# A Race for Life

Extracted from The Windsor Magazine, Vol 67 1927 Dec, pp. 71–82. Accompanying illustrations may be omitted. [#M. Hercules Popeau]
Illustration: "'I have seen too much of human nature,' observed Popeau thoughtfully, 'not to realise that there are innumerable human beings who will do anything—anything, mark you—for money.'"
A RACE FOR LIFE
By MRS. BELLOC LOWNDES
ILLUSTRATED BY HENRY COLLER
TING-A-LING-A-LING went the telephone on Hercules Popeau's table. He took the receiver off, feeling quite certain that he would be told whoever it was had been given a wrong number. His number was known to very few of his friends, for his long connection with that branch of the Paris police known as La Sûreté, had induced in a man naturally frank to a fault, habits of caution and secretiveness. Also, he had only just been installed in the charming rooms which he had taken on a permanent basis in the old-world stately Hotel Paragon which lies just off the Boulevard St. Germain.
"Allo! Allo!" he called out sharply. "Who d'you suppose you're asking for?"
"My venerated master, Herculean Popeau," came the laughing answer.
"Good day, Maroquin! What can I do for you, my boy? I suppose you want me to lunch to-morrow instead of to-day—eh?"
"Nothing of the sort!" came the instant, indignant answer. "On the contrary, I want you to come now, at once. I have an English lady in my office, sent me by one of my London correspondents. He telephoned and told me about her last night, but I could make nothing of the story, except that he does not believe in it himself! But she has plenty of money to spend, it seems, so I may as well get some of it. Unluckily she knows very little French, and I, as you are aware, know hardly any English."
"What does she want you to do?"
"That's what I want you to tell me. I'm speaking from the Post Office, for I know by experience that even those who profess complete ignorance of our beautiful language generally understand what one does not wish them to hear."
"I'll come at once. By the way, what is her name?"
"She is a Mrs. Brantwood, and charming, dear friend, charming!"
Hercules Popeau went through into the spacious panelled bedroom which opened out of his study. Already it had assumed a home-like look, for it contained his own furniture. Opening a huge Breton carved wood cupboard, he got out of it a greatcoat, for it was cold as only Paris can be cold a few days before Christmas. Then, with his hat and stick in his hand, he went quickly down the wide staircase where just a little over a hundred years ago a Marshal of France and his beautiful wife had stood many an hour receiving their guests, including, according to tradition, on one occasion at least, Napoleon and Marie Louise.
As he went through the hall he stayed his steps for a moment, and smiled pleasantly at Madame la Patronne. "Have you any clients coming to-day?" he inquired genially.
She shook her head a little anxiously. "Everything's very quiet—too quiet. But we generally get a certain number of provincials, for, the New Year. What we long for are some English and Americans."
Hercules Popeau hastened on, through the great paved courtyard, to the boulevard. He looked longingly at a taxi, but he was a thrifty Frenchman, for all his cosmopolitan experiences, so he waited in the bitter wind for an omnibus. At last one came up, and as he rattled along in it, he visualised what this autobus must have looked like transferred into a perambulating meat-safe, when rushing up food to the Front. No Frenchman of our time ever forgets the War for more than a few minutes of his waking hours.
Within less than ten minutes he was across the Seine, and in the narrow street, behind the Louvre, where his friend Maroquin had lately set up a Secret Enquiry Agency. The young man had started on his own against Hercules Popeau's advice. The older man would have liked his pupil to remain longer in the public service. But very confident Maroquin had done extremely well in a big murder mystery case, and his name had even been mentioned in the newspapers. So his father-in-law had provided the capital for him to start on what is an expensive, as well as, often, a dangerous business. Hercules Popeau, during his own last year at the Sûreté, had gone to a great deal of trouble to help—he called it "to form"—young Maroquin. He had tried hard to persuade him to learn more than a mere smattering of English and German, but there he had been up against French, or rather Parisian, insularity. "There are plenty of people who can speak languages," had exclaimed Maroquin. "International crime does not interest me. Our own evilly-disposed countrymen will provide me with plenty of work!"
"No doubt. But most of the money in the world is now in the hands of Germans and Americans," the other had answered sadly.
As Hercules Popeau hurried up the narrow street he was surprised to see his former colleague hurrying towards him. "I've come to meet you, for it's so awkward in that tiny office of mine, where everything can be overheard from one room to the other!" For so good-natured and easygoing a young man Maroquin looked sulky and put out.
