The de Bercy Affair

The moment was not ripe for an inquiry anent Furneaux's object in hastening to Feldisham Mansions without first reporting himself. Winter somehow felt that the question would jar just then and there, and though not forgotten, it was waived; still, there was a hint of it in his next comment.

"I must confess I am glad to find you here," he said. "Clarke has cleared the ground somewhat, but – er – he has a heavy hand, and I have turned him on to a new job – Anarchists."

He half expected an answering gleam of fun in the dark eyes lifted to his, for these two were close friends at all seasons; but Furneaux seemed not even to hear! His lips muttered:

"I – wonder."

"Wonder what?"

"What purpose could be served by this girl's death. Who bore her such a bitter grudge that not even her death would sate their hatred, but they must try also to destroy her beauty?"

Now, the Chief Inspector had learnt that everyone who had seen the dead woman expressed this same sentiment, yet it came unexpectedly from Furneaux's lips; because Furneaux never said the obvious thing.

"Clarke believes," – Winter loathed the necessity for this constant reference to Clarke – "Clarke believes that she was killed by one of two people, either a jealous husband or a dissatisfied lover."

"As usual, Clarke is wrong."

"He may be."

"He is."

In spite of his prior agreement with Furneaux's estimate of their colleague's intelligence, Winter felt nettled at this omniscience. From the outset, his clear brain had been puzzled by this crime, and Furneaux's extraordinary pose was not the least bewildering feature about it.

"Oh, come now," he said, "you cannot have been here many minutes, and it is early days to speak so positively. I have been hunting you the whole afternoon – in fact, ever since I saw what a ticklish business this was likely to prove – and I don't suppose you have managed to gather all the threads of it into your fingers so rapidly."

"There are so few," muttered Furneaux, looking down on the carpet with the morbid eyes of one who saw a terrible vision there.

"Well, it is a good deal to have discovered the instrument with which the crime was committed."

Furneaux's mobile face instantly became alive with excitement.

"It was a long, thin dagger," he cried. "Something in the surgical line, I imagine. Who found it, and where?"

Some men in Winter's shoes might have smiled in a superior way. He did not. He knew Furneaux, profoundly distrusted Clarke.

"There is some mistake," he contented himself with saying. "Miss de Bercy was killed by a piece of flint, shaped like an ax-head – one of those queer objects of the stone age which is ticketed carefully after it is found in an ancient cave, and then put away in a glass case. Clarke searched the room this morning, and found it there – tucked away underneath," and he turned round to point to the foot of the boudoir grand piano, embellished with Watteaux panels on its rosewood, that stood in the angle between the door and the nearest window.

The animation died out of Furneaux's features as quickly as it had appeared there.

"Useful, of course" he murmured. "Did you bring it?"

"No; it is in my office."

"But Mi – Mademoiselle de Bercy was not killed in that way. She was supple, active, lithe. She would have struggled, screamed, probably overpowered her adversary. No; the doctor admits that after a hasty examination he jumped to conclusions, for not one of the external cuts and bruises could have produced unconsciousness – not all of them death. Miss de Bercy was stabbed through the right eye by something strong and pointed – something with a thin, blunt-edged blade. I urged a thorough examination of the head, and the post mortem proved the correctness of my theory."

Winter, one of the shrewdest officials who had ever won distinction in Scotland Yard, did not fail to notice that curious slip of a syllable before "Mademoiselle," but it was explained a moment later when Furneaux used the English prefix "Miss" before the name. It was more natural for Furneaux to use the French word, however. Winter spoke French fluently – like an educated Englishman – but Furneaux spoke it like a native of Paris. The difference between the two was clearly shown by their pronunciation of "de Bercy." Winter sounded three distinct syllables – Furneaux practically two, with a slurred "r" that Winter could not have uttered to save his life.

Moreover, he was considerably taken aback by the discovery that Furneaux had evidently been working on the case during several hours.

"You have gone into the affair thoroughly, then," he blurted out.

"Oh, yes. I read of the murder this morning, just as I was leaving Kenterstone on my way to report at the Yard."

"Kenterstone!"

He was almost minded to inquire if the local superintendent was a fat man.

"Sir Peter and Lady Holt left town early in the day, so I went to Kenterstone from Brighton late last night… The pawnbroker who held Lady Holt's diamonds was treating himself to a long weekend by the sea, and I thought it advisable to see him in person and explain matters."

