CHAPTER XVII
Sir Charles Collingham and his escort, M. Floçon, entered a cab together and were driven first to the Faubourg St. Honoré. The General tried hard to maintain his nonchalance, but he was yet a little crestfallen at the turn things had taken, and M. Floçon, who, on the other hand, was elated and triumphant, saw it. But no words passed between them until they arrived at the portals of the British Embassy, and the General handed out his card to the magnificent porter who received them.
"Kindly let Colonel Papillon have that without delay." The General had written a few words: "I have got into fresh trouble. Come on to me at the Police Prefecture if you can spare the time."
"The Colonel is now in the Chancery: will not monsieur wait?" asked the porter, with superb civility.
But the detective would not suffer this, and interposed, answering abruptly for Sir Charles:
"No. It is impossible. We are going to the Quai l'Horloge. It is an urgent matter."
The porter knew what the Quai l'Horloge meant, and he guessed intuitively who was speaking. Every Frenchman can recognize a police officer, and has, as a rule, no great opinion of him.
"Very well!" now said the porter, curtly, as he banged the wicket-gate on the retreating cab, and he did not hurry himself in giving the card to Colonel Papillon.
"Does this mean that I am a prisoner?" asked Sir Charles, his gorge rising, as it did easily.
"It means, monsieur, that you are in the hands of justice until your recent conduct has been fully explained," said the detective, with the air of a despot.
"But I protest–"
"I wish to hear no further observations, monsieur. You may reserve them till you can give them to the right person."
The General's temper was sorely ruffled. He did not like it at all; yet what could he do? Prudence gained the day, and after a struggle he decided to submit, lest worse might befall him.
There was, in truth, worse to be encountered. It was very irksome to be in the power of this now domineering little man on his own ground, and eager to show his power. It was with a very bad grace that Sir Charles obeyed the curt orders he received, to leave the cab, to enter at a side door of the Prefecture, to follow this pompous conductor along the long vaulted passages of this rambling building, up many flights of stone stairs, to halt obediently at his command when at length they reached a closed door on an upper story.
"It is here!" said M. Floçon, as he turned the handle unceremoniously without knocking. "Enter."
A man was seated at a small desk in the centre of a big bare room, who rose at once at the sight of M. Floçon, and bowed deferentially without speaking.
"Baume," said the Chief, shortly, "I wish to leave this gentleman with you. Make him at home,"–the words were spoken in manifest irony,–"and when I call you, bring him at once to my cabinet. You, monsieur, you will oblige me by staying here."
Sir Charles nodded carelessly, took the first chair that offered, and sat down by the fire.
He was to all intents and purposes in custody, and he examined his gaoler at first wrathfully, then curiously, struck with his rather strange figure and appearance. Baume, as the Chief had called him, was a short, thick-set man with a great shock head sunk in low between a pair of enormous shoulders, betokening great physical strength; he stood on very thin but greatly twisted bow legs, and the quaintness of his figure was emphasized by the short black blouse or smock-frock he wore over his other clothes like a French artisan.
He was a man of few words, and those not the most polite in tone, for when the General began with a banal remark about the weather, M. Baume replied, shortly:
"I wish to have no talk;" and when Sir Charles pulled out his cigarette-case, as he did almost automatically from time to time when in any situation of annoyance or perplexity, Baume raised his hand warningly and grunted:
"Not allowed."
"Then I'll be hanged if I don't smoke in spite of every man jack of you!" cried the General, hotly, rising from his seat and speaking unconsciously in English.
"What's that?" asked Baume, gruffly. He was one of the detective staff, and was only doing his duty according to his lights, and he said so with such an injured air that the General was pacified, laughed, and relapsed into silence without lighting his cigarette.
The time ran on, from minutes into nearly an hour, a very trying wait for Sir Charles. There is always something irritating in doing antechamber work, in kicking one's heels in the waiting-room of any functionary or official, high or low, and the General found it hard to possess himself in patience, when he thought he was being thus ignominiously treated by a man like M. Floçon. All the time, too, he was worrying himself about the Countess, wondering first how she had fared; next, where she was just then; last of all, and longest, whether it was possible for her to be mixed up in anything compromising or criminal.
Suddenly an electric bell struck in the room. There was a table telephone at Baume's elbow; he took up the handle, put the tube to his mouth and ear, got his message answered, and then, rising, said abruptly to Sir Charles:
"Come."
When the General was at last ushered into the presence of the Chief of the Detective Police, he found to his satisfaction that Colonel Papillon was also there, and at M. Floçon's side sat the instructing judge, M. Beaumont le Hardi, who, after waiting politely until the two Englishmen had exchanged greetings, was the first to speak, and in apology.