"I have a most important case waiting for me at Asnières," he went on. "And now my morning has been wasted over this English lady! It might be worse, for she is a very pretty woman, in spite of her tears."
"What does your London agent say about her?" interjected Popeau. By this time the two men had arrived at the house where Maroquin's office lay on the fourth storey.
"All my London man has to say," replied the other crossly, "is that there is plenty of money and a big bonus once success is assured. It concerns one of those tiresome disappearance cases. I should think, reading between the lines of his letter, that he feels doubtful of success. Now I cannot afford to waste my time with no result; I have not only a wife—I now have a strong baby son to consider!" and he smiled for the first time.
"Not afford to waste time? That is a very foolish thing to say!" exclaimed Hercules Popeau with a touch of sternness. "You will make no headway, Maroquin, if you start in our way of life with that point of view. As for your little boy, there will be very little butter on his bread if you fail in business."
The other looked just a little ashamed. "You must forgive me," he muttered, "but all the morning I have been longing to get to Asnières!"
Popeau waited for a few moments, his hands clasped behind his back in what the other knew was his characteristic thinking attitude. Then he said suddenly: "Look here, Maroquin? Go of! now, at once, to this other job of yours. I will interview this lady, and take on the job myself, if I judge it well to do so. My only stipulation"—a twinkle came into his eyes,—"if I pull it off for you, my friend, will be that you must give half the fee earned, whatever it may be, to my favourite charity, the 'Drop of Milk.' As to our lunch, let us postpone it till to-morrow."
Maroquin's face lit up with relief. He seized the other man's hand. "Thank you a million times," he cried. "I cannot afford to take up speculative work. Once more you have earned your nickname."
"My nickname? " Popeau smiled. "I had more than one nickname before I laid myself on the shelf."
"I mean your nicest nickname, that of 'Papa Popeau'!"
While this short colloquy was going on under the porte cochère, Maroquin's English client, Miranda Brantwood, was sitting in his office, her heart full of bitter pain. True, she had dried her tears, yet she felt even more miserable than she had felt, say, ten minutes ago when, in her indifferent French, she had still been struggling to tell the young man the reason why she had flown from London to Paris that morning. She was a sensitive woman, and instinctively she had felt that Maroquin was not really interested in her case, though he had shown a good deal of concern at her evident distress. She had supposed the main lines of her somewhat peculiar story were already known to the French secret enquiry agent. Only after she had been speaking for some time had she realised, with dismay, that she was dealing with a foreigner who was substantially ignorant of what had brought her to Paris, or of how very urgent was the matter. At last, however, she had found a phrase which had awakened his attention.
"It's a race for life!" she had sobbed despairingly.
Maroquin had drawn towards him a dictionary, looked up the word "race," and there had come into his face a sudden look of understanding. But even then she found it impossible to make him realise why this question of finding where her husband was staying in Paris was so horribly urgent. It was the life of the man she loved, though they had now been separated for over a year, that she believed in danger.
The door of the shabby little office—so unlike the well-furnished comfortable room of Maroquin's London correspondent—opened, and an elderly man came in. "You are Mrs. Brantwood?" he said in a kindly tone.
She rose to her feet, and somehow, she could not have told you why, she suddenly felt a little less miserable. She held out her hand, and the big Frenchman took it in a cool, firm, kindly grasp. He turned and shut the door; took a chair from behind the deal table where Maroquin had sat, and placed it close to her.
"Now then, as you say in your country, tell me all about it!" he ordered in a cheerful, kindly tone. "My friend Maroquin has given over your case into my hands, and I am here to give you all the help in my power——"
Then something happened which touched Hercules Popeau. Tears began running down her pale face. "I'm so glad," she sobbed, "so glad to have at last found someone who is willing to help me, that I'm really crying for joy!"
Any man would have been flattered, how far more so this man who, with all his terrible knowledge of the ugly, sinister side of human nature, was yet still tender-hearted, and always easily moved by any human being's distress. Woman, to Hercules Popeau, was still a fragile, sensitive creature, quite unfit to battle with the cold winds of life.
"I suppose that you know something of England and of English ways?" she began nervously.
"Yes, I think I may claim to know a great deal about England," he answered. "My work often took me to London in the old days."
"You know," she went on, "about our laws of entail?"
He hesitated, for he did not know what the word "entail" signified, but he concealed this lack of knowledge. "In what way," he asked, "does that law affect you?"
She looked at him earnestly, and he was struck and moved by her fair, delicate, refined type of beauty. Maroquin had not exaggerated. Mrs. Brantwood was a very pretty woman.
