Hugger-Mugger in the Louvre (32 page)

“Dear me,” the professor said, and wrapped his scarf around his lean throat as he noticed that the river mist was rising. “One learns to be careful of one's health on the Nile,” he said to the Alsatian. “The Euphrates, too, for that matter.”

A
T THE
hour when the Louis XIV clock in Dr. Balthazar Truc's luxurious salon should have been striking eleven, the proprietor of the Sens Unique, who was lounging in his satin dressing-gown and moleskin slippers, was startled by a vigorous peal of the bell at the outer gate.

“Ah! Another patient,” he said, clasping his plump hands behind his back and peering out through a slit between the draperies of the window that commanded the entrance. Instead, he saw his night watchman arguing with a party of three men, one stocky and determined who seemed to be in charge, another heavy-set and ponderous, and the third who had a lean but not exactly hungry look about him. As the doctor watched, he saw a fourth man join the party. “What the devil,” exclaimed Dr. Truc, impatiently.

Taking down a large book from one of the convenient shelves, the doctor advanced to the office doorway to confront the intruders. The volume was a Codification of the Laws relating to the Insane or Feeble-minded, with an appendix dealing with the rights and duties of physicians with reference to the mentally incompetent. He turned the leaves rapidly, placed a thumb between two pages, and waited. He did not have long to wait.

“I am Frémont, Chief of Paris Detectives,” the stocky visitor said, brandishing a document which he handed to the doctor. “I have come to see one Lazare, who has been sent here for observation,” he added.

“Impossible,” said Dr. Truc, with finality.

“This is an order from the court,” said Frémont. “Stand aside, if you please.”

“Chapter 14 of the revised laws of May, 1798, as amended by chapter 4 of the law of March, 1909, expressly states that visitors shall not be admitted to private sanitoriums except between the hours of nine a.m. and five p. m.,” the doctor said. “Good evening, gentlemen, and good night. I shall be happy to receive you in the morning, or at any rate, I shall receive you,” said Dr. Truc.

The soft persuasive voice of Maitre François Ronron introduced a more diplomatic note into the conversation. “My dear doctor,” said the lawyer, bowing. “You have overlooked, perhaps, the amendment to the law you have just quoted, enacted in February, 1923. That provides, if my memory serves me, for visits at all hours to patients accused of major crimes or felonies, provided . . . ah, provided that the counsel for the defense agrees. I am Ronron, counsel for the defense, and I have no objection to having my client questioned. A mere formality, doctor. A bagatelle. We shall not trouble you long. I know what it is to have my hours of rest and recreation broken into, and promise you every consideration.”

“Who are these other men?” the doctor asked, visibly uneasy. The names of Sergeant Schlumberger and Professor de la Poussière did nothing to allay his anxiety. He did not like the look of things at all, and especially he was chagrined at having muffed that amendment of February, 1923. That, for him, was a distinctly bad omen.

The differences between Frémont on the one hand and Truc on the other might have been smoothed over for a while had not a nurse let out a shriek and come running into the vestibule.

“Help! Sound the emergency alarm! A crowd of thieves are hiding behind the telephone booth,” she cried. Coincidently guards and huskies began appearing from all directions.

“That tears it,” said Hjalmar, grinning. “Well, Kvek. You work on the left-hand side and I'll take the right.” And without ado he charged into a couple of guards in white jerseys, clipping one with his elbow as he dealt the other such a jab in the pantry that he doubled up and fell writhing to the floor. Tom Jackson, who had slipped his glasses into an inside pocket, set to work on the casualties while Hjalmar reached out for more. K. Parker Seldon, fitted out with his teeth but somewhat hampered by his Volga boatman's costume, started straight for Dr. Truc and was joined by the mad inventor, Passepartout, who still had his precious stick of stovewood.

Gongs clanged, signal lights flashed. The turmoil spread from ward to ward until old women were diving from their beds as if they were springboards, girls were dancing ring around a rosie, bearded fathers of families were gamboling to and fro, and the chorus of howls from the violent ward took on Wagnerian proportions, with Stravinsky's
Sacre du Printemps
thrown in.

There is no telling what might have happened had not Homer Evans appeared at the head of the main stairway, and beside him, Miriam, automatic in hand.

