The Mystery of the Boule Cabinet Part 15

"There," he said; "n.o.body will get into that room without my knowing it."

"No," I agreed; and then a sudden thought occurred to me. "Parks," I said, "is it true that there is a burglar-alarm on all the windows?"

"Yes, sir. It rings a bell in Mr. Vantine's bedroom, and another in mine, and sends in a call to the police."

"Is it working?"

"Yes, sir; Mr. Vantine himself tested it this evening just before dinner."

"Then why didn't it work when I opened those windows just now?" I demanded.

Parks laughed.

"Because I threw off the switch, sir," he explained, "when I came out to get the shutters. The switch is in a little iron box on the wall just back of the stairs, sir. It's one of my duties to turn it on every night before I go to bed."

I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Is it on again, now?"

"It certainly is, sir. After what you told me, I'd not be likely to forget it."

"You'd better have a weapon handy, too," I suggested.

"I have a revolver, sir."

"That's good. And don't hesitate to use it. I'm going home--I'm dead tired."

"Shall I call a cab, sir?"

"No, the walk will do me good. I'll see you to-morrow."

Parks helped me into my coat and opened the door for me. Glancing back, after a moment, I saw that he was standing on the steps gazing after me. I could understand his reluctance to go back into that death-haunted house; and I found myself breathing deeply with the relief of getting out of it.

CHAPTER IX

GUESSES AT THE RIDDLE

The walk uptown did me good. The rain had ceased, and the air felt clean and fresh as though it had been washed. I took deep breaths of it, and the feeling of fatigue and depression which had weighed upon me gradually vanished. I was in no hurry--went out of my way a little, indeed, to walk out into Madison Square and look back at the towering ma.s.s of the Flatiron building, creamy and delicate as carved ivory under the rays of the moon--and it was long past midnight when I finally turned in at the Marathon. Higgins, the janitor, was just closing the outer doors, and he joined me in the elevator a moment later.

"There's a gentleman waiting to see you, sir," he said, as the car started upward. "Mr. G.o.dfrey, sir. He came in about ten minutes ago.

He said you were expecting him, so I let him into your rooms."

"That was right," I said, and reflected again upon G.o.dfrey's exhaustless energy.

I found him lolling in an easy chair, and he looked up with a smile at my entrance. "Higgins said you hadn't come in yet," he explained, "so I thought I'd wait a few minutes on the off chance that you mightn't be too tired to talk. If you are, say so, and I'll be moving along."

"I'm not too tired," I said, hanging up my coat. "I feel a good deal better than I did an hour ago."

"I saw that you were about all in."

"How do you keep it up, G.o.dfrey?" I asked, sitting down opposite him.

"You don't seem tired at all."

"I _am_ tired, though," he said, "a little. But I've got a fool brain that won't let my body go to sleep so long as there is work to be done. Then, as soon as everything is finished, the brain lets go and the body sleeps like a log. Now I knew I couldn't go to sleep properly to-night until I had heard the very interesting theory you are going to confide to me. Besides, I have a thing or two to tell you."

"Go ahead," I said.

"We had a cable from our Paris office just before I left. It seems that M. Theophile d'Aurelle plays the fiddle in the orchestra of the Cafe de Paris. He played as usual to-night, so that it is manifestly impossible that he should also be lying in the New York morgue.

Moreover, none of his friends, so far as he knows, is in America. No doubt he may be able to identify the photograph of the dead man, and we've already started one on the way, but we can't hear from it for six or eight days. But my guess was right--the fellow's name isn't d'Aurelle."

"You say you have a photograph?"

"Yes, I had some taken of the body this afternoon. Here's one of them. Keep it; you may have a use for it."

I took the card, and, as I gazed at the face depicted upon it, I realised that the distorted countenance I had seen in the afternoon had given me no idea of the man's appearance. Now the eyes were closed and the features composed and peaceful, but even death failed to give them any dignity. It was a weak and dissipated face, the face of a hanger-on of cafes, as Parks had said--of a loiterer along the boulevards, of a man without ambition, and capable of any depth of meanness and deceit. At least, that is how I read it.

"He's evidently low-cla.s.s," said G.o.dfrey, watching me. "One of those parasites, without work and without income, so common in Paris.

Shop-girls and ladies' maids have a weakness for them."

"I think you are right," I agreed; "but, at the same time, if he was of that type, I don't see what business he could have had with Philip Vantine."

"Neither do I; but there are a lot of other things I don't see, either. We're all in the dark, Lester; have you thought of that?

Absolutely in the dark."

"Yes, I have thought of it," I said, slowly.

"No doubt we can establish this fellow's ident.i.ty in time--sooner than we think, perhaps, for most of the morning papers will run his picture, and if he is known here in New York at all, it will be recognised by some one. When we find out who he is, we can probably guess at the nature of his business with Vantine. We can find out who the woman was who called to see Vantine to-night--that is just a case of grilling Rogers; then we can run her down and get her secret out of her. We can find why Rogers is trying to s.h.i.+eld her. All that is comparatively simple. But when we have done it all, when we have all these facts in hand, I am afraid we shall find that they are utterly unimportant."

"Unimportant?" I echoed. "But surely--"

"Unimportant because we don't want to know these things. What we want to know is how Philip Vantine and this unknown Frenchman were killed.

And that is just the one thing which, I am convinced, neither the man nor the woman nor Rogers nor anybody else we have come across in this case can tell us. There's a personality behind all this that we haven't even suspected yet, and which, I am free to confess, I don't know how to get at. It puzzles me; it rather frightens me; it's like a threatening shadow which one can't get hold of."

There was a moment's silence; then, I decided, the time had come for me to speak.

"G.o.dfrey," I said, "what I am about to tell you is told in confidence, and must be held in confidence until I give you permission to use it. Do you agree?"

"Go on," he said, his eyes on my face.

"Well, I believe I know how these two men were killed. Listen."

And I told him in detail the story of the Boule cabinet; I repeated Vantine's theory of its first owners.h.i.+p; I named the price which he was ready to pay for it; I described the difference between an original and a counterpart, and dwelt upon Vantine's a.s.sertion that this was an original of unique and unquestionable artistry. Long before I had finished, G.o.dfrey was out of his chair and pacing up and down the room, his face flushed, his eyes glowing.

"Beautiful!" he murmured from time to time. "Immense! What a case it will make, Lester!" he cried, stopping before my chair and beaming down upon me, as I finished the story. "Unique, too; that's the beauty of it! As unique as this adorable Boule cabinet!"