"My husband is heir to a great property, as well as to a baronetcy, for he is great-nephew to Sir John Brantwood. Sir John has never married, and he is now a very old man. He has two great-nephews, my husband, Jack Brantwood, and Jack's first cousin, Arthur. Now Arthur is what we call in England a wastrel. At a time when my husband was in Australia, and had been completely lost sight of by his family, so much so that he was presumed to be dead, Arthur went to a moneylender, and raised a huge sum of money on what were then regarded as his certain prospects."
"And then your husband came back? A very painful return from the dead for the moneylender!" observed Hercules Popeau dryly.
"How wonderful of you to have guessed so quickly what happened——"
"Was it not obvious?"
"Then you also realise——"
"—that between that moneylender and his money there only stands your husband's life?"
She half rose from her chair, as she exclaimed excitedly, "And old Sir John is now very ill; in fact, he is dying. I'm convinced," and a wild look came over her face, "that an effort will be made during the next few days to bring about my husband's death here, in Paris."
"Do you seriously believe," said Popeau thoughtfully, "that a moneylender, however much he stands to lose, would murder for profit?"
"I do not think that! The man who I feel sure—sure, Monsieur Popeau—intends to bring about my husband's death is what we call the moneylender's 'tout.' His name is Jim Patterdale. He is a man of good family, but he has been living on his wits for the last twenty years. It was he who introduced the business to the moneylender, and if my husband dies before Sir John, Jim Patterdale will get twelve thousand pounds commission. Blood money," she cried. Then, more calmly she went on: "He has been the evil genius of both my husband and of foolish Arthur Brantwood. He hates me, and it was he who, some months ago, brought about the quarrel between Jack and myself which led to our parting. Yet Jack loves me—I know he does," she ended up woefully.
"Your husband is here, in Paris?"
"Yes—and with Jim Patterdale. But where I do not know. It is that I have come to find out."
"Where are you staying yourself?"
"I came straight from the aviation ground here. I thought the English detective I employ would have explained everything to Maroquin. But the truth is that Mr. Brown does not believe my husband is in any danger. He laughs at the idea, and thinks me a foolish, hysterical, jealous woman, who hopes to get her husband back by pretending a crazy fear for his safety."
"I am not like Mr. Brown," observed Popeau thoughtfully. "I have seen too much of human nature not to realise that there are innumerable human beings who will do anything—anything, mark you—for money."
"Mr. Brown believes that too. But he thinks such people stop short of murder, especially if they are in what we call society," she said in a low trembling voice.
"He is quite wrong there," answered Popeau dryly, "and for this reason. The unscrupulous man who belongs by birth and upbringing to a secure, solid, social stratum, is apt to think that whatever he may do Nemesis will surely pass him by."
"Jim Patterdale," said Mrs. Brantwood, "has always lived in luxury, for he has charming manners. But lately he has been dreadfully hard up."
"Does he go by more than one name?" asked Popeau. "I mean by that, is he the sort of man who has ever got into trouble with the police?"
She shook her head. "Not that I ever heard of! He would not dare to travel under any name but his own, for, at any moment, he might meet someone who knows him quite well. What I really fear——" She stopped; a look of terror had come over her face.
"Yes, what is it you really fear? Try and be honest with me. It will help me to help you."
"I fear he will hire an apache to kill my husband. He is far too crafty to do so himself. I once heard him say," she grew red, "that a Frenchman will do anything for money."
"That peculiarity is not confined to my countrymen, Mrs. Brantwood." He smiled, "Now the first thing we have to discover is where this gentleman and your husband are staying. From what you tell me I should imagine that they have gone to a good hotel."
"Nothing but the best is good enough for Jim Patterdale. But my husband has always been careful about money, and as he may be paying the bill, I feel sure they won't go to a really expensive place. Mr. Brown says that looking for the two will be like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay. Do you agree with him as to that?"
He shook his head. "That might have been so in the old days, before the War, but now, thanks to the passport system which is so much abused in your country it is by no means easy for a foreigner to hide himself in Paris."
He got up. "We ought to be getting busy, Madame. I have a suite of rooms in the Hotel Paragon, just off the Boulevard St. Germain. It is respectable and quiet, kept, too, by an excellent couple. The woman is what you call in England 'a very nice woman,' so, unless you have reason to prefer one place to another, I advise, Mrs. Brantwood, that you allow me to escort you there. It will have the great advantage that you and I can keep in constant touch. Try and be cheerful. I believe that the running of your husband to earth—to use a sporting metaphor—will turn out far easier than you think."