‘‘Silence,” Evans shouted above the din, and nearly every head was turned in his direction. The exceptions were those of Passepartout and Schlumberger. In his wild excitement, Alsatians looked all the same to the inventor and he had brought down his stick of wood on the sergeant's collar bone with such force that the latter's solid frame was hard put to stand up under the blow. It was Maitre François Ronron who saved the day.

“Why, Passepartout. How are you? I haven't seen you for years,” the lawyer said, suavely, and the inventor, haunted by the echo of a familiar voice, tossed aside his weapon and his intent to commit mayhem, and said:

“You see before you a man gravely wronged. They think I'm crazy but I'm not.”

Hjalmar and Kvek, while waiting for further instructions, were comparing notes. The painter had accounted for six opponents, the Russian only five, but Kvek was always a good loser. Politely he took one hundred francs from his pocket and handed it to Hjalmar, who accepted it with a deprecatory air.

“If everyone will do his best to preserve order, and Dr. Truc will send his strong-arm squads away, I have something to say that will be of interest to all concerned,” Homer said. When the doctor and the guards hesitated, he nodded to Miriam, who shot away in rapid succession the four accents on the plaster motto “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité” that had been mounted above the main doorway.

“That cost six francs eighty,” said Dr. Truc, indignantly, but just then he caught sight of Dr. Hyacinthe Toudoux who was advancing, swords in hand.

“Give 'em room,” said Hjalmar, whose sportsmanship was always impeccable.

“Dr. Toudoux,” said Evans severely. “You had best postpone your bout until I get through talking.”

“As you say. But this time he shall not get away,” said the medical examiner.

“May I have an explanation of this outrage?” demanded Dr. Truc. “Chapters 7 and 8 of the law of December, 1843 . . .”

“I realize that this appears unwarranted and unusual,” said Evans, coolly. “The fact is that the murderer of the Marquis de la Rose d'Antan is in this building, and the object of our coming is to arrest the perpetrator of that picturesque crime.”

“Preposterous,” Dr. Truc said, although visibly shaken. “The suspect Lazare has already been arrested and committed for observation.”

“I shall demonstrate his innocence without delay,” Evans promptly replied. “But it's awkward, meeting here on the main stairway and in the entrance hall, doctor. Could not a selected number of our company hold a confidential session in another more suitable room?”

“I have nothing to fear,” said Dr. Truc. “I am always ready to lend myself to the cause of law and order . . . as set forth in the statutes and upheld by the courts . . .”

“That's different,” murmured Maitre Ronron, smiling.

The guards and nurses, aching with curiosity and some of them smarting from the blows of Kvek and Jansen, were hustled away to quiet the patients, who were carrying on in a frightful manner behind tightly locked doors. Dr. Truc led the way to his main salon, in the private wing, followed by the members of the expedition from Paris, the black-haired nurse, Sofia Alexandrovna, and K. Parker Seldon, who had promised to be good. Miriam was dispatched to fetch the suspect, Lazare, but Schlumberger insisted on accompanying her, since the patient was under arrest.

The pre-arranged signal was sounded and Sergeant Bonnet entered with Xerxes, handcuffed and sullen; Mathilde Dubonnet who was pale but soon spotted Hjalmar and smiled; Madame de la Poussière; Melchisadek; Hydrangea; and last of all, Gus, who looked as if he were in a cocoon, so painstakingly was he bound. The Louis XIV salon had been built for holding fancy-dress balls, with chairs ranged around four sides and a small platform at one end for an orchestra.

“Be seated, ladies and gentlemen,” Homer said, and after they had all complied he added: “Since this concerns so vitally the interests of the Marchioness de la Rose d'Antan, I think she should be present. Will you ask her to come down, please, Mademoiselle Dargomyzshkov?”

Sofia left the room, and after a silence which was broken only by nervous coughs and shuffling of feet, she returned with the Marchioness, in her absurd old-fashioned gown with high neck and puff sleeves. Nevertheless, Madame de la Rose d'Antan crossed the floor with such pathetic dignity that Hélène de la Poussière burst into tears, hurried to her old friend's side and greeted her with such emotion that it was communicated to the whole gathering.

“Eugénie, my dear. How you have suffered! How unjust has been your fate,” sobbed Hélène.