A memory of the Finchley Road station-sergeant who thought that he had seen Furneaux get on a 'bus at 6 p.m. in North London the previous evening shot through Winter's mind; but he kept to the main line of their talk.

"Do you know who this Rose de Bercy really is?" he suddenly demanded.

For a second Furneaux seemed to hesitate, but the reply came in an even tone.

"I have reason to believe that she was born in Jersey, and that her maiden name was Mirabel Armaud," he said.

"The Rose Queen of a village fête eight years ago?"

Perhaps it was Furneaux's turn to be surprised, but he showed no sign.

"May I ask how you ascertained that fact?" he asked quietly.

"It is published in one of the evening papers. A man who happened to photograph her in Jersey recognized the likeness when he saw the Academy portrait of Rose de Bercy. But if you have not seen his statement already, how did you come to know that Miss de Bercy was Mirabel Armaud?"

"I am a Jersey man by birth, and, although I quitted the island early in life, I often go back there. Indeed, I was present at the very fête you mention."

"I suppose the young lady was in a carriage and surrounded by a crowd? It would be an odd thing if you figured in the photograph," laughed Winter.

"There have been more unlikely coincidences, but my early sight of the remarkable woman who was killed in this room last night explains my intense desire to track her murderer before Clarke had time to baffle my efforts. It forms, too, a sort of excuse for my departure from official routine. Of course, I would have reported myself this evening, but, up to the present, I have been working hard to try and dispel the fog of motive that blocks the way."

"You have heard of Rupert Osborne, then?"

Furneaux was certainly not the man whom Winter was accustomed to meet at other times. Usually quick as lightning to grasp or discard a point, to-night he appeared to experience no little difficulty in focusing his attention on the topic of the moment. The mention of Rupert Osborne's name did not evoke the characteristically vigorous repudiation that Winter looked for. Instead, there was a marked pause, and, when the reply came, it was with an effort.

"Yes. I suppose Clarke wants to arrest him?"

"He has thought of it!"

"But Osborne's movements last night are so clearly defined?"

"So one would imagine, but Clarke still doubts."

"Why?"

Winter told of the taxicab driver, and the significant journey taken by his fare. Furneaux shook his head.

"Strange, if true," he said; "why should Osborne kill the woman he meant to marry?"

"She may have jilted him."

"No, oh, no. It was – it must have been – the aim of her life to secure a rich husband. She was beautiful, but cold – she had the eye that weighs and measures. Have you ever seen the Monna Lisa in the Louvre?"

Winter did not answer, conscious of a subtle suspicion that Furneaux really knew far more of the inner history of this tragedy than had appeared hitherto. Clarke, in his own peculiar way, was absurdly secretive, but that Furneaux should want to remain silent was certainly baffling.

"By the way," said Winter with seeming irrelevance, "if you were in Brighton and Kenterstone yesterday afternoon and evening, you had not much time to spare in London?"

"No."

"Then the station-sergeant at Finchley Road was mistaken in thinking that he saw you in that locality about six o'clock – 'jumping on to a 'bus' was his precise description of your movements."

"I was there at that time."

"How did you manage it? St. John's Wood is far away from either Victoria or Charing Cross, and I suppose you reached Kenterstone by way of Charing Cross?"

"I returned from Brighton at three o'clock, and did not visit Sir Peter Holt until half-past nine at Kenterstone. Had I disturbed him before dinner the consequence might have been serious for her ladyship. Besides, I wished to avoid the local police at Kenterstone."

Both men smiled constrainedly. There was a barrier between them, and Furneaux, apparently, was not inclined to remove it; as for Winter, he could not conquer the impression that, thus far, their conversation was of a nature that might be looked for between a police official and a reluctant witness – assuredly not between colleagues who were also on the best of terms as comrades. Furneaux was obviously on guard, controlling his face, his words, his very gestures. That so outspoken a man should deem it necessary to adopt such a rôle with his close friend was annoying, but long years of forced self-repression had taught Winter the wisdom of throttling back utterances which might be regretted afterwards. Indeed, he tried valiantly to repair the fast-widening breach.

"Have a cigar," he said, proffering a well-filled case. "Suppose we just sit down and go through the affair from A to Z. Much of our alphabet is missing, but we may be able to guess a few additional letters."