"But do you realise that it is a race for life?"
"Yes, I do realise that. But you may not know that often that kind of race takes much longer to run than anyone would believe possible. After leaving you at the Hotel Paragon I will get in touch with the man who has charge of the foreign passport department at the Prefecture of Police. Unless I am much mistaken, we shall at any rate very soon discover where these two gentlemen are staying."
As they were going out of the door of the little office, Mrs. Brantwood suddenly lifted her beautiful blue eyes to her new-found friend. "I feel such a brute," she murmured, "not to have already thanked you for your wonderful goodness to me."
II.
Mrs. Brantwood had spent three long, troubled days full of anxious misery, and she was still waiting for news to-day, while sitting 'in the charming sitting-room which Hercules Popeau had arranged to be put aside for her use in the Hotel Paragon, and that looked so little like part of an hotel.
Before going out, early on that cold, snowy morning, he had told her that by lunch-time he would have news for her. But the agony of suspense was telling on her, and, as the time went slowly by, more than once she wondered whether after all the London private enquiry agent had been right, and she had got hold of a mare's nest? But she knew that this good new friend of hers, Hercules Popeau, had never wavered in his belief that she was right.
At half-past twelve he came in, and at once he exclaimed, "I've run our couple to earth at last! They are on the Ile Saint-Louis, staying in a flat belonging to the Prince de Juvigny, a friend, I gather, of Mr. Patterdale."
She started. "What a fool I was not to think he might be there! Of course I ought to have thought of that—I knew that this French prince was a friend of Jim Patterdale's."
He looked at her, and a wry smile zigzagged for a moment over his good-humoured face. The tracking down of the two Englishmen to that remotely situated, if luxurious, flat, had caused him a great deal of trouble. A word from Mrs. Brantwood, and all that trouble would have been spared! However, he kept this annoying thought to himself.
"I've found out something else," he said slowly. "This is, that the Prince is coming back the day before Christmas. That is the day after to-morrow, so the two will have to be gone by then. Now this morning Mr. Patterdale changed five hundred pounds of English money into French notes of all denominations."
She rose from her chair. "Then you think, Monsieur Popeau——?"
"I do not think, I know. From these two facts—the Prince's return and the money having been changed—I can deduce that Mr. Patterdale's attempt on your husband's life is to be made to-night. What is more, I can already assure you that this attempt will be frustrated. I'm in close touch with a man familiar with the Paris underworld, and he has all the threads of this affair in his hands. It has taken me three days to make sure of what is Mr. Patterdale's ingenious plot. I did not make the necessary enquiries from above, but from below. Do you understand? Oddly enough, the only thing I could not find out was where your husband and his so-called friend were staying."
She was staring at him with wide-open eyes. To-night. An attempt on her Jack's life to-night? No wonder she was too agitated, too frightened even to speak.
"Sit down," he said in a kindly tone. "It won't take many moments to make you understand the position. Most fortunately for us, the man whom Americans call 'the janitor' and whom we call the concierge of the old house on the quay where your husband is now staying, is by no means a reputable character. He is one of those men who, as it was put to me the other day, will do anything for money. Though he is now absolutely respectable, he is still in touch with some of his old evil friends. The first thing I discovered was that a certain little man who has been in prison, or rather I should say, in and out of prison most of his life—his nickname is Yellowface and he is known to stick at nothing—has been boasting of a great coup he is going to carry off. That man yesterday night was shadowed to the porter's lodge of the house where your husband is staying. To the dwelling-place of the concierge came down Mr. Patterdale to meet Yellowface—a curious acquaintance, truly, for an English gentleman!"
"Was he giving the man money?" she faltered.
"Arranging with him how he should earn his money," said Popeau grimly. "And now, Mrs. Brantwood, I want you to come out with me early this afternoon. I have a key to the flat. We will pay a visit there, while your husband and Mr. Patterdale are out on a motoring expedition."
He saw her face alter; a look of terror came over it.
"Don't be afraid," he said quickly, "there will be no tricks indulged in during that expedition! As a matter of fact, they are taking with them a young lady. She is quite a nice girl, a young singer whom Patterdale, it appears, has known a long time. She is very anxious to appear in musical comedy in London, and Mr. Patterdale has told her that he can give her excellent introductions in the musical world there."
