Elusive Isabel Part 13

Mr. Grimm drew a long breath.

"She intended to take, perhaps, only what she desperately needed--but at sight of it all--do you see what must have been the temptation then? We get out here."

There were many unanswered questions in Mr. Grimm's mind. He repressed them for the time, stepped out and a.s.sisted Miss Thorne to alight. The carriage had turned out of Pennsylvania Avenue, and at the moment he didn't quite place himself. A narrow pa.s.sageway opened before them--evidently the rear entrance to a house possibly in the next street. Miss Thorne led the way unhesitatingly, cautiously unlocked the door, and together they entered a hall. Then there was a short flight of stairs, and they stepped into a room, one of a suite. She closed the door and turned on the lights.

"The bags of gold are in the next room," she said with the utmost composure.

Mr. Grimm dragged them out of a dark closet, opened one--there were ten--and allowed the coins to dribble through his fingers. Finally he turned and stared at Miss Thorne, who, pallid and weary, stood looking on.

"Where are we?" he asked. "What house is this?"

"The Venezuelan legation," she answered. "We are standing less than forty feet from the safe that was robbed. You see how easy--!"

"And whose room?" inquired Mr. Grimm slowly.

"Must I answer?" she asked appealingly.

"You must!"

"Senorita Rodriguez--my hostess! Don't you see what you've made me do?

She and Mr. Cadwallader made the trip to Baltimore in his automobile, and--and--!" She stopped. "He knows nothing of it," she added.

"Yes, I know," said Mr. Grimm.

He stood looking at her in silence for a moment, staring deeply into the pleading eyes; and a certain tense expression about his lips pa.s.sed. For an instant her hand trembled on his arm, and he caught the fragrance of her hair.

"Where is she now?" he asked.

"Playing bridge," replied Miss Thorne, with a sad little smile. "It is always so--at least twice a week, and she rarely returns before two or half-past." She extended both hands impetuously, entreatingly. "Please be generous, Mr. Grimm. You have the gold; don't destroy her."

Senor Rodriguez, the minister from Venezuela, found the gold in his safe on the following morning, with a brief note from Mr. Grimm, in which there was no explanation of how or where it had been found.... And two hours later Monsieur Boissegur, amba.s.sador from France to the United States, disappeared from the emba.s.sy, vanished!

XII

THE VANISHING DIPLOMATIST

It was three days after the amba.s.sador's disappearance that Monsieur Rigolot, secretary of the French emba.s.sy and temporary _charge-d'affaires_, reported the matter to Chief Campbell in the Secret Service Bureau, adding thereto a detailed statement of several singular incidents following close upon it. He told it in order, concisely and to the point, while Grimm and his chief listened.

"Monsieur Boissegur, the amba.s.sador, you understand, is a man whose habits are remarkably regular," he began. "He has made it a rule to be at his desk every morning at ten o'clock, and between that time and one o'clock he dictates his correspondence, and clears up whatever routine work there is before him. I have known him for many years, and have been secretary of the emba.s.sy under him in Germany and j.a.pan and this country. I have never known him to vary this general order of work unless because of illness, or necessary absence.

"Well, Monsieur, last Tuesday--this is Friday--the amba.s.sador was at his desk as usual. He dictated a dozen or more letters, and had begun another--a private letter to his sister in Paris. He was well along in this letter when, without any apparent reason, he rose from his desk and left the room, closing the door behind him. His stenographer's impression was that some detail of business had occurred to him, and he had gone into the general office farther down the hall to attend to it.

I may say, Monsieur, that this impression seemed strengthened by the fact that he left a fresh cigarette burning in his ash tray, and his pen was behind his ear. It was all as if he had merely stepped out, intending to return immediately--the sort of thing, Monsieur, that any man might have done.

"It so happened that when he went out he left a sentence of his letter incomplete. I tell you this to show that the impulse to go must have been a sudden one, yet there was nothing in his manner, so his stenographer says, to indicate excitement, or any other than his usual frame of mind. It was about five minutes of twelve o'clock--high noon--when he went out. When he didn't return immediately the stenographer began transcribing the letters. At one o'clock Monsieur Boissegur still had not returned and his stenographer went to luncheon."

As he talked some inbred excitement seemed to be growing upon him, due, perhaps, to his recital of the facts, and he paused at last to regain control of himself. Incidentally he wondered if Mr. Grimm was taking the slightest interest in what he was saying. Certainly there was nothing in his impa.s.sive face to indicate it.

