Hugger-Mugger in the Louvre (8 page)

“I don't know why I came here first,” he said. “Just a hunch, but it seems that my hunches are not worth much, after all.”

“I'm sure they are,” said Miriam, “I feel as if something were holding me here.”

Homer had been examining with a magnifying glass the covering of the mummy cases. Experimentally he tried to lift one, and the lid responded.

“Would you mind holding this open for me?” he asked.

Miriam tried to move her legs to walk toward him and at first could not succeed. Finally she felt herself walking as if against a strong undertow. With all her courage she pulled herself together, attained his side and took a firm but trembling hold on the lid. Inside the case was another of painted wood and the lid of this Homer lifted out and placed on the floor beside them. The mummy was wrapped from head to foot in strips like bandages, exuding an odor that made her feel faint at first but to which she slowly grew accustomed.

“Nothing out of the way here, as far as I can see. I'm as ignorant as a child in matters Egyptian,” he said. “Let's have a look at the next one.”

The second case was opened and examined, and results were nil. When the inner lid was raised from the fourth, however, Evans drew in his breath sharply. He reached for his magnifying glass, dropped to his knees, and after several minutes to Miriam's astonishment he took out his pocket knife and slit a small sample from the mummy cloth, from the underside of the mummy's broad knee.

“What have you found?” asked Miriam.

“I wonder,” he said thoughtfully. “We'll have to look to wiser men than I for an answer to that question.”

The echo of a voice from above brought them tensely to their feet and again Miriam's hand clutched her automatic.

“Don't shoot. It's only Frémont and he's far away,” Evans said, “Come! We've got to work quickly. I'm afraid the chief of detectives would disapprove of our ghoulish activities.”

Hastily he re-opened one of the cases they had already inspected and there again he cut a small sample of the wrappings around the knee. “That's all just now,” he said. “Is everything in order?”

They glanced at the six mummy cases to make sure no traces had been left of their investigation, then hurried upstairs to join the bellowing Frémont.

“Nom de Dieu,
I thought I'd lost you! How long must we remain in this damnable place? There's nothing hidden behind the paintings,” Frémont said.

“We may as well wait until tomorrow,” said Evans. “Let's go to the prefecture and find out if anything unusual has been reported. After that, a few hours of sleep won't be amiss. We'd better sleep while we can, for I have a distinct feeling that once this case gets fairly started . . .”

“Started?” said Frémont, indignantly. “It's gone far enough to suit me. I shall be the laughing stock of France. For once, my friend, I fear you have gone astray. You are looking for motes when only a beam is involved, but such a beam. Three million francs! Disgrace! Exposure!”

“Calm yourself, Chief. I promise you developments tomorrow,” Evans said.

Disconsolately Frémont let himself be led toward the main exit and there he was pleased to observe that Sergeant Bonnet had restored a semblance of order. The curious crowd, once it had seen a few arrests and a pair of suspects being carted away, had dispersed. Bonnet had sent home the extra officers, given instructions to the attendants-in-chief, and had even been thoughtful enough to telephone Mme. Frémont to the effect that her husband had been given full charge of the spectacular case of the year and probably would not be home for several days and nights.

“One item of interest I have to report, and it may be important,” Bonnet said. “There's an empty Citroen taxi parked just inside the southern archway, no passenger, no driver, nothing. And it's been there several hours. None of the blockheads who was here before I came can tell me just how long . . .”

“Ah,” said Frémont, immediately hopeful.

“You haven't heard all,” continued Bonnet excitedly. “The meter, gentlemen and mademoiselle,”—his voice broke with emotion—“the meter reads 273 francs, and is still ticking.”

Within an instant all four were trotting toward the taxi and neither Evans, Miriam or Frémont had approached the battered Citroen nearer than one hundred feet before they called out in unison:

“Lvov Kvek! It's the colonel's taxi!” And, indeed, on closer inspection it proved to be the car in which Hugo Weiss and the Russian had been kidnapped the year before.

The chief of detectives began a kind of rigadoon, clasping and unclasping his hands and making assorted noises which gradually became coherent enough to be classified as speech. “And you,” he said excitedly to Evans. “You, yourself, were the one who told me that Kvek was in the habit of stealing small pictures from walls.”