Miranda Brantwood looked at him in surprise as he went on:—"I have ascertained that Patterdale, your husband and the girl are going out this evening to La Mère Gigogne, one of the fashionable cafés where one can dine and then dance. In my view, Mrs. Brantwood, the attempt on your husband's life will be made there this evening, and I cannot help thinking that Patterdale will not make one of the party. I may be wrong, but such is my conviction. I have had thirty years of this kind of work, and once I get on the right track—that naturally is the real difficulty—I can generally tell with mathematical precision what is going to happen. And now, come with me! I have obtained a Perquisition order, for we may find something in the flat which may be of use to us. On the other hand, it is possible we shall find nothing. Even so it is worth making the attempt."
A car was drawn up before the vast perron of the Hotel Paragon, and into it Popeau ushered the English lady with some ceremony. "You know where to go," he said to the chauffeur, and off they started, only to stop a very few moments later before a huge old house, even older than the Hotel Paragon, with a beautiful view of the river—in one of those corners of old Paris where few foreigners penetrate.
Together, the two, the stout Frenchman and the slender Englishwoman, went up the shallow stairs to the first floor. There Hercules Popeau opened the front door of the flat with a latchkey he produced from his capacious shabby leather purse. He waited a moment, listening intently, but there was a curious, heavy silence both within and without.
"My information was correct. Both the day servants have been given a holiday."
"What a delightful place in which to live," said Miranda Brantwood, drawing a long breath.
The hall was hung with fine tapestries, and through a vast window was a lovely view of Notre Dame. They passed into what looked like a painter's studio. There were some splendid pieces of old furniture about, and fine old Italian paintings on the walls.
"Nothing to see here," observed Popeau thoughtfully. "Now we will go into each of the bedrooms." He consulted a plan of the flat and opening a masked door motioned to her to go through it.
"This is Jack's room," exclaimed Mrs. Brantwood, and she touched with a lingering, caressing touch, a rough tweed coat hanging over the back of a chair.
"Ah! so this is the Captain's room? That interests me! Will you go into the Prince's studio while I make a serious search?"
She left the door open, and waited anxiously. All at once she heard him utter an exclamation. "Sapristi! Nous y somme!" he cried.
His companion was far too ignorant of French to know what he meant, but she heard the joyous lilt in the deep, sonorous voice, and wondered what it was he had found.
A moment later he put his head through the door of the bedroom. "I have done good work!" he exclaimed. "But for the present it must remain a secret."
As they went past the porter's lodge Mrs. Brantwood saw that two men in uniform were sitting in the front room, opposite the open door. They sprang to attention.
"You have your instructions?" said Popeau sharply.
"Mais oui, patron!" They grinned, showing their white teeth. Their eyes were bright and eager. She told herself, with a slight shudder, that so dogs look when hunting.
III.
Late that same evening, in the gay surroundings of the famous café dancing-hall known as La Mère Gigogne, Jack Brantwood was acting as unwilling escort to the pretty, vivacious French girl of whom he felt he had already seen too much that day. But Patterdale had caught a chill during their motor expedition to Fontainebleau, and he had begged Brantwood to take his place and give Mademoiselle Carmen "a jolly evening." "She's such a good little sort," he had explained. "Her mother used to take English girls and 'finish' them. My sister was there, otherwise I shouldn't have been allowed to take her out."
Brantwood regretted, now, that he had come on this Paris jaunt. Often he had repented secretly of his foolish quarrel with his wife. But he was too proud to try and make it up.
All this being so he felt perhaps unreasonably annoyed with this French girl, though she knew English quite well and chattered away in between the dances; from something she said he gathered that she thought him depressed and unhappy. This nettled him. He almost told her once or twice that he needed no sympathy.
The evening wore itself away; the heated smoke-laden room became fuller and fuller; close on midnight a great many more people came in, from the theatres and music-halls, no doubt.
With relief he heard his companion ask the time of one of the waiters. The man answered: "Minuit, sauf deux minutes." Mademoiselle Carmen turned to Brantwood. I must be getting home," she exclaimed hurriedly. "My Mamma always stays up for me—Mr. Patterdale knows that well."
She was edging towards the entrance, and she looked uncomfortable, even a little anxious. Truth to tell, she had no idea why Jim Patterdale had told her that she and Brantwood must leave on the very stroke of midnight.
The young Englishman was only too ready to go home, and they were making their way through the crush of incoming people in the vestibule when a most extraordinary thing happened. As they reached the actual entrance, garlanded with artificial ivy, of La Mère Gigogne, for a moment Brantwood and the girl he was escorting were separated. He felt his arms clutched—someone without doubt trying to get at his note-case. While trying to shake himself free, a dwarfish, olive-skinned man grinned up into his face, and—a moment later, he had been dragged clean out of the crowd by two tall, sinewy men! Before he could say a word of protest, one of them bound twice tightly round his mouth and neck a thick silk scarf.
