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Hold the door! yelled La Touche, springing to his feet and fumbling for his electric torch. Mallet leaped for the door, but, tripping over the chair, missed it. As La Touche flashed on his light they could see it closing. There was a low, mocking laugh. Then the door slammed and they heard the key turn in the lock. La Touche fired rapidly through the panels, but there was no sound from without. Then Mallet flung himself on the handle. But at his first touch it came off. The holes for the screws had been enlarged so that they had no hold.
The managing director took the note and turned back into his private office to read it. He was puzzled. He had said at 11.15 he would be engaged for half an hour. Therefore, Mr. Felix would only have had fifteen minutes to wait. As he opened the envelope he wondered why that gentleman could not have spared this moderate time, after coming all the way from the docks to see him. And then he was puzzled again, for the envelope was empty!
Well, I cant understand it at all. But I mustnt be wasting your time. Ill write a note and, if he should turn up again, perhaps you would be kind enough to give it to him? Im much obliged to you, Im sure.
He wasnt interested in that particular group, I suppose?
I wrote the letter in the round hand of a junior clerk, signing it The I. and C. S. N. Co., Ltd., per in the same hand, and Avery with an undecipherable initial in another kind of writing, and another per, and then two not very clear initials. I hoped in this way to mislead Harkness, if he happened to know the genuine signature.
I suppose, monsieur, Lefarge turned to the managing director, we could interview this man Fouchard?
Burnley smiled also.
Good-evening, madame. Is this where M. Jean Dubois of Messrs. Corot, Fils lives?
And about what hour did you leave?
He began to think over his friends circumstances. Felix had always been reticent about his life, but to the doctor he had seemed a lonely man. He lived alone, and Martin had never known him to have visitors staying in the house. Nor could the doctor recall the Frenchmans ever having spoken of relatives. Who, he wondered, will help him now?
As he looked at it even his long experience scarcely prevented him giving a cry of triumph. For, to the best of his belief, this was the machine on which the Le Gautier letter had been typed!
Calais arr. 1.11 p.m.
He went a step further. At the end of each of the three journeys it was met by a middle-sized, black-bearded, French-looking man. In the case of the third journey that man was Felix. In the two earlier, his identity was not definitely known, but he was like Felix. Suppose it was Felix in each case, would not this also tend to prove there was only one cask, and that Felix was sending it backwards and forwards with some design of his own? The Inspector felt sure that he was right so far.
I may get what you want all right, sir. Im only pointing out that the thing is not all plain sailing. Ill cross, then, to-night, and I hope I may soon have some good news to send you.
Yes, that is the ladys name, returned La Touche, making a mental note of it.
This is the Story
Of the millions who unfolded their papers a few mornings after the events described in the last chapter, there were few but felt a thrill of excitement as their eyes fell on the headlines, The Cask Mystery. Arrest of Lon Felix. Though by no means all the facts discovered by the police had become public, enough had leaked out to arouse a keen and general interest. The tragic circumstances of the case, no less than the baffling mystery in which it was shrouded, intrigued the popular imagination and, though the police were early credited with having the usual clue and the customary arrest was stated to be imminent, none outside the official ranks had any real idea in what direction suspicion was tending.
Truly these three discoveries, the letter signed Your heartbroken Emmie, the bent brooch on the curtain, and the tell-tale impression on the blotting paper seemed to the Inspector entirely to settle the question of Felixs guilt.
Felix answered the questions readily and the Inspector noted his replies. He felt inclined to believe the lottery business was genuine. At all events inquiries in Paris would speedily establish the point. But even if it was all true, that did not prove that Le Gautier had written the letter. A number of people had heard the conversation, and any one could have written it, even Felix himself. Ah, that was an idea! Could Felix be the writer? Was there any way of finding that out? The Inspector considered and then spoke again.
I cursed the whole affair bitterly, particularly when I thought of Jim waiting at the house. But there was nothing I could do, and I yoked the box cart and left. I went round by the house and told Jim, and I never saw a madder man in all my life. I could make nothing of him, so I left him and did the piano job. I just got back to the yard and was going for dinner when you nabbed me.
Sitting over his coffee in a quiet corner of one of the large restaurants in the Boulevard du Nord, he reviewed once more M. Boiracs statement, ticking off in his mind the various items he had been able to check. On Saturday night Madame had disappeared. On Sunday and Sunday night Boirac was at his home. Monday he spent at his office, and that night he was again at home. On that same Monday evening he had unpacked the statue from the cask. Tuesday morning saw him in his office at the usual hour, but he had left again between nine oclock and half-past. About 1.30 that same day he had lunched at Charenton, and shortly after 2.30 had telephoned to Fran?ois and to his office. Fran?ois had taken his bag to the Gare du Nord about 3.30, and Boirac had got it from there, as he had brought it back with him from Belgium. He had telephoned to the H?tel Maximilian about 7.30 or 8.00 on the Wednesday, and had slept there that night. Next day he had returned to Paris, reaching his house in the evening. Further, it was true that his brother lived at Malines and that his house had been shut up on the Wednesday in question, also that Berliozs Les Troyens was given on the night he said.