“One must fulfill one's destiny,” the Marchioness said, resignedly. “If I have suffered from the duplicity of others, I have one satisfaction. I have inflicted no pain on another. What I have done, I have done deliberately, and not with cruelty.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Homer began. “I have a long story to tell you, which involves certain acts performed by persons in this room. If any of these acts are described incorrectly, I invite the person in question to challenge my statement and publicly tell the truth. The truth, my friends, will stand up under any inquiry. Falsehood, however clever on the surface, is bound to have a flaw. Therefore I warn you all, although to most of you no such admonition is necessary, to think at least twice before trying to deceive this company, which includes members of the most respected professions, officers of the law whose integrity has never been questioned, brave men, sensitive women, and more than one offender against the laws of God and man. They are not always similar, those two codes of laws, as in an ideal state they should be . . . Now, I shall begin.”

But another interruption was due. No one except Dr. Hyacinthe Toudoux, whose eyes had been glued on Dr. Balthazar St.-J. Truc, noticed that the latter, under cover of the confusion that attended the seating of the guests, had backed into the bedroom. The medical examiner, emitting growls of satisfaction, followed quite as stealthily. He got into the bedroom just in time to see the rear of his host as Dr. Truc was climbing out of a window, from which a balcony led to a fire escape half hidden in the luxurious growth of ivy. Toudoux, with a hand that had by no means lost its accuracy in spite of its possessor's years, plunged the point of a sword into the exposed posterior of the fleeing alienist and promised so earnestly to wet the remaining foil in the heart's blood of his victim, from below and behind, that Dr. Truc backed into the room again.

“Precede me into the salon,” ordered Dr. Toudoux. “Ah. Imposter! Color blind, eh?” Each word was emphasized with a wicked jab and was followed by a squeal of pain and rage.

A gasp of astonishment was heard when the host showed up, emitting short shrieks, in the doorway of his own salon but the explanation of that phenomenon was not long in forthcoming. The assembly caught sight of Dr. Toudoux and saw what he had in his hand.

“Excuse me, Mr. Chairman,” the medical examiner said to Evans, bowing, after the alienist was seated but had not ceased squirming. “One of the offenders against decency was trying to make his get-away.”

“Oh, much obliged,” Evans said. “He wouldn't have got very far.”

“I begin to see,” whispered K. Parker Seldon to Hjalmar and Kvek, “that Europe is wonderful, after all.”

A
s A
matter of precaution, Evans asked Hjalmar to sit near the door leading into the laboratory, Kvek to guard the main entrance, and Miriam to take her place at his left, near the platform, and discourage anyone else from attempting to leave the room. The variegated company, from the racial, sartorial, moral and intellectual points of view, afforded an impressive spectacle in the sixteenth-century ballroom with glittering old-fashioned chandeliers, a polished floor of inlaid wood tastefully patterned, the gilded backs and pale upholstery of the chairs and the slightly risqué character of the Personnes and Fragonards between the wall mirrors. The ceiling had been done by Tiepolo, at a time when he was deservedly suffering from the seven days' itch, which lent the composition a vibrant effect that had been praised highly by certain critics.

There was tense silence when Homer started speaking, punctuated only by suppressed gasps and sighs and the squeaking of the antique furniture. Dr. Balthazar Truc sat stoically in his chair, glaring at the shelf of law books that could be seen through the bedroom doorway. The Marchioness de la Rose d'Antan half closed her eyes and simply waited. Lazare was beside K. Parker Seldon, as passive as the other was intense.

“Most of you,” Evans began, “in common with the public generally, think of this case as having begun with the theft of
The Pansy,
and that its criminal phases ended with the murder of the Marquis de la Rose d'Antan. For a clear understanding of what I am about to tell you, it is first necessary that you shed those misconceptions.

“The roots of this crime go very deep, indeed, and I shall not attempt to bare every unimportant tendril. Let us take off from the point when the resources of the late Marquis began to dwindle to such a degree that he found it difficult to borrow large sums of money. He had squandered his patrimony and exhausted the normal credit extended by acquaintances or admirers of his family. He had placed his wife in this institution which furnishes to its patients, quarters and appointments far below the standard suggested by this room. Her income he had thus appropriated, but it was not enough.