Still held by his captors, he was hustled across the empty street and thrust unceremoniously into a private car; the scarf was unwound from his neck, something was put over his nose and mouth, and he smelt what he knew was the sickly odour of chloroform, before losing consciousness.
While this was occurring in far less seconds than it takes to write, what the French call a bagarre was occurring round the door of the dancing-hall.
The curious little olive-skinned man had been knocked over, and from his hand there had dropped a revolver; and then, as if by magic, a number of police agents appeared on the scene; they picked up the little man, together with his revolver, and took him off, protesting lustily.
As for Jim Patterdale's young friend, with true French quick-wittedness, she had shaken herself free from the crowd, and had begun walking quickly, in her high-heeled satin shoes, down a side street.
Soon she heard behind her heavy footsteps. She turned round to see a big man wrapped in a huge coat, and to her amazement, and yes, terror, he called out, addressing her by her real surname, "What have you been doing—you, a respectable girl, to act as decoy for a villain like Patterdale?"
She burst into angry tears. "I don't know what you mean. Mr. Patterdale is an English gentleman. His sister is a friend of mine."
"What did he give you to make Mr. Brantwood leave La Mère Gigogne exactly at midnight?"
She kept her lips obstinately shut.
"Do you want me to take you along to the Violon?" he asked roughly.
At that slang term for the "lock-up" the girl gave a cry of fear.
He shrugged his shoulders. "I think I can tell you what money you were promised—a fee of five thousand francs eh?"
Illustration: "The curious little olive-skinned man had been knocked over, and from his hand there had dropped a revolver."
"Five thousand francs!" She looked at him in amazement. And then shamefacedly she uttered the words, "One thousand francs." She added, sobbing, "We are very, very poor."
"Umph! Then that villain is mean and penurious as well as everything else," muttered Popeau under his breath.
He opened his pocket-book. He held out to a girl a thousand-franc note. "There," he said, "thank the good God this is not blood money."
"But who are you?" she asked.
"Never mind who I am. I'm old enough to be your father, almost your grandfather. Thank God you are not accessory to a murder. By the way, where do you live?" She gave him, trembling, an address.
Illustration: "Brantwood had been dragged clean out of the crowd by two tail, sinewy men! One of them bound twice tightly round his mouth and neck a thick silk scarf."
"Very well. My car shall take you there now," and he called "Stop" to the driver of a car which had been following slowly, unnoticed by her, along the quiet, snowy street.
"No," she said firmly, "I will walk home."
"Nonsense! Here is my card. I am attached to the Prefecture of Police, as you see."
He said to the chauffeur, "After you have taken this lady to the address that she will give you, come back and fetch me on the Quai Bourbon—you know the place?"
Then he turned on his heel, and after a few moments hailed a taxi.
Patterdale was sitting in the lofty living-room of his friend, the Prince de Juvigny's flat, when there came a loud rat-a-tat-tat on the fine old knocker of the front door.
He got up and looked at the clock. A quarter past one? Brantwood no doubt had had an envelope on him when ... he did not finish the sentence, even to himself.
He walked slowly into the hall, and opened the door. Instead of the police agent he expected to see there stood a big man in evening dress. Someone, maybe, who had come to the wrong flat by mistake? But no, there was no mistake, for, "Do I address Mr. Patterdale?" said the Frenchman in very fair English.
"My name is Patterdale——" And then Patterdale waited. He had found it a good rule in life always to let the other chap come on, break cover, as it were, first.
"I have come to tell you, Mr. Patterdale, that the plan you made—shall I call it a plot?—no, that would be melodramatic, has gone wrong," said the stranger suavely. "Every move you have made is known to the French Police, and if you make the slightest attempt to leave Paris before the death of Sir John Brantwood has taken place—according to our information that may happen to-day, or it may not happen for some weeks—then you will be arrested on a charge of attempted murder. In this country that means, on conviction, the galleys."
"What on earth do you mean?"
"I mean also that, when you leave Paris, you will be well advised not to go back to your own country for, let me see, a good year. Every particular of your activities during the last few days has been sent, as a sworn statement, to Scotland Yard. Henceforward you are a marked man. Good night!"