"You will, I trust, pardon us, M. le Général, for having detained you here and so long. But there were, as we thought, good and sufficient reasons. If those have now lost some of their cogency, we still stand by our action as having been justifiable in the execution of our duty. We are now willing to let you go free, because–because–"
"We have caught the person, the lady you helped to escape," blurted out the detective, unable to resist making the point.
"The Countess? Is she here, in custody? Never!"
"Undoubtedly she is in custody, and in very close custody too," went on M. Floçon, gleefully. "_ Au secret_, if you know what that means–in a cell separate and apart, where no one is permitted to see or speak to her."
"Surely not that? Jack–Papillon–this must not be. I beg of you, implore, insist, that you will get his lordship to interpose."
"But, sir, how can I? You must not ask impossibilities. The Contessa Castagneto is really an Italian subject now."
"She is English by birth, and whether or no, she is a woman, a high-bred lady; and it is abominable, unheard-of, to subject her to such monstrous treatment," said the General.
"But these gentlemen declare that they are fully warranted, that she has put herself in the wrong–greatly, culpably in the wrong."
"I don't believe it!" cried the General, indignantly. "Not from these chaps, a pack of idiots, always on the wrong tack! I don't believe a word, not if they swear."
"But they have documentary evidence–papers of the most damaging kind against her."
"Where? How?"
"He–M. le Juge–has been showing me a note-book;" and the General's eyes, following Jack Papillon's, were directed to a small _carnet_, or memorandum-book, which the Judge, interpreting the glance, was tapping significantly with his finger.
Then the Judge said blandly, "It is easy to perceive that you protest, M. le Général, against that lady's arrest. Is it so? Well, we are not called upon to justify it to you, not in the very least. But we are dealing with a brave man, a gentleman, an officer of high rank and consideration, and you shall know things that we are not bound to tell, to you or to any one."
"First," he continued, holding up the note-book, "do you know what this is? Have you ever seen it before?"
"I am dimly conscious of the fact, and yet I cannot say when or where."
"It is the property of one of your fellow travellers–an Italian called Ripaldi."
"Ripaldi?" said the General, remembering with some uneasiness that he had seen the name at the bottom of the Countess's telegram. "Ah! now I understand."
"You had heard of it, then? In what connection?" asked the Judge, a little carelessly, but it was a suddenly planned pitfall.
"I now understand," replied the General, perfectly on his guard, "why the note-book was familiar to me. I had seen it in that man's hands in the waiting-room. He was writing in it."
"Indeed? A favourite occupation evidently. He was fond of confiding in that note-book, and committed to it much that he never expected would see the light–his movements, intentions, ideas, even his inmost thoughts. The book–which he no doubt lost inadvertently is very incriminating to himself and his friends."
"What do you imply?" hastily inquired Sir Charles.
"Simply that it is on that which is written here that we base one part, perhaps the strongest, of our case against the Countess. It is strangely but convincingly corroborative of our suspicions against her."
"May I look at it for myself?" went on the General in a tone of contemptuous disbelief.
"It is in Italian. Perhaps you can read that language? If not, I have translated the most important passages," said the Judge, offering some other papers.
"Thank you; if you will permit me, I should prefer to look at the original;" and the General, without more ado, stretched out his hand and took the note-book.
What he read there, as he quickly scanned its pages, shall be told in the next chapter. It will be seen that there were things written that looked very damaging to his dear friend, Sabine Castagneto.
CHAPTER XVIII
Ripaldi's diary–its ownership plainly shown by the record of his name in full, Natale Ripaldi, inside the cover–was a commonplace note-book bound in shabby drab cloth, its edges and corners strengthened with some sort of white metal. The pages were of coarse paper, lined blue and red, and they were dog-eared and smirched as though they had been constantly turned over and used.
The earlier entries were little more than a record of work to do or done.
"Jan. 11. To call at Café di Roma, 12.30. Beppo will meet me.
"Jan. 13. Traced M. L. Last employed as a model at S.'s studio, Palazzo B.
"Jan. 15. There is trouble brewing at the Circulo Bonafede; Louvaih, Malatesta, and the Englishman Sprot, have joined it. All are noted Anarchists.
"Jan. 20. Mem., pay Trattore. The Bestia will not wait. X. is also pressing, and Mariuccia. Situation tightens.
"Jan. 23. Ordered to watch Q. Could I work him? No. Strong doubts of his solvency.
"Feb. 10, 11, 12. After Q. No grounds yet.
"Feb. 27. Q. keeps up good appearance. Any mistake? Shall I try him? Sorely pressed. X. threatens me with Prefettura.