"Understand, Monsieur," the secretary continued, after a moment, "that I knew nothing whatever of all this until late that afternoon--that is, Tuesday afternoon about five o'clock. I was engaged all day upon some important work in my own office, and had had no occasion to see Monsieur Boissegur since a word or so when he came in at ten o'clock. My attention was called to the affair finally by his stenographer, Monsieur Netterville, who came to me for instructions. He had finished the letters and the amba.s.sador had not returned to sign them. At this point I began an investigation, Monsieur, and the further I went the more uneasy I grew.

"Now, Monsieur, there are only two entrances to the emba.s.sy--the front door, where a servant is in constant attendance from nine in the morning until ten at night, and the rear door, which can only be reached through the kitchen. Neither of the two men who had been stationed at the front door had seen the amba.s.sador since breakfast, therefore he could not have gone out that way. _Comprenez_? It seemed ridiculous, Monsieur, but then I went to the kitchen. The _chef_ had been there all day, and he had not seen the amba.s.sador at all. I inquired further. No one in the emba.s.sy, not a clerk, nor a servant, nor a member of the amba.s.sador's family had seen him since he left his office."

Again he paused and ran one hand across his troubled brow.

"Monsieur," he went on, and there was a tense note in his voice, "the amba.s.sador of France had disappeared, gone, vanished! We searched the house from the cellar to the servants' quarters, even the roof, but there was no trace of him. The hat he usually wore was in the hall, and all his other hats were accounted for. You may remember, Monsieur, that Tuesday was cold, but all his top-coats were found in their proper places. So it seems, Monsieur," and repression ended in a burst of excitement, "if he left the emba.s.sy he did not go out by either door, and he went without hat or coat!"

He stopped helplessly and his gaze alternated inquiringly between the benevolent face of the chief and the expressionless countenance of Mr.

Grimm.

"_If_ he left the emba.s.sy?" Mr. Grimm repeated. "If your search of the house proved conclusively that he wasn't there, he _did_ leave it, didn't he?"

Monsieur Rigolot stared at him blankly for a moment, then nodded.

"And there are windows, you know," Mr. Grimm went on, then: "As I understand it, Monsieur, no one except you and the stenographer saw the amba.s.sador after ten o'clock in the morning?"

"_Oui, Monsieur. C'est--_" Monsieur Rigolot began excitedly. "I beg pardon. I believe that is correct."

"You saw him about ten, you say; therefore no one except the stenographer saw him after ten o'clock?"

"That is also true, as far as I know."

"Any callers? Letters? Telegrams? Telephone messages?"

"I made inquiries in that direction, Monsieur," was the reply. "I have the words of the servants at the door and of the stenographer that there were no callers, and the statement of the stenographer that there were no telephone calls or telegrams. There were only four letters for him personally. He left them all on his desk--here they are."

Mr. Grimm looked them over leisurely. They were commonplace enough, containing nothing that might be construed into a reason for the disappearance.

"The letters Monsieur Boissegur had dictated were laid on his desk by the stenographer," Monsieur Rigolot rushed on volubly, excitedly. "In the anxiety and uneasiness following the disappearance they were allowed to remain there overnight. On Wednesday morning, Monsieur"--and he hesitated impressively--"_those letters bore his signature in his own handwriting_!"

Mr. Grimm turned his listless eyes full upon Monsieur Rigolot's perturbed face for one scant instant.

"No doubt of it being his signature?" he queried.

"_Non, Monsieur, non!_" the secretary exclaimed emphatically. "_Vous avez_--that is, I have known his signature for years. There is no doubt.

The letters were not of a private nature. If you would care to look at copies of them?"

He offered the duplicates tentatively. Mr. Grimm read them over slowly, the while Monsieur Rigolot sat nervously staring at him. They, too, seemed meaningless as bearing on the matter in hand. Finally, Mr. Grimm nodded, and Monsieur Rigolot resumed:

"And Wednesday night, Monsieur, another strange thing happened. Monsieur Boissegur smokes many cigarettes, of a kind made especially for him in France, and shipped to him here. He keeps them in a case on his dressing-table. On Thursday morning his valet reported to me that _this case of cigarettes had disappeared_!"

"Of course," observed Mr. Grimm, "Monsieur Boissegur has a latch-key to the emba.s.sy?"

"Of course."

"Anything unusual happen last night--that is, Thursday night?"