The stranger turned on his heel. Patterdale staggered back into the room where he had been waiting, or rather pretending to wait, for a man who, well he knew, would never come back. How had the plot which he had reason to think absolutely watertight come to naught? Who had betrayed him? And who was the big man who had given him, no doubt, sound advice?
IV.
"Where the devil am I?" Jack Brantwood sat up, not in bed, but on a bed, in a fine panelled bedroom of which the atmosphere struck him as curiously sinister, perhaps because he could hear no sounds within or without. Was he in Paris? He doubted it. But, truth to tell, he remembered nothing of last night beyond that he had been hustled, first, by a funny-looking little chap, and then by two brawny fellows who, having got him into a car, had evidently chloroformed him. He felt his breast-pocket. There was his note-case, still bulky with notes!
He looked about him. Why, there was a bell! He pressed it hard. Not that he expected it to be answered.
And then there gradually dawned on his ears the roar of traffic, the familiar hoots of taxis not so very far away. Then he was in Paris after all? How anxious his friend Patterdale must be at his non-appearance, indeed at his disappearance!
There came a knock at the door, and a pleasant-faced woman came in. "One little moment, sir," she said in French. Then she walked quickly across the room to a door Brantwood had not noticed was there, and opened it.
"Monsieur Popeau?" she called out, "the gentleman is awake."
"Awake? I've never been asleep. I was drugged—drugged!" called out Brantwood fiercely.
He jumped off the bed, and stood looking expectantly at the open door. An urbane-looking man, a very big man, though obviously a Frenchman, advanced into the room. He bowed. "Have I the honour of addressing Captain John Brantwood?"
"You have," said the other curtly. "And I demand an explanation of the extraordinary way I've been——"
He stopped abruptly, for, after all, these two people had him in their power, and he had no idea where he was. It was with a feeling of dismay that he saw the man who had just come in walk quickly to the other door, that through which the woman had just disappeared, and turn the key in the lock.
"Come into my study, Captain Brantwood. I have something serious to say to you, as well as to give you an explanation of what happened to you last night."
Brantwood followed him, still feeling dazed, and a little sick. What a pleasant room—lined, too, on one side with books—not at all the sort of room one would expect to be that of a villain. But then abroad one never knows!
"I wish to know," he said in a cold, resentful tone, "to what I owe the amazing way in which I have been treated? I did not think such a thing could happen in a civilised city like Paris—that a man could be gagged when he was leaving a place of amusement——"
"No," said Hercules Popeau, smiling, "not gagged."
"To all intents and purposes I was gagged! Something was put over my mouth which made it impossible for me to scream out, and then I was lifted into a car and chloroformed. I suppose you won't deny that!"
"No, that I will not deny. But it was done in your own interest."
The Frenchman had gone behind a wide flat writing-table, and he was moving some papers about as if seeking something.
"In my own interest? How utterly absurd! I came over to Paris three days ago with a friend, and——"
"Your friend," said Popeau quietly, "had taken the trouble to stay at home last night. What excuse did he give for that?"
"There was no cause for his giving any excuse! He had caught a violent chill. In fact, I felt anxious about him."
"Not so anxious," said Popeau quietly, "as he felt about you. And he had reason to be, Captain Brantwood, considering the letter you had left in the blotter in your bedroom at the Prince de Juvigny's flat."
"A letter in the blotter of my bedroom? I left nothing at all in the blotter," said Brantwood in an angry tone.
He was beginning to feel as if he was living through a nightmare.
"May I show you the letter, written apparently in your handwriting, that was found in your blotter?"
"I shall be very glad to see it!"
"Will you please approach a little nearer?"
Jack Brantwood was a brave man. He had won a bar to his military cross during the War. Even so, he felt a certain tremor as he walked up to where the Frenchman was now standing behind the wide table, and his feeling of discomfort was not allayed when he became aware that close to the other's hand lay a wicked-looking little revolver.
"Now, Captain Brantwood, I've taken the trouble to compare the handwriting of this letter with a specimen of your usual handwriting. Do you still deny that you wrote this letter?"
With a touch of eagerness Jack Brantwood held out his hand. Then a look of utter bewilderment filled his good-looking face, for on a piece of notepaper bearing the address at which he and Patterdale had spent the last few days, he read the following words, and he could have sworn that they were in his handwriting!
    "For reasons into which I do not care to enter, Patterdale, I have become tired of life. I have been a rolling stone for years, but that has brought me no happiness, and I have made up my mind to end it all to-night.
