The Exploits of Juve Part 23

"What's all that now?" questioned Fandor.

"The best thing that could happen for us," replied Juve. "The police are coming. These quays are a refuge for all kinds of tramps and crooks who from time to time are rounded up. We are probably going to see a 'drive.'"

Juve had scarcely finished speaking when several shots rang out; these were followed by a general uproar and then a great blue flame suddenly rose, died away and flared up again. A thick smoke permeated the atmosphere.

"Fire," exclaimed Fandor.

"The kegs of alcohol are alight," added Juve.

The two had now to think of their own safety. Evidently bandits had been tracking them for more than an hour, guided by Doctor Chaleck.

But they soon found that their retreat was cut off by a ring of flames.

"Let us head for the Seine," suggested Fandor, who had discovered a break in the ring of fire at that point. A fresh explosion now took place. From a burst cask a spurt of liquid fire shot up, closing the circle. It had become impossible to pa.s.s through in any direction.

They heard the cries of the rabble, the whistles of the officers. In the distance the horns of the fire engines moaned dolefully. The heat was growing unbearable, and the ring enclosing Fandor and Juve narrowed more and more. Suddenly Juve pointed to an enormous empty puncheon that had just rolled beside them.

"Have you ever looped the loop?" he asked. "Hurry up now; in you go; we'll let it roll down the slope of the quay into the river."

In a few moments the cask was rolling at top speed. Juve and Fandor guessed by the crackling of the outer planks and by a sudden rise in the temperature that they were pa.s.sing through the fire. All at once the great vat reached the level of the river. It plunged into the waves with a dull thud.

XVII

ON THE SLABS OF THE MORGUE

As he turned at the far side of the Pont St. Louis, Doctor Ardel, the celebrated medical jurist, caught sight of M. Fuselier, the magistrate, chatting with Inspector Juve in front of the Morgue.

"I am behind-hand, gentlemen. So sorry to have made you wait."

M. Fuselier and Juve crossed the tiny court and entered the semi-circular lecture-room, where daily lessons in medical jurisprudence are given to the students and the head men of the detective police force.

Doctor Ardel, piloting his guests, did the honours.

"The place is not exactly gay; in fact, it has an ill reputation; but anyhow, gentlemen, it is at your disposition. M. Fuselier, you will be able to investigate in peace: M. Juve, you will be at liberty to put any questions you choose to your client."

The doctor spoke in a loud voice, emphasising each word with a jolly laugh, good natured, devoid of malice, yet making an unpleasant impression on his two visitors less at home than he in the gruesome abode they had just entered.

"You will excuse me," he went on, "if I leave you for a couple of minutes to put on an overall and my rubber gloves?"

The doctor gone, the two instinctively felt a vague need to talk to counteract the doleful atmosphere the Morgue seemed to exhale, where so many unclaimed corpses, so much human flotsam, had come to sleep under the inquiring eyes of the crowd, before being given to the common ditch, being no more than an entry in a register and a date: "Body found so and so, buried so and so."

"Tell me, my dear Juve," asked M. Fuselier. "This morning directly I got your message I at once acceded to your wish and asked Ardel to have us both here this afternoon, but I hardly understand your object. What have you come here for?"

Juve, with both hands in his pockets, was walking up and down before the dissecting table. At the Magistrate's question he stopped short, and, turning to M. Fuselier, replied:

"Why have I come here? I scarcely know myself. It's everything or nothing. The key to the puzzle. I tell you, M. Fuselier, things are becoming increasingly tragic and baffling."

"How's that?"

"The part played by Josephine is less and less clear. She is Loupart's mistress; she informs against him, is fired at by him, then, according to Fandor, becomes in some manner his accomplice in a robbery so daring that you must search the annals of American criminality to find its like."

"You refer to the train affair?"

"Yes. Now, leaving Josephine on one side, we are confronted with two enigmas. Doctor Chaleck, a man of the world, a scholar, crops up as leader of a band of criminals. What we know for certain about him is that he fired at Josephine, that he was concerned in the affair of the docks--no more. There remains Loupart; and about him being the real culprit we know nothing. There is no proof that he killed the woman. In order to prove that we should have to know who that woman is and why she was killed, and also how. The how and why of the crime alone might chance to give us the answer."

"What trail are you following?"

"That of the dead woman. The body we are about to examine will determine me in which quarter to direct my search."

M. Fuselier, looking at the detective with a penetrating eye, asked:

"You surely haven't the notion of suspecting Fantomas?"

"You are right, M. Fuselier," he replied. "Behind Loupart, behind Chaleck, everywhere and always it is Fantomas I am looking for."

Whatever information the detective was about to impart to the magistrate was cut short by the return of Doctor Ardel. That gentleman, in donning the uniform of the expert, had resumed an appearance of professional gravity.

"We are going to work now, gentlemen," he announced. "I need not remind you, of course, that the body you are about to see, that of the woman found in the Cite Frochot, has already undergone certain changes due to decomposition, which have modified its aspect."

So saying, Dr. Ardel pressed a b.u.t.ton and gave an attendant the necessary order. "Be so good as to bring the body from room No. 6."

Some minutes later a folding door in the wall opened and two men pushed a truck into the middle of the hall upon which lay the corpse of the unknown.

"I now give over the dead woman to you to identify," declared Doctor Ardel. "My examination has been carried out and my part as expert is over--I am ready to hand in my report."

Fuselier and Juve bent long over the slab upon which the body had been placed.

"Alas!" cried Juve, "how recognise anything in this countenance destroyed by pitch? What discover in these crushed limbs, this human form, which is now a shapeless ma.s.s?" And, turning to Dr. Ardel, he questioned:

"Professor, what did you learn from your autopsy?"

"Nothing, or very little," replied the doctor. "Death was not due to one blow more than another. A general effusion of blood took place everywhere at once."

"Everywhere at once? What do you mean by that?" questioned Juve.

"Gentlemen, that is the exact truth. In dissecting this body I was surprised to find all the blood vessels burst, the heart, the veins, the arteries, even the lung cells. More than this, the very bones are broken, splintered into a vast number of little pieces. Lastly, both on the limbs and over the whole body I find a general ecchymosis, reaching from the top of the neck to the lower extremities."

"But," objected Juve, who feared the professor might linger over technical details too complex for him, "what general notion does this suggest to you as to the cause of death?"

"A strange idea, M. Juve, and one it is not easy for me to define. You might say that the body of this woman had pa.s.sed under the grinders of a roller! The body is 'rolled,' that is just the word, crushed all over, and there is no point where the pressure might be conjectured to have been greatest."

M. Fuselier looked at Juve.

"What can we deduce from that?" he asked.