"March 1. Q. in difficulties. Out late every night. Is playing high; poor luck.
"March 3. Q. means mischief. Preparing for a start?
"March 10. Saw Q. about, here, there, everywhere."
Then followed a brief account of Quadling's movements on the day before his departure from Rome, very much as they have been described in a previous chapter. These were made mostly in the form of reflections, conjectures, hopes, and fears; hurry-scurry of pursuit had no doubt broken the immediate record of events, and these had been entered next day in the train.
"March 17 (the day previous). He has not shown up. I thought to see him at the buffet at Genoa. The conductor took him his coffee to the car. I hoped to have begun an acquaintance.
"12.30. Breakfasted at Turin. Q. did not come to table. Found him hanging about outside restaurant. Spoke; got short reply. Wishes to avoid observation, I suppose.
"But he speaks to others. He has claimed acquaintance with madame's lady's maid, and he wants to speak to the mistress. 'Tell her I must speak to her,' I heard him say, as I passed close to them. Then they separated hurriedly.
"At Modane he came to the Douane, and afterwards into the restaurant. He bowed across the table to the lady. She hardly recognized him, which is odd. Of course she must know him; then why–? There is something between them, and the maid is in it.
"What shall _I_ do? I could spoil any game of theirs if I stepped in. What are they after? His money, no doubt.
"So am I; I have the best right to it, for I can do most for him. He is absolutely in my power, and he'll see that–he's no fool– directly he knows who I am, and why I'm here. It will be worth his while to buy me off, if I'm ready to sell myself, and my duty, and the Prefettura–and why shouldn't I? What better can I do? Shall I ever have such a chance again? Twenty, thirty, forty thousand lire, more, even, at one stroke; why, it's a fortune! I could go to the Republic, to America, North or South, send for Mariuccia– no, _cos petto!_ I will continue free! I will spend the money on myself, as I alone will have earned it, and at such risk.
"I have worked it out thus:
"I will go to him at the very last, just before we are reaching Paris. Tell him, threaten him with arrest, then give him his chance of escape. No fear that he won't accept it; he _must_, whatever he may have settled with the others. _Altro!_ I snap my fingers at them. He has most to fear from me."
The next entries were made after some interval, a long interval, –no doubt, after the terrible deed had been done,–and the words were traced with trembling fingers, so that the writing was most irregular and scarcely legible.
"Ugh! I am still trembling with horror and fear. I cannot get it out of my mind; I never shall. Why, what tempted me? How could I bring myself to do it?
"But for these two women–they are fiends, furies–it would never have been necessary. Now one of them has escaped, and the other– she is here, so cold-blooded, so self-possessed and quiet–who would have thought it of her? That she, a lady of rank and high breeding, gentle, delicate, tender-hearted. Tender? the fiend! Oh, shall I ever forget her?
"And now she has me in her power! But have I not her also? We are in the same boat–we must sink or swim, together. We are equally bound, I to her, she to me. What are we to do? How shall we meet inquiry? _Santissima Donna!_ why did I not risk it, and climb out like the maid? It was terrible for the moment, but the worst would have been over, and now–"
There was yet more, scribbled in the same faltering, agitated handwriting, and from the context the entries had been made in the waiting-room of the railroad station.
"I must attract her attention. She will not look my way. I want her to understand that I have something special to say to her, and that, as we are forbidden to speak, I am writing it herein–that she must contrive to take the book from me and read unobserved.
"_ Cos petto!_ she is stupid! Has fear dazed her entirely? No matter, I will set it all down."
Now followed what the police deemed such damaging evidence.
"Countess. Remember. Silence–absolute silence. Not a word as to who I am, or what is common knowledge to us both. It is done. That cannot be undone. Be brave, resolute; admit nothing. Stick to it that you know nothing, heard nothing. Deny that you knew _him_, or me. Swear you slept soundly the night through, make some excuse, say you were drugged, anything, only be on your guard, and say nothing about me. I warn you. Leave me alone. Or–but your interests are my interests; we must stand or fall together. Afterwards I will meet you–I _must_ meet you somewhere. If we miss at the station front, write to me Poste Restante, Grand Hôtel, and give me an address. This is imperative. Once more, silence and discretion."
This ended the writing in the note-book, and the whole perusal occupied Sir Charles from fifteen to twenty minutes, during which the French officials watched his face closely, and his friend Colonel Papillon anxiously.
But the General's mask was impenetrable, and at the end of his reading he turned back to read and re-read many pages, holding the book to the light, and seeming to examine the contents very curiously.
"Well?" said the Judge at last, when he met the General's eye.
"Do you lay great store by this evidence?" asked the General in a calm, dispassionate voice.
