Through the Wall Part 3

"Shall I take an auto?"

"Take anything, only hurry."

"And you want _me_ at nine o'clock?"

Coquenil shook his head. "Not until to-morrow."

"But the news you were going to tell me?"

"There'll be bigger news soon. Oh, run across to the church and tell Bonneton that he needn't come either."

"I knew it, I knew it," chuckled Papa Tignol, as he trotted off. "There's something doing!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'I want you,' he said in a low voice."]

With this much arranged, Coquenil, after paying for his friend's absinthe, strolled over to a cab stand near the statue of Henri IV and selected a horse that could not possibly make more than four miles an hour. Behind this deliberate animal he seated himself, and giving the driver his address, he charged him gravely not to go too fast, and settled back against the cushions to comfortable meditations. "There is no better way to think out a tough problem," he used to insist, "than to take a very long drive in a very slow cab."

It may have been that this horse was not slow enough, for forty minutes later Coquenil's frown was still unrelaxed when they drew up at the Villa Montmorency, really a collection of villas, some dozens of them, in a private park near the Bois de Boulogne, each villa a garden within a garden, and the whole surrounded by a great stone wall that shuts out noises and intrusions. They entered by a ma.s.sive iron gateway on the Rue Poussin and moved slowly up the ascending Avenue des Tilleuls, past lawns and trees and vine-covered walls, leaving behind the rush and glare of the city and entering a peaceful region of flowers and verdure where Coquenil lived.

The detective occupied a wing of the original Montmorency chateau, a habitation of ten s.p.a.cious rooms, more than enough for himself and his mother and the faithful old servant, Melanie, who took care of them, especially during these summer months, when Madame Coquenil was away at a country place in the Vosges Mountains that her son had bought for her. Paul Coquenil had never married, and his friends declared that, besides his work, he loved only two things in the world--his mother and his dog.

It was a quarter to eight when M. Paul sat down in his s.p.a.cious dining room to a meal that was waiting when he arrived and that Melanie served with solicitous care, remarking sadly that her master scarcely touched anything, his eyes roving here and there among painted mountain scenes that covered the four walls above the brown-and-gold wainscoting, or out into the garden through the long, open windows; he was searching, searching for something, she knew the signs, and with a sigh she took away her most tempting dishes untasted.

At eight o'clock the detective rose from the table and withdrew into his study, a large room opening off the dining room and furnished like no other study in the world. Around the walls were low bookcases with wide tops on which were spread, under gla.s.s, what Coquenil called his criminal museum.

This included souvenirs of cases on which he had been engaged, wonderful sets of burglars' tools, weapons used by murderers--saws, picks, jointed jimmies of tempered steel, that could be taken apart and folded up in the s.p.a.ce of a thick cigar and hidden about the person. Also a remarkable collection of handcuffs from many countries and periods in history. Also a collection of letters of criminals, some in cipher, with confessions of prisoners and last words of suicides. Also plaster casts of hands of famous criminals. And photographs of criminals, men and women, with faces often distorted to avoid recognition. And various grewsome objects, a card case of human skin, and the twisted scarf used by a strangler.

As for the shelves underneath, they contained an unequaled special library of subjects interesting to a detective, both science and fiction being freely drawn upon in French, English, and German, for, while Coquenil was a man of action in a big way, he was also a student and a reader of books, and he delighted in long, lonely evenings, when, as now, he sat in his comfortable study thinking, thinking.

Melanie entered presently with coffee and cigarettes, which she placed on a table near the green-shaded lamp, within easy reach of the great red-leather chair where M. Paul was seated. Then she stole out noiselessly. It was five minutes past eight, and for an hour Coquenil thought and smoked and drank coffee. Occasionally he frowned and moved impatiently, and several times he took off his gla.s.ses and stroked his brows over the eyes.

Finally he gave a long sigh of relief, and shutting his hands and throwing out his arms with a satisfied gesture, he rose and walked to the fireplace, over which hung a large portrait of his mother and several photographs, one of these taken in the exact att.i.tude and costume of the painting of Whistler's mother in the Luxembourg gallery. M. Paul was proud of the striking resemblance between the two women. For some moments he stood before the fine, kindly face, and then he said aloud, as if speaking to her: "It looks like a hard fight, little mother, but I'm not afraid." And almost as he spoke, which seemed like a good omen, there came a clang at the iron gate in the garden and the sound of quick, crunching steps on the gravel walk. M. Pougeot had arrived.

