the river bank.

“I brought along your chauffeur and the car, for your convenience,” said Evans, indicating Melchisadek, who had anchored the skiff to a snag and with the aid of his powerful flashlight had just succeeded in catching an eighteen-inch
lotte.
The scene that ensued was touching indeed, and gave such proof of mutual affection and esteem between master and man that the professor wiped a tear from his eye.

“It was often thus in ancient Egypt,” he said. “The paintings that remain contain many whips, mostly for decorative purposes. The writings, if only they could be generally read, would do much to correct the impression of Egyptian brutality created by the purely visual arts. The slaves, for the most part, were quite as well off, or better, in the reign of Tout-or-Nada, than workers are today. They worked leisurely, and man-power was not stinted when heavy tasks had to be performed. Had a king like Mykeri or Shepseskef tried to institute a modern speed-up, or turned his subjects loose by tens of thousands to starve in the rainy season, his kingdom would have crashed about his ears.”

“Which is precisely what is occurring today in the industrial world,” said Evans.