"Is it not natural that we should? Is it not strongly, conclusively incriminating?"
"It would be so, of course, if it were to be depended upon. But as to that I have my doubts, and grave doubts."
"Bah!" interposed the detective; "that is mere conjecture, mere assertion. Why should not the book be believed? It is perfectly genuine–"
"Wait, sir," said the General, raising his hand. "Have you not noticed–surely it cannot have escaped so astute a police functionary–that the entries are not all in the same handwriting?"
"What! Oh, that is too absurd!" cried both the officials in a breath.
They saw at once that if this discovery were admitted to be an absolute fact, the whole drift of their conclusions must be changed.
"Examine the book for yourselves. To my mind it is perfectly clear and beyond all question," insisted Sir Charles. "I am quite positive that the last pages were written by a different hand from the first."
CHAPTER XIX
For several minutes both the Judge and the detective pored over the note-book, examining page after page, shaking their heads, and declining to accept the evidence of their eyes.
"I cannot see it," said the Judge at last; adding reluctantly, "No doubt there is a difference, but it is to be explained."
"Quite so," put in M. Floçon. "When he wrote the early part, he was calm and collected; the last entries, so straggling, so ragged, and so badly written, were made when he was fresh from the crime, excited, upset, little master of himself. Naturally he would use a different hand."
"Or he would wish to disguise it. It was likely he would so wish," further remarked the Judge.
"You admit, then, that there is a difference?" argued the General, shrewdly. "But there is more than a disguise. The best disguise leaves certain unchangeable features. Some letters, capital G's, H's, and others, will betray themselves through the best disguise. I know what I am saying. I have studied the subject of handwriting; it interests me. These are the work of two different hands. Call in an expert; you will find I am right."
"Well, well," said the Judge, after a pause, "let us grant your position for the moment. What do you deduce? What do you infer therefrom?"
"Surely you can see what follows–what this leads us to?" said Sir Charles, rather disdainfully.
"I have formed an opinion–yes, but I should like to see if it coincides with yours. You think–"
"I know," corrected the General. "I know that, as two persons wrote in that book, either it is not Ripaldi's book, or the last of them was not Ripaldi. I saw the last writer at his work, saw him with my own eyes. Yet he did not write with Ripaldi's hand– this is incontestable, I am sure of it, I will swear it–ergo, he is not Ripaldi."
"But you should have known this at the time," interjected M. Floçon, fiercely. "Why did you not discover the change of identity? You should have seen that this was not Ripaldi."
"Pardon me. I did not know the man. I had not noticed him particularly on the journey. There was no reason why I should. I had no communication, no dealings, with any of my fellow passengers except my brother and the Countess."
"But some of the others would surely have remarked the change?" went on the Judge, greatly puzzled. "That alone seems enough to condemn your theory, M. le General."
"I take my stand on fact, not theory," stoutly maintained Sir Charles, "and I am satisfied I am right."
"But if that was not Ripaldi, who was it? Who would wish to masquerade in his dress and character, to make entries of that sort, as if under his hand?"
"Some one determined to divert suspicion from himself to others–"
"But stay–does he not plainly confess his own guilt?"
"What matter if he is not Ripaldi? Directly the inquiry was over, he could steal away and resume his own personality–that of a man supposed to be dead, and therefore safe from all interference and future pursuit."
"You mean–Upon my word, I compliment you, M. le Général. It is really ingenious! remarkable, indeed! superb!" cried the Judge, and only professional jealousy prevented M. Floçon from conceding the same praise.
"But how–what–I do not understand," asked Colonel Papillon in amazement. His wits did not travel quite so fast as those of his companions.
"Simply this, my dear Jack," explained the General: "Ripaldi must have tried to blackmail Quadling, as he proposed, and Quadling turned the tables on him. They fought, no doubt, and Quadling killed him, possibly in self-defence. He would have said so, but in his peculiar position as an absconding defaulter he did not dare. That is how I read it, and I believe that now these gentlemen are disposed to agree with me."
"In theory, certainly," said the Judge, heartily. "But oh! for some more positive proof of this change of character! If we could only identify the corpse, prove clearly that it is not Quadling. And still more, if we had not let this so-called Ripaldi slip through our fingers! You will never find him, M. Floçon, never."
The detective hung his head in guilty admission of this reproach.
"We may help you in both these difficulties, gentlemen," said Sir Charles, pleasantly. "My friend here, Colonel Papillon, can speak as to the man Quadling. He knew him well in Rome, a year or two ago."
"Please wait one moment only;" the detective touched a bell, and briefly ordered two fiacres to the door at once.