Furneaux smiled again. This time there was the faintest ripple of amusement in his eyes.

"Now, you know how you hate to see me maltreat a good Havana," he protested.

"This time I forgive you before the offense – anything to jolt you into your usual rut. Why, man alive, here have I been hunting you all day, yet no sooner are you engaged on the very job for which I wanted you, than I find myself cross-examining you as though – as though you had committed some flagrant error."

The Chief Inspector did not often flounder in his speech as he had done twice that night. He was about to say "as though I suspected you of killing Rose de Bercy yourself"; but his brain generally worked in front of his voice, and he realized that the hypothesis would have sounded absurd, almost insane.

Furneaux took the cigar. He did not light it, but deliberately crushed the wrapper between thumb and forefinger, and then smelled it with the air of one who dallies with a full-scented rose, passing it to and fro under his nostrils. Winter, meantime, was darting several small rings of smoke through one wide and slowly dissipating circle, both being now seated, Winter's bulk, genially aggressive, well thrust forward – but Furneaux, small, compact, a bundle of nerves under rigid control, was sunk back into the depths of a large and deep-seated chair, and seemed to shirk the new task imposed on his powers of endurance. Winter was so conscious of this singularly unexpected behavior on his friend's part that his conscience smote him.

"I say, old man," he said, "you look thoroughly done up. I hardly realized that you had been hard at work all day. Have you eaten anything?"

"Had all I wanted," said Furneaux, thawing a little under this solicitude.

"Perhaps you didn't want enough. Come, own up. Have you dined?"

"No – I was not hungry."

"Where did you lunch?"

"I ate a good breakfast."

Winter sprang to his feet again.

"By Jove!" he cried, "this affair seems to have taken hold of you – I meant to send for the hall-porter and the French maid – Pauline is her name, I think; she ought to be able to throw some light on her mistress's earlier life – but we can leave all that till to-morrow. Come to my club. A cutlet and a glass of wine will make a new man of you."

Furneaux rose at once. Anyone might have believed that he was glad to postpone the proposed examination of the servants.

"That will be splendid," he said with an air of relief that compared markedly with his reticent mood of the past few minutes. "The mere mention of food has given me an appetite. I suppose I am fagged out, or as near it as I have ever been. Moreover, I can tell you everything that any person in these Mansions knows of what took place here between six and eight o'clock last night – a good deal more, by the way, than Clarke has found out, though he scored a point over that stone. Where is it? – in the office, you said. I should like to see it – in the morning."

"You will see more than that. Clarke has arranged to meet the taxicab driver at ten o'clock. He meant to confront him with Rupert Osborne, but we must manage things differently. Of course the man's testimony may be important. Alibi or no alibi, it will be awkward for Osborne if a credible witness swears that he was in this locality for nearly a quarter of an hour about the very time that this poor young lady was killed."

Furneaux, holding the broken cigar under his nose, offered no comment, but, as they entered the hall, he said, glancing at its quaint decoration:

"If opportunity makes the thief, so, I imagine, does it sometimes inspire the murderer. Given the clear moment, the wish, the fury, can't you picture the effect these bizarre surroundings would exercise on a mind already strung to the madness of crime? For every willful slayer of a fellow human being is mad – mad… Ah, there was the genius of a maniac in the choice of that flint ax to rend Mirabel Armaud's smooth skin – yet she had the right to live – perhaps – "

He stopped; and Winter anew felt that this musing Furneaux of to-day was a different personality from the Furneaux of his intimate knowledge.

And how compellingly strange it was that he should choose to describe Rose de Bercy by the name which she had ceased to bear during many years! Winter dispelled the scent of the joss-sticks by a mighty puff of honest tobacco smoke.

"Oh, come along," he growled, "let us eat – we are both in need of it. The flat is untenanted, of course. Very well, lock the door," he added, addressing the policeman. "Leave the key with the hall-porter, and tell him not to admit anybody, on any pretext whatsoever, until Mr. Furneaux and I come here in the morning."

CHAPTER III

A CHANGE OF ADDRESS

On the morning after the inquest on Rose de Bercy, the most miserable young man in London, in his own estimation, was Mr. Rupert Glendinning Osborne. Though utterly downcast and disconsolate, he was in excellent health, and might have eaten well of the good things on his breakfast table had he not thoughtlessly opened a newspaper while stirring his coffee.