    I'm afraid doing it like this is going to cause you a lot of bother. However, the worry will be over soon, old chap, as this letter will make it perfectly clear that I took my own life deliberately. If the French Johnnies want to know where I got the revolver, you can tell them that I brought it with me from England. I was determined that you shouldn't see it, but I fancy the French day-servant who waited on me must have noticed it in what I call my collar drawer. By the way, give the man a hundred francs. He has earned it.
    I am going out for a bit of a spree to-night, and you will find me as likely as not at the Morgue to-morrow morning. My only regret—and I do regret it—is that those cursed moneylenders will soon get double the money they lent to that fool Arthur.
    As for you, Patterdale, you've always been a good pal to me, and I beg your pardon for
Yours ever, Jack Brantwood.
    Given this day in our good city of Paris, December the 23rd."
Brantwood read the extraordinary epistle twice right through. Then he shrugged his shoulders. "Is this a practical joke?" he enquired coldly.
"If so," said Popeau, "it was an expensive practical joke. For your friend Mr. Patterdale paid forty pounds in good English money for that letter. It is the work of one of the most skilful forgers this city, or any other, contains."
The colour drifted from Brantwood's face. "I—I—don't understand," he said falteringly.
Hercules Popeau sat down; he looked up at the fair-haired Englishman who had blanched under his tan.
"If everything had gone according to—do you not say 'Cocker'? I prefer 'Patterdale'—then, Captain Brantwood, this letter would have been produced, let me see? in about two hours from now. And it would have proved to the Paris Police beyond the shadow of a doubt, that you had committed suicide, and with this weapon."
Popeau threw himself back, and held up the wicked-looking little revolver.
"But I've never seen that revolver before," stammered Brantwood.
"I don't suppose you have, though it was supplied by Mr. Patterdale to the apache who was going to use it last night, and who very nearly did make a hole in you. Didn't you notice a little fellow pressing up to you just before two of the four men I had on the job got you? The other two tripped him up, and as he fell he dropped this revolver!"
"—I don't understand." Popeau jumped up. He ran round and drew forward a chair, and Brantwood sank into it. "Do you," he muttered, "mean that I was to have been——"
"—murdered? " Popeau interjected. "Yes."
The other man stared at him. "But why?" he asked hoarsely. "Why?"
And then Popeau observed in a dry, sharp voice: "Again and again, Captain Brantwood, you've been warned about this man—this unscrupulous villain! As to why he wanted to take your life, though he had no quarrel with you personally, remind yourself of one fact. Your uncle, Sir John Brantwood, is dying. Only your life stands between your friend Patterdale and twelve thousand pounds, his commission on 'business' introduced by him to a certain money-lender. Money goes a long way in the Paris of to-day, and the whole affair would have been done, artistically done, too, for how much? It may surprise you to know for under five hundred pounds of your good gold sterling!"
Brantwood held out his hand. "Monsieur, I owe you my life," he said in a broken tone.
"Nay," said Popeau sharply, "you do not owe your life to me. But I will show you to whom you owe your life. It is to a plucky, fine-natured, loving woman——" His voice broke. "Come over here, Captain Brantwood."
He rose, and taking hold of the other man's arm, he led him round the big writing-table.
He slid back a tiny panel, the curiously named "Judas," which is to be found in so many of the old Paris houses which survive from the eighteenth century. It was situated in the wall just behind the chair where he always sat.
"Look through into that room, and there you will see the human being to whom you owe the fact that you are alive now, this morning, instead of lying dead."
And what was it that Brantwood saw? Framed in a charming old-world octagon sitting-room, of which the window looked out into a garden, sat the wife from whom he had parted with angry, contemptuous words some months ago, and yet whom he had loved passionately even while he was being so recklessly cruel.
"Miranda?" he exclaimed. And then called loudly again, "Miranda!"
She sprang up from her chair and looked round her in amazement. Where could that beloved voice be coming from?
Popeau slid back the little shutter. "Go to her," he cried, "go and tell her—no, not that you are grateful—no woman cares for gratitude! Tell her that you love her, that you are ashamed of having been unkind to her—that in future you will believe her when she warns you against a bandit."
As he spoke he was leading the unresisting Brantwood out of the door and down a corridor.
He opened the sitting-room door and pushed him in. As he did so he said, "I'm going out for a short walk. When I come back I will take you both out to lunch at Foyot's, far the best restaurant on this side of the Seine—and quiet, too!"
But Brantwood did not hear that kindly promise. With a yearning cry of "Darling—darling!" he ran forward, and a moment later his wife was in his arms.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1930.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1947, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 77 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse