Through the Wall Part 54

"Ah!" exclaimed Matthieu with an understanding nod. "Then she knew at luncheon that you would take her back to Brussels?"

"Of course she did. You know how she acted; she had made up her mind she wouldn't go. Only she was tricky about it. She knew I had my eye on her, so she got this priest to help her."

Now the other stared in genuine astonishment. "Why--was the priest in it?"

"Was he in it? Of course he was in it. He was the whole thing. This Father Anselm has been encouraging the girl for months, filling her up with nonsense about how it's right for a young girl to choose her own husband.

Mother Bonneton told me."

"You mean that Father Anselm helped her to run away?" gasped Matthieu.

"Of course he did. You saw him come out of the confessional, didn't you?"

"I was too far away to see his face," replied the other, studying the wood carver closely. "Did _you_ see his face?"

"Certainly I did. He pa.s.sed within ten feet of me. I saw his face distinctly."

"Are you sure it was he? I don't doubt you, M. Groener, but I'm a sort of official here and this is a serious charge, so I ask if you are _sure_ it was Father Anselm?".

"I'm absolutely sure it was Father Anselm," answered the wood carver positively. He paused a moment while the detective wondered what was the meaning of this extraordinary statement. Why was the man giving him these details about Alice, and how much of them was true? Did Groener know he was talking to Paul Coquenil? If so, he knew that Coquenil must know he was lying about Father Anselm. Then why say such a thing? What was his game?

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'You mean that Father Anselm helped her to run away?'

gasped Matthieu."]

"Have another gla.s.s?" asked the wood carver. "Or shall we go on?"

"Go on--where?"

"Oh, of course, you don't know my plan. I will tell you. You see, I must find Alice, I must try to save her from this folly, for her mother's sake.

Well, I know how to find her."

He spoke so earnestly and straightforwardly that Coquenil began to think Groener had really been deceived by the Matthieu disguise. After all, why not? Tignol had been deceived by it.

"How will you find her?"

"I'll tell you as we drive along. We'll take a cab and--you won't leave me, M. Matthieu?" he said anxiously.

Coquenil tried to soften the grimness of his smile. "No, M. Groener, I won't leave you."

"Good! Now then!" He threw down some money for the drinks, then he hailed a pa.s.sing carriage.

"Rue Tronchet, near the Place de la Madeleine," he directed, and as they rolled away, he added: "Stop at the nearest telegraph office."

The adventure was taking a new turn. Groener, evidently, had some definite plan which he hoped to carry out. Coquenil felt for cigarettes in his coat pocket and his hand touched the friendly barrel of a revolver. Then he glanced back and saw the big automobile, which had been waiting for hours, trailing discreetly behind with Tignol (no longer a priest) and two st.u.r.dy fellows, making four men with the chauffeur, all ready to rush up for attack or defense at the lift of his hand. There must be some miraculous interposition if this man beside him, this baby-faced wood carver, was to get away now as he did that night on the Champs Elysees.

"You'll be paying for that left-handed punch, old boy, before very long,"

said Coquenil to himself.

"Now," resumed Groener, as the cab turned into a quiet street out of the noisy traffic of the Rue de Rivoli, "I'll tell you how I expect to find Alice. I'm going to find her through the sister of Father Anselm."

"The sister of Father Anselm!" exclaimed the other.

"Certainly. Priests have sisters, didn't you know that? Ha, ha! She's a hairdresser on the Rue Tronchet, kind-hearted woman with children of her own. She comes to see the Bonnetons and is fond of Alice. Well, she'll know where the girl has gone, and I propose to make her tell me."

"To make her?"

"Oh, she'll want to tell me when she understands what this means to her brother. h.e.l.lo! Here's the telegraph office! Just a minute."

He sprang lightly from the cab and hurried across the sidewalk. At the same moment Coquenil lifted his hand and brought it down quickly, twice, in the direction of the doorway through which Groener had pa.s.sed. And a moment later Tignol was in the telegraph office writing a dispatch beside the wood carver.

"I've telegraphed the Paris agent of a big furniture dealer in Rouen,"

explained the latter as they drove on, "canceling an appointment for to-morrow. He was coming on especially, but I can't see him--I can't do any business until I've found Alice. She's a sweet girl, in spite of everything, and I'm very fond of her." There was a quiver of emotion in his voice.

"Are you going to the hairdresser's now?" asked Matthieu.

"Yes. Of course she may refuse to help me, but I _think_ I can persuade her with you to back me up." He smiled meaningly.

"I? What can I do?"

"Everything, my friend. You can testify that Father Anselm planned Alice's escape, which is bad for him, as his sister will realize. I'll say to her: 'Now, my dear Madam Page'--that's her name--'you're not going to force me and my friend, M. Matthieu--he's waiting outside, in a cab--you're not going to force us to charge your reverend brother with abducting a young lady? That wouldn't be a nice story to tell the commissary of police, would it? You're too intelligent a woman, Madam Page, to allow such a thing, aren't you?' And she'll see the point mighty quick. She'll probably drive right back with us to Notre-Dame and put a little sense into her brother's shaven head. It's four o'clock now," he concluded gayly; "I'll bet you we have Alice with us for dinner by seven, and it will be a good dinner, too.

Understand you dine with us, M. Matthieu."

The man's effrontery was prodigious and there was so much plausibility in his glib chatter that, in spite of himself, Coquenil kept a last lingering wonder if Groener _could_ be telling the truth. If not, what was his motive in this elaborate fooling? He must know that his hypocrisy and deceit would presently be exposed. So what did he expect to gain by it? What could he be driving at?

"Stop at the third doorway in the Rue Tronchet," directed the wood carver as they entered the Place de la Madeleine, and pointing to a hairdresser's sign, he added: "There is her place, up one flight. Now, if you will be patient for a few minutes, I think I'll come back with good news."

As Groener stepped from the carriage, Coquenil was on the point of seizing him and stopping this farce forthwith. What would he gain by waiting? Yet, after all, what would he lose? With four trained men to guard the house there was no chance of the fellow escaping, and it was possible his visit here might reveal something. Besides, a detective has the sportsman's instinct, he likes to play his fish before landing it.

"All right," nodded M. Paul, "I'll be patient," and as the wood carver disappeared, he signaled Tignol to surround the house.

"He's trying to lose us," said the old fox, hurrying up a moment later.

"There are three exits here."

"Three?"

"Don't you know this place?"

"What do you mean?"

"There's a pa.s.sage from the first courtyard into a second one, and from that you can go out either into the Place de la Madeleine or the Rue de l'Arcade. I've got a man at each exit but"----he shook his head dubiously--"one man may not be enough."

"_Tonnere de Dieu_, it's Madam Cecile's!" cried Coquenil. Then he gave quick orders: "Put the chauffeur with one of your men in the Rue de l'Arcade, bring your other man here and we'll double him up with this driver. Listen," he said to the jehu; "you get twenty francs extra to help watch this doorway for the man who just went in. We have a warrant for his arrest. You mustn't let him get past. Understand?"

"Twenty francs," grinned the driver, a red-faced Norman with rugged shoulders; "he won't get past, you can sleep on your two ears for that."

Meantime, Tignol had returned with one of his men, who was straightway stationed in the courtyard.

"Now," went on Coquenil, "you and I will take the exit on the Place de la Madeleine. It's four to one he comes out there."