Here it should be explained to the reader that in his first days of struggle in Paris, before he knew enough French to drive a taxi, the former colonel had eked out a bare existence by exchanging old engravings that chanced to be on the walls of the Hotel Voltaire for new ones he could pick up for a franc or two on the
quais.

Evans, as certain as he was that Frémont's hasty suspicions were groundless, decided to let them ride. The Chief needed cheer of some kind and Evans needed time.

“Let's go at once to Montparnasse and see what this is all about,” he said. “I thought our friend the colonel was in America. Perhaps he is.”

A four-minute ride in the official car, with the aid of the siren, brought them all to the curb in front of the Dôme and there they found, in the center of the
terrasse:
Rosa Stier with her ninth Pernod, Harold Simon, a rangy Finnish painter named Snorre Sturlusson, and a Junoesque Swedish actress called Olga. The last named had reached the point where she was rendering, to the delight of the regulars and tourists assembled, her version of
Barbara Frietchie
in Swedish dialect. To say that the newcomers were greeted warmly is an illustration of the shortcomings of mere words. Rosa Stier yelled
“Sauve qui pent.”
The Finn shook Frémont's hand until it felt as if it had passed through a clothes wringer. And Olga stepped down from the table and threw her shapely arms around Evans' neck. It was only the extraordinary force of Homer's personality that within a reasonable time restored enough order for the questioning to begin. M. Chalgrin, the proprietor, was called away from his gloomy computations, the waiters rallied around, and soon it was established that Kvek had appeared out of the blue, as it were, with a middle-sized American business man in tow, the latter having been introduced as a friend of Hugo Weiss.

“Was the colonel in possession of any small package or packages?” asked Frémont severely.

“He acquired a package in a hurry, but not a small one,” Rosa said. “From what I hear it was a beaut.”

From then on M. Chalgrin took up the narrative. He explained that the Russian and his dapper American had been received by Hjalmar Jansen and Tom Jackson; that after a stupendous number of double whiskies the American had got lost, that the resulting search for him had ended in a riot, after which Kvek, Hjalmar and Jackson had escaped in a taxi and had not been heard from since.

“My God! The drunken Americans,'' Frémont said, and within five seconds the Chief, with Miriam, Evans and Sergeant Bonnet, were speeding to the prefecture with small regard for life and limb. They burst in on Sergeant Schlumberger, who was still in the act of questioning the suspects, Angorre and Dubonnet, and a moment later found themselves in front of a trio of cells in which the Russian, the reporter and the painter known as Jansen or Gonzo were snoring, which gave proof that life was still extant, but nothing more. The chief of detectives, having had previous experience with those same gentlemen, called feebly for the medical examiner, Dr. Hyacinthe Toudoux.

Fortunately, the doctor was still in his laboratory, engaged in deep research, and was soon on the scene.

“Monsieur Evans,” he cried, delightedly. “How good it is to see you again! I am so far in your debt that I am almost ashamed to ask you what I can do for you.”

“How long will it be,” asked the Chief, somewhat abruptly, “before these incorrigibles can be revived again?”

The medical examiner passed leisurely from one cell to another, sighed, listened through his stethoscope, tested the breaths with a lighted match, and said: “Not before morning, between eleven and two.”

“Impossible. I must speak with them immediately. At once. Do you hear?” Frémont said.

The doctor raised his eyebrows. “I have given my best opinion,” he said. “And I beg you to remember that my text-book on the resuscitation of drunken men is the standard work on the subject, not only in France but in other lands as well. These men drink with a singleness of purpose that makes necessary a set of special calculations. Instead of swallowing and absorbing tranquilly, as we do in France, they fill themselves to the brim and only begin the absorption process after they have taken in enough to stagger a whole company of soldiers. You may try to wake them, if you wish, but I warn you against it.”

“The press is waiting to talk with you,” an officer said to Frémont, from the doorway, and in despair the Chief left the corridor, followed by Bonnet.