"That is right, M. Floçon," said the Judge. "We will all go to the Morgue. The body is there by now. You will not refuse your assistance, monsieur?"
"One moment. As to the other matter, M. le General?" went on M. Floçon. "Can you help us to find this miscreant, whoever he may be?"
"Yes. The man who calls himself Ripaldi is to be found–or, at least, you would have found him an hour or so ago–at the Hotel Ivoire, Rue Bellechasse. But time has been lost, I fear."
"Nevertheless, we will send there."
"The woman Hortense was also with him when last I heard of them."
"How do you know?" began the detective, suspiciously.
"Psha!" interrupted the Judge; "that will keep. This is the time for action, and we owe too much to the General to distrust him now."
"Thank you; I am pleased to hear you say that," went on Sir Charles. "But if I have been of some service to you, perhaps you owe me a little in return. That poor lady! Think what she is suffering. Surely, to oblige me, you will now set her free?"
"Indeed, monsieur, I fear–I do not see how, consistently with my duty"–protested the Judge.
"At least allow her to return to her hotel. She can remain there at your disposal. I will promise you that."
"How can you answer for her?"
"She will do what I ask, I think, if I may send her just two or three lines."
The Judge yielded, smiling at the General's urgency, and shrewdly guessing what it implied.
Then the three departures from the Prefecture took place within a short time of each other.
A posse of police went to arrest Ripaldi; the Countess returned to the Hotel Madagascar; and the Judge's party started for the Morgue,–only a short journey,–where they were presently received with every mark of respect and consideration.
The keeper, or officer in charge, was summoned, and came out bareheaded to the fiacre, bowing low before his distinguished visitors.
"Good morning, La Pêche," said M. Floçon in a sharp voice. "We have come for an identification. The body from the Lyons Station –he of the murder in the sleeping-car–is it yet arrived?"
"But surely, at your service, Chief," replied the old man, obsequiously. "If the gentlemen will give themselves the trouble to enter the office, I will lead them behind, direct into the mortuary chamber. There are many people in yonder."
It was the usual crowd of sightseers passing slowly before the plate glass of this, the most terrible shop-front in the world, where the goods exposed, the merchandise, are hideous corpses laid out in rows upon the marble slabs, the battered, tattered remnants of outraged humanity, insulted by the most terrible indignities in death.
Who make up this curious throng, and what strange morbid motives drag them there? Those fat, comfortable-looking women, with their baskets on their arms; the decent workmen in dusty blouses, idling between the hours of work; the riffraff of the streets, male or female, in various stages of wretchedness and degradation? A few, no doubt, are impelled by motives we cannot challenge–they are torn and tortured by suspense, trembling lest they may recognize missing dear ones among the exposed; others stare carelessly at the day's "take," wondering, perhaps, if they may come to the same fate; one or two are idle sightseers, not always French, for the Morgue is a favourite haunt with the irrepressible tourist doing Paris. Strangest of all, the murderer himself, the doer of the fell deed, comes here, to the very spot where his victim lies stark and reproachful, and stares at it spellbound, fascinated, filled more with remorse, perchance, than fear at the risk he runs. So common is this trait, that in mysterious murder cases the police of Paris keep a disguised officer among the crowd at the Morgue, and have thereby made many memorable arrests.
"This way, gentlemen, this way;" and the keeper of the Morgue led the party through one or two rooms into the inner and back recesses of the buildings. It was behind the scenes of the Morgue, and they were made free of its most gruesome secrets as they passed along.
The temperature had suddenly fallen far below freezing-point, and the icy cold chilled to the very marrow. Still worse was an all-pervading, acrid odour of artificially suspended animal decay. The cold-air process, that latest of scientific contrivances to arrest the waste of tissue, has now been applied at the Morgue to preserve and keep the bodies fresh, and allow them to be for a longer time exposed than when running water was the only aid. There are, moreover, many specially contrived refrigerating chests, in which those still unrecognized corpses are laid by for months, to be dragged out, if needs be, like carcasses of meat.
"What a loathsome place!" cried Sir Charles. "Hurry up, Jack! let us get out of this, in Heaven's name!"
"Where's my man?" quickly asked Colonel Papillon in response to this appeal.
"There, the third from the left," whispered M. Floçon. "We hoped you would recognize the corpse at once."
"That? Impossible! You do not expect it, surely? Why, the face is too much mangled for any one to say who it is."
"Are there no indications, no marks or signs, to say whether it is Quadling or not?" asked the Judge in a greatly disappointed tone.
"Absolutely nothing. And yet I am quite satisfied it is not him. For the simple reason that–"
"Yes, yes, go on."
"That Quadling in person is standing out there among the crowd."