Through the Wall Part 41

"Ah, Tignol!" he exclaimed with a buoyant smile. "It's a fine day, all the birds are singing and--we're going to do great things." He rubbed his hands exultantly, "I want you to do a little job at the Hotel des etrangers, where Kittredge lived. You are to take a room on the sixth floor, if possible, and spend your time playing the flute."

"Playing the flute?" gasped Tignol. "I don't know how to play the flute."

"All the better! Spend your time learning! There is no one who gets so quickly in touch with his neighbors as a man learning to play the flute."

"Ah!" grinned the other shrewdly. "You're after information from the sixth floor?"

M. Paul nodded and told his a.s.sistant exactly what he wanted.

"Eh, eh!" chuckled the old man. "A droll idea! I'll learn to play the flute!"

"Meet me at nine to-night at the Three Wise Men and--good luck. I'm off to the Sante."

As he drove to the prison Coquenil thought with absorbed interest of the test he was planning to settle this question of the footprints. He was satisfied, from a study of the plaster casts, that the a.s.sa.s.sin had limped slightly on his left foot as he escaped through the alleyway. The impressions showed this, the left heel being heavily marked, while the ball of the left foot was much fainter, as if the left ankle movement had been hampered by rheumatism or gout. It was for this reason that Coquenil had been at such pains to learn whether Kittredge suffered from these maladies.

It appeared that he did not. Indeed, M. Paul himself remembered the young man's quick, springy step when he left the cab that fatal night to enter Bonneton's house. So now he proposed to make Lloyd walk back and forth several times in a pair of his own boots over soft earth in the prison yard and then show that impressions of these new footprints were different _in the pressure marks_, and probably in the length of stride, from those left in the alleyway. This would be further indication, along with the differences already noted in the nails, that the alleyway footprints were not made by Kittredge.

Not made by Kittredge, reflected the detective, but by a man wearing Kittredge's boots, a man wearing the missing third pair, the stolen pair!

Ah, there was a nut to crack! This man must have stolen the boots, as he had doubtless stolen the pistol, to throw suspicion on an innocent person.

No other conclusion was possible; yet, he had not returned the boots to Kittredge's room after the crime. Why not? It was essential to his purpose that they be found in Kittredge's room, he must have intended to return them, something quite unforeseen must have prevented him from doing so.

_What had prevented the a.s.sa.s.sin from returning Kittredge's boots?_

As soon as Coquenil reached the prison he was shown into the director's private room, and he noticed that M. Dedet received him with a strange mixture of surliness and suspicion.

"What's the trouble?" asked the detective.

"Everything," snarled the other, then he burst out: "What the devil did you mean by sending that girl to me?"

"What did I mean?" repeated Coquenil, puzzled by the jailer's hostility.

"Didn't she tell you what she wanted?"

Dedet made no reply, but unlocking a drawer, he searched among some envelopes, and producing a square of faded blotting paper, he opened it before his visitor.

"There!" he said, and with a heavy finger he pointed to a scrawl of words.

"There's what she wrote, and you know d.a.m.ned well you put her up to it."

Coquenil studied the words with increasing perplexity. "I have no idea what this means," he declared.

"You lie!" retorted the jailer.

M. Paul sprang to his feet. "Take that back," he ordered with a look of menace, and the rough man grumbled an apology. "Just the same," he muttered, "it's mighty queer how she knew it unless you told her."

"Knew what?"

The jailer eyed Coquenil searchingly. "_Nom d'un chien_, I guess you're straight, after all, but--_how_ did she come to write that?" He scratched his dull head in mystification.

"I have no idea."

"See here," went on Dedet, almost appealingly, "do you believe a girl I never saw could know a thing about me that _n.o.body_ knows?"

"Strange!" mused the detective. "Is it an important thing?"

"Is it? If it hadn't been about the _most_ important thing, do you think I'd have broken a prison rule and let her see that man? Well, I guess not.

But I was up against it and--I took a chance."

Coquenil thought a moment. "I don't suppose you want to tell me what these words mean that she wrote?"

"No, I don't," said the jailer dryly.

"All right. Anyhow, you see I had nothing to do with it." He paused, and then in a businesslike tone: "Well, I'd better get to work. I want that prisoner out in the courtyard."

"Can't have him."

"No? Here's the judge's order."

But the other shook his head. "I've had later orders, just got 'em over the telephone, saying you're not to see the prisoner."

"What?"

"That's right, and _he_ wants to see you."

"He? Who?"

"The judge. They've called me down, now it's your turn."

Coquenil took off his gla.s.ses and rubbed them carefully. Then, without more discussion, he left the prison and drove directly to the Palais de Justice; he was perplexed and indignant, and vaguely anxious. What did this mean?

What could it mean?

As he approached the lower arm of the river where it enfolds the old island city, he saw Bobet sauntering along the quay and drew up to speak to him.

"What are you doing here?" he asked. "I told you to watch that diver."

The young detective shrugged his shoulders. "The job's done, he found the auger."

"Ah! Where is it?"

"I gave it to M. Gibelin."

Coquenil could scarcely believe his ears.

"You gave the auger to Gibelin? Why?"

"Because he told me to."

"You must be crazy! Gibelin had nothing to do with this. You take your orders from me."

"Do I?" laughed the other. "M. Gibelin says I take orders from him."

"We'll see about this," muttered M. Paul, and crossing the little bridge, he entered the courtyard of the Palais de Justice and hurried up to the office of Judge Hauteville. On the stairs he met Gibelin, fat and perspiring.