T
HE
laboratory of Dr. Hyacinthe Toudoux was on the western side of the prefecture, separated from the prefect's office and the retention cells by yards and yards of administrative offices in which, during the daylight hours, hordes of harassed clerks wrestled with passports, identity cards and reams of records which, if they served no other purpose, helped reduce substantially the numbers of the unemployed in France. At the entrance, Miriam, at the doctor's suggestion, paused a moment while a sheet was hastily thrown over a couple of corpses that had recently been brought in, and a case of American prairie rattlesnakes that had crossed the ocean
in
the self-same liner, the
Ile de France,
which also had transported Lvov Kvek and his missing charge, Mr. K. Parker Seldon, of the American Jar and Bottle Corporation. The good doctor, while he had scrupulously kept his word to Evans about divulging the formula for making Mickey Finns, which Evans had given him in connection with the death of Ambrose Gring, had been intrigued by the properties of the excellent oil those serpents provided and had kept a few on hand for his personal use and private experiments.

The main room smelled rather strongly of formaldehyde, so, following the doctor's lead, Evans and Miriam stepped out on a balcony which overlooked the Flower Market. Although it was not yet dawn, the stalls were already being filled with fresh roses, lilies, gladioli and other seasonal plants and flowers.

“How lovely,” Miriam sighed, glancing from the verdant scene below to the fading stars above.

The doctor smiled. Already he had forgotten about the drunken men in the prefecture, so intent he was on his investigations and research.

“My calling,” he said to Miriam and Homer, “may seem sordid at first glance, but there are compensations. You may recall, Monsieur Evans, that some time ago I read a paper before the Academy of Science in which I stated that I had found an over-strained liver streaked with heliotrope and mauve.”

“I read the report in
Le Temps
with great interest,” Homer said. “And I was amused to find that you imputed that unusual size and coloring to California Medoc. I wouldn't mind the Californians manufacturing or drinking such stuff, if it pleases them, but when they label it with the time-honored names of French vintages, then I object most strenuously.”

“Today I found another pink liver, and the corpse had also spent several years in California,” the medical examiner said, triumphantly. “But pardon me, mademoiselle and monsieur. I see by your expressions that something unusual is in the wind, and surely our chief of detectives would not be in such a state from any trivial cause. But that affair of the Louvre, as I see by the papers, is a spectacular theft. So much the better. I shall not be involved.”

“I wouldn't be too sure,” said Evans. “To be frank, I am out of my depth. In a moment of weakness I agreed to help our friend, the Chief, and I fear I shall prove a broken reed, or such a limp one that no breakage will be necessary. Tell me, Dr. Toudoux, to whom would you turn for enlightenment on Egyptian questions?”

“Has there been trouble there again?” the doctor enquired.

“I do not mean the Egypt of today, which has fallen so far below its former glories. I refer to that Egypt of yore, the land which led the way toward that which we call civilization, the times of the building of the pyramids and the Sphinx.”

“Oh, those,” said Dr. Toudoux. “Well, if that's what's on your mind, I think I know your man. My old friend Zacharie de la Poussière, who held the chair of Egyptology at the Sorbonne until he retired in order to pursue his studies uninterruptedly. He lives in the
place
Dauphine, not three hundred yards from here. I'm sure he'd be happy to be of service.”

“No doubt Professor de la Poussière has long since been in bed. I've read of his deciphering of hieroglyphics. Is he conversant with materials and fabrics as well?” Evans asked.

“First of all, I'm sure he's not asleep, since he works nearly every night. And scholars come to him all the way from Egypt itself to learn about what went on there centuries ago,” said the doctor.

“You'll excuse me then,” said Evans, noting the exact address on a card. “If you think he wouldn't mind, I'll try to see him at once.”

“Remind him that on Friday he's playing parchesi with me,” the doctor said. “It's a silly game, I know, but we both seem to like it.”

As Miriam and Evans entered the
place
Dauphine, they noticed a single lighted window, and since it was in the building the doctor had indicated Homer pressed the doorbell. The door was opened so suddenly that both of them recoiled, confronted by a distracted woman in negligée, her hair awry, her face showing marks of recent tears. The woman screamed and the concierge, close behind her, grunted.