The Strange Adventures of Mr. John Smith in Paris/Chapter 13
CHAPTER XIII.
MR. JOHN SMITH was interrupted in the task of addressing envelops—there seemed to be sixty or seventy of them of all sorts, shapes, and sizes—by a call to the telephone.
“This is M. Baudet at the Prefecture of Police,” he was informed over the wire.
“Hello, Cap,” Mr. Smith responded cheerfully. “How are you?”
“Will you so honor me. Monsieur, as to come to my office on a trifling little matter that happened last night?” M. Baudet requested.
“Oh, you mean that thing in the cab? I’ll be over there in about an hour and a half; sometime before noon, anyway.”
“Thanks, Monsieur.”
“I was just on the point of calling you up,” Mr. Smith went on. “There’s something I want to see you about.”
“Indeed! What did it so please Monsieur as to have on his chest?”
“I have found Clarke. I thought you might be interested; so I was coming down to tell you about it.”
The telephone wire fairly buzzed with a sudden burst of questions. Mr. Smith listened for an instant: then, with a grin:
“I’ll be over and tell you all about it.”
Whereupon he hung up the receiver and returned to his task of addressing envelops.
HE chose a long, circuitous route to the Prefecture of Police, pausing in the office to drop three or four envelops into the mailbox: thence along the Quai d’Orsay, past the Hotel du President, and on up beside the curving river as far as the Eiffel Tower. He crossed there and leisurely sauntered up the Avenue Kleber toward the Arc de Triomphe, stopping ever and anon to drop a few more envelops into the mailboxes. Just beyond the Arc de Triomphe he climbed on a bus, and stepped off at Montmartre. Here he mailed more letters, after which he took a taxicab for the Prefecture of Police.
Directly in front of the entrance to the building is a mailbox. Mr. Smith looked at it thoughtfully, dropped two or three letters into that, then went inside. M. Baudet rose to greet him. A smile of welcome parted his perfumed whiskers, and he offered a delicately manicured hand. Mr. Smith shook it.
“Be seated, Monsieur. It is welcome news that you have succeeded in locating M. Clarke. I suppose it is another compliment to the police of your country for you, one man, to have found M. Clarke, when I, with half a dozen, failed?”
“Oh, not necessarily,” Mr. Smith responded loftily. “Between me and you, Cap, I don’t believe there’s another police system in the world like this one in Paris.”
“Thank you, Monsieur,” and M. Baudet beamed his gratification. “And now where is M. Clarke?”
“Before we get to that, Cap, I believe there’s something you want to talk to me about, isn’t there? Suppose we take things in order. What is it?”
M. BAUDET shrugged his shoulders. “It is of no consequence, a mere trifle,” he explained. “I suppose it arises from a difference in police methods, a difference between your country and mine. In your country, Monsieur, we understand perfectly that it is occasionally necessary for men in our profession to use force. Here it is very different. A blow in the face is a criminal offense. I am referring, Monsieur, to the incident in the cab last night.”
“Yes, I understand.” Mr. Smith nodded.
“The other day, when we discovered that you are who you are, we allowed you to go, Monsieur, and said nothing about the girl who also has been seeking M. Clarke. If you were not M. Clarke, then M. Clarke remained to be found. The girl was one of our clues. We lost track of her for awhile; but last night, quite accidentally, M. Remi saw her and followed her in a taxicab.”
Mr. Smith began to look surprised.
“M. Remi, of course, was not aware that you, by some ruse, had inveigled the girl into coming to meet you. We do not blame you, Monsieur; we admire the skill with which you brought about this, so difficult a thing: but we were not aware of your connection with it. Understand, M. Remi was following the girl. When you got into the cab he assumed it was M. Clarke, and jumped upon the running board. Then, Monsieur, you struck him—M. Remi!”
“Well, well!” remarked Mr. Smith. “Was that M. Remi?”
“So it was, Monsieur. He gave chase in another cab, as you know; but when he caught it, it was empty. It was clever, Monsieur, very clever; but from M. Remi’s viewpoint it was also painful. Neither M. Remi nor myself desires to be unpleasant about the incident, recognizing in you, as we do, a master of the craft; but, in all the circumstances, we agreed that it might be advisable to warn you against employing such—er—such forcible tactics. We trust you will understand our position?”
“I think I’m hep, Cap. I’m sorry I hit him. You see, I’d framed this thing up, and when the girl came she told me she was being followed. I didn’t know who was following her; but I couldn’t afford to take any risk of having my plans knocked skywestern crooked, so when a man came sticking his nose in the cab I hit it.”
M. Baudet considered the matter in detail and smiled. “Your explanation is quite satisfactory, M. Smith. However, in your future work in France it might be well to remember that striking a man with your fist is a criminal offense. You may kick a man, or slap him, I mean if violence is absolutely necessary; but you must not hit him.” There was a pause. “And now, M. Clarke. You say you have found him. Where?”
HE is living in a little apartment in the Rue St. Honore,” Mr. Smith told him frankly, and he gave the street number, “under the name of Charles Roebling. The girl in the cab with me was his daughter Edna. Mr. Clarke came to Paris on a matter of personal business, and it was not advisable that his real identity should be known until this business was disposed of. Immediately after his arrival he was stricken with typhoid fever and lay for several weeks practically unconscious. His friends in the United States, unable to reach him, not knowing the name he had assumed, grew uneasy about him, and so you were asked to find him. His daughter, meanwhile, was uneasy. and she came to find him. I came to find him in the course of my duty.”
M. Baudet nursed his perfumed whiskers for a minute or so in silence. This American detective, who spoke not a word of French, who had worked alone, had discovered the man whom half a dozen of his own detectives, speaking four and five languages each, had not been able to find! It was a reflection upon the boasted efficiency of his system. He looked quite sad about it.
“I tell you what I’ll do, Cap,” Mr. Smith volunteered magnanimously. “Suppose you cable to the people who asked you to find him and say that you have found him. I’ve made no report as yet; so you’ll get first crack at it. I don’t mind, because, as I say, it was all in the day’s work. It might mean something to you.”
M. Baudet rose and shook Mr. Smith’s hand. The honor of his beloved France was saved through the generosity of this so big American!
ONE of M. Baudot’s satellites entered with a card. M. Baudet nodded, and the satellite vanished through the door. Immediately M. le Marquis d’Aubigny entered. He stopped short at the sight of Mr. Smith and stood for an instant gazing at the two men in turn. Then his evil eyes lighted up triumphantly.
“This meeting is most propitious,” he said to M. Baudet. “I just came to ask that this man Smith be taken into custody on a charge of theft.”
“Theft!” exclaimed M. Baudet. “Why, M. le Marquis, there must be some mistake! M. Smith is a detective.”
“M. Smith is an impostor,” the Marquis declared hotly. “Says he is a detective, eh? Ask him to show you his credentials, his badge. On behalf of M. W. Mandeville Clarke, I accuse him of the theft of seven million five hundred thousand francs in United States bonds from an apartment in the Rue St. Honore, and I demand his arrest!”
Mute, motionless, Mr. Smith stood, as the structure he had painfully erected to save himself, and incidentally Clarke, from ruin and a prison cell came clattering down about his ears. This was the end, an airing of the whole malodorous thing in the press and in court, discovery by the bank officials in Passaic of the huge theft, and the inevitable collapse of the bank in consequence. This, and more, it meant.
“Well, M. Smith,” demanded M. Baudet curtly, “what have you to say?”
Mr. Smith faced M. le Marquis. “Well—you—idiot!” he remarked.