Under other circumstances, he might have laughed at the atrocious photograph which depicted "Mr. Rupert Osborne arriving at the coroner's court." The camera had foreshortened an arm, deprived him of his right leg below the knee, discredited his tailor, and given him the hang-dog aspect of a convicted pickpocket, for he had been "snapped" at the moment of descent from his automobile, when a strong wind was blowing, and he had been annoyed by the presence of a gaping crowd.

The camera had lied, of course. In reality, he was a good-looking man of thirty, not tall or muscular, but of well-knit figure, elegant though by no means effeminate. For a millionaire, and a young one, he was by way of being a phenomenon. He cared little for society; drove his own horses, but was hardly ever seen in the Park; rode boldly to hounds, yet refused to patronize a racing stable. He seldom visited a theater, though he wrote well-informed articles on the modern French stage for the New Review; he preferred a pleasant dinner with a couple of friends to a banquet with hundreds of acquaintances; in a word, he conducted himself as a staid citizen whether in New York, or London, or Paris. Never had a breath of scandal or notoriety attached itself to his name until he was dragged into lurid prominence by the stupefying event of that fatal Tuesday evening.

Those who knew him best had expressed sheer incredulity when they first heard of his contemplated marriage with the French actress. But a man's friends, as a rule, are the worst judges of his probable choice of a partner for life: and Rupert Osborne was drawn to Rose de Bercy because she possessed in superabundance those lively qualities and volatile charms in which he was himself deficient.

There could be no manner of doubt, however, that some part of his quivering nervous system had been seared by statements made about her during the inquest. It was not soothing for a distraught lover to learn that Mademoiselle de Bercy's reminiscences of her youth were singularly inaccurate. She could not well have been born in a patrician château on the Loire, and yet be the daughter of a Jersey potato-grower. Her father, Jean Armaud, was stated to be still living on a small farm near St. Heliers, whereas her own version of the family history was that Monsieur le Comte de Bercy did not survive the crash of the family fortunes in the Panama swindle. Other discrepancies were not lacking between official fact and romantic narrative. They gave Osborne the first glimpse of the abyss into which he had almost plunged. A loyal-hearted fellow, he shrank from the hateful consciousness that the hapless girl's tragic end had rescued him in all likelihood from another tragedy, bitter and long drawn out. But because he had been so foolish as to fall in love with a beautiful adventuress there was no reason why he should be blind and deaf when tardy common sense began to assert itself.

To a man who habitually shrank from the public eye, it was bad enough to be dragged into the fierce light that beats on the witness-box in an inquiry such as this, but it was far worse to feel in his inmost heart that he was now looked upon with suspicion by millions of people in England and America.

He could not shirk the meaning of the recorded evidence. The newspapers, it is true, had carefully avoided the ugly word alibi; but ninety per cent. of their readers could not fail to see that Rupert Osborne had escaped arrest solely by reason of the solid phalanx of testimony as to his movements on the Tuesday evening before and after the hour of the murder; the remaining ten per cent. reviled the police, and protested, with more or less forceful adjectives, that "there was one law for the rich and another for the poor."

At the inquest itself, Osborne was too sorrow-laden and stunned to realize the significance of certain questions which now seemed to leap at him viciously from out the printed page.

"How were you dressed when you visited Miss de Bercy that afternoon?" the coroner had asked him.

"I wore a dark gray morning suit and black silk hat," he had answered.

"You did not change your clothing before going to the Ritz Hotel?"

"No. I drove straight there from Feldisham Mansions."

"Did you dress for dinner?"

"No. My friends and I discussed certain new regulations as to the proposed international polo tournament, and it was nearly eight o'clock before we concluded the business of the meeting, so we arranged to dine in the grill-room and go to a Vaudeville entertainment afterwards."

That statement had puzzled the coroner. He referred to his notes.

"To the Vaudeville?" he queried. "I thought you went to the Empire Theater?" and Osborne explained that Americans spoke of "vaudeville" in the same sense as Englishmen use the word "music-hall" or "variety."

"You were with your friends during the whole time between 6.30 p.m. and midnight?"

"Practically. I left them for a few minutes before dinner, but only to go to the writing-room, where I wrote two short letters."

"At what hour, as nearly as you can recollect?"

"About ten minutes to eight. I glanced at the clock when the letters were posted, as I wished to