M. Lucien Pougeot was one of the eighty police commissaries who, each in his own quarter, oversee the moral washing of Paris's dirty linen. A commissary of police is first of all a magistrate, but, unless he is a fool, he soon becomes a profound student of human nature, for he sees all sides of life in the great gay capital, especially the darker sides. He knows the sins of his fellow men and women, their follies and hypocrisies, he receives incredible confessions, he is constantly summoned to the scenes of revolting crime. Nothing, _absolutely nothing_, surprises him, and he has no illusions, yet he usually manages to keep a store of grim pity for erring humanity. M. Pougeot was one of the most distinguished and intelligent members of this interesting body. He was a devoted friend of Paul Coquenil.

The newcomer was a middle-aged man of strong build and florid face, with a brush of thick black hair. His quick-glancing eyes were at once cold and kind, but the kindness had something terrifying in it, like the politeness of an executioner. As the two men stood together they presented absolutely opposite types: Coquenil, taller, younger, deep-eyed, spare of build, with a certain serious reserve very different from the commissary's outspoken directness. M. Pougeot prided himself on reading men's thoughts, but he used to say that he could not even imagine what Coquenil was thinking or fathom the depths of a nature that blended the eagerness of a child with the austerity of a prophet.

"Well," remarked the commissary when they were settled in their chairs, "I suppose it's the Rio Janeiro thing? Some parting instructions, eh?" And he turned to light a cigar.

Coquenil shook his head.

"When do you sail?"

"I'm not sailing."

"Wha-at?"

For once in his life M. Pougeot was surprised. He knew all about this foreign offer, with its extraordinary money advantages; he had rejoiced in his friend's good fortune after two unhappy years, and now--now Coquenil informed him calmly that he was not sailing.

"I have just made a decision, the most important decision of my life,"

continued the detective, "and I want you to know about it. You are the only person in the world who _will_ know--everything. So listen! This afternoon I went into Notre-Dame church and I saw a young girl there who sells candles. I didn't know her, but she looked up in a queer way, as if she wanted to speak to me, so I went to her and--well, she told me of a dream she had last night."

"A dream?" snorted the commissary.

"So she said. She may have been lying or she may have been put up to it; I know nothing about her, not even her name, but that's of no consequence; the point is that in this dream, as she called it, she brought together the two most important events in my life."

"Hm! What _was_ the dream?"

"She says she saw me twice, once in a forest near a wooden bridge where a man with a beard was talking to a woman and a little girl. Then she saw me on a boat going to a place where there were black people."

"That was Brazil?"

"I suppose so. And there was a burning sun with a wicked face inside that kept looking down at me. She says she often dreams of this wicked face, she sees it first in a distant star that comes nearer and nearer, until it gets to be large and red and angry. As the face comes closer her fear grows, until she wakes with a start of terror; she says she would die of fright if the face ever reached her _before_ she awoke. That's about all."

For some moments the commissary did not speak. "Did she try to interpret this dream?"

"No."

"Why did she tell you about it?"

"She acted on a sudden impulse, so she says. I'm inclined to believe her; but never mind that. Pougeot," he rose in agitation and stood leaning over his friend, "in that forest scene she brought up something that isn't known, something I've never even told you, my best friend."

"_Tiens!_ What is that?"

"You think I resigned from the police force two years ago, don't you?"

"Of course."

"Everyone thinks so. Well, it isn't true. I didn't resign; _I was discharged._"

M. Pougeot stared in bewilderment, as if words failed him, and finally he repeated weakly: "Discharged! Paul Coquenil discharged!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'I _didn't_ resign; _I was discharged_.'"]

"Yes, sir, discharged from the Paris detective force for refusing to arrest a murderer--that's how the accusation read."

"But it wasn't true?"

"Judge for yourself. It was the case of a poacher who killed a guard. I don't suppose you remember it?"

M. Pougeot thought a moment--he prided himself on remembering everything.

"Down near Saumur, wasn't it?"

"Exactly. And it was near Saumur I found him after searching all over France. We were clean off the track, and I made up my mind the only way to get him was through his wife and child. They lived in a little house in the woods not far from the place of the shooting. I went there as a peddler in hard luck, and I played my part so well that the woman consented to take me in as a boarder."

"Wonderful man!" exclaimed the commissary.

"For weeks it was a waiting game. I would go away on a peddling tour and then come back as boarder. Nothing developed, but I could not get rid of the feeling that my man was somewhere near in the woods."

"One of your intuitions. Well?"