The Mystery of the Boule Cabinet Part 39

"Do you mean you know...."

"I know who the Great Unknown is, and I'm going to tell you presently. Day after to-morrow--Wednesday--I'll know all the rest.

The whole story will be in Thursday morning's paper. Suppose you arrange to start Thursday afternoon."

I could only stare at him. He smiled as he met my gaze.

"You're looking better already," he said, "as though you were taking a little more interest in life," and he helped himself to a cigar.

"G.o.dfrey," I protested, "I wish you would pick out somebody else to practise on. You come up here and explode a bomb just to see how high I'll jump. It's amusing to you, no doubt, and perhaps a little instructive; but my nerves won't stand it."

"My dear Lester," he broke in, "that wasn't a bomb; that was a simple statement of fact."

"Are you serious?"

"Perfectly so."

"But how do you know...."

"Before I answer any questions, I want to ask you one. Did you, by any chance, mention me to the gentleman known to you as M. Felix Armand?"

"Yes," I answered, after a moment's thought; "I believe I did. I was telling him about our trying to find the secret drawer--I mentioned your name--and he asked who you were. I told him you were a genius at solving mysteries."

G.o.dfrey nodded.

"That," he said, "explains the one thing I didn't understand. Now go ahead with your questions."

"You said a while ago that you would know all about this affair day after to-morrow."

"Yes."

"How do you know you will?"

"Because I have received a letter which sets the date," and he took from his pocket a sheet of paper and handed it over to me. "Read it!"

The letter was written in pencil, in a delicate and somewhat feminine hand, on a sheet of plain, unruled paper. With an astonishment which increased with every word, I read this extraordinary epistle:--

"_My Dear Mr. G.o.dfrey:_

"I have been highly flattered by your interest in the affaire of the cabinet Boule, and admire most deeply your penetration in arriving at a conclusion so nearly correct regarding it. I must thank you, also, for your kindness in keeping me informed of the measures which have been taken to guard the cabinet, and which seem to me very complete and well thought out. I have myself visited the station and inspected the cell, and I find that in every detail you were correct.

"It is because I so esteem you as an adversary that I tell you, in confidence, that it is my intention to regain possession of my property on Wednesday next, and that, having done so, I shall beg you to accept a small souvenir of the occasion.

"I am, my dear sir,

"Most cordially yours,

"JACQUES CROCHARD,

"L'Invincible!"

I looked up to find G.o.dfrey regarding me with a quizzical smile.

"Of course it's a joke," I said. Then I looked at him again. "Surely, G.o.dfrey, you don't believe this is genuine!"

"Perhaps we can prove it," he said, quietly. "That is one reason I came up. Didn't Armand leave a note for you the day he failed to see you?"

"Yes; on his card; I have it here!" and with trembling fingers, I got out my pocket-book and drew the card from the compartment in which I had carefully preserved it.

One glance at it was enough. The pencilled line on the back was unquestionably written by the same hand which wrote the letter.

"And now you know his name," G.o.dfrey added, tapping the signature with his finger. "I have been certain from the first that it was he!"

I gazed at the signature without answering. I had, of course, read in the papers many times of the Gargantuan exploits of Crochard--"The Invincible," as he loved to call himself, and with good reason. But his achievements, at least as the papers described them, seemed too fantastic to be true. I had suspected more than once that he was merely a figment of the Parisian s.p.a.ce-writers, a sort of reserve for the dull season; or else that he was a kind of scape-goat saddled by the French police with every crime which proved too much for them.

Now, however, it seemed that Crochard really existed; I held his letter in my hand; I had even talked with him--and as I remembered the fascination, the finish, the distinguished culture of M. Felix Armand, I understood something of the reason of his extraordinary reputation.

"There can be no two opinions about him," said G.o.dfrey, reaching out his hand for the letter and sinking back in his chair to contemplate it. "Crochard is one of the greatest criminals who ever lived, full of imagination and resource, and with a sense of humour most acute. I have followed his career for years--it was this fact that gave me my first clue. He killed a man once before, just as he killed this last one. The man had betrayed him to the police. He was never betrayed again."

"What a fiend he must be!" I said, with a shudder.

But G.o.dfrey shook his head quickly.

"Don't get that idea of him," he protested earnestly. "Up to the time of his arrival in New York, he had never killed any man except that traitor. Him he had a certain right to kill--according to thieves'

ethics, anyway. His own life has been in peril scores of times, but he has never killed a man to save himself. Put that down to his credit."

"But Drouet and Vantine," I objected.

"An accident for which he was in no way responsible," said G.o.dfrey promptly.

"You mean he didn't kill them?"

"Most certainly not. This last man he did kill was a traitor like the first. Crochard, I think, reasons like this; to kill an adversary is too easy; it is too brutal; it lacks finesse. Besides, it removes the adversary. And without adversaries, Crochard's life would be of no interest to him. After he had killed his last adversary, he would have to kill himself."

"I can't understand a man like that," I said.

"Well, look at this," said G.o.dfrey, and tapped the letter again. "He honours me by considering me an adversary. Does he seek to remove me?

On the contrary, he gives me a handicap. He takes off his queen in order that it may be a little more difficult to mate me!"

"But, surely, G.o.dfrey," I protested, "you don't take that letter seriously! If he wrote it at all, he wrote it merely to throw you off the track. If he says Wednesday, he really intends to try for the cabinet to-morrow."

"I don't think so. I told you he would think me only a tyro. And, beside him, that is all I am. Do you know where he wrote that letter, Lester? Right in the _Record_ office. That is a sheet of our copy paper. He sat down there, right under my nose, wrote that letter, dropped it into my box, and walked out. And all that sometime this evening, when the office was crowded."

"But it's absurd for him to write a letter like that, if he really means it. You have only to warn the police...."

"You'll notice he says it is in confidence."

"And you're going to keep it so?"

"Certainly I am; I consider that he has paid me a high compliment. I have shown it to no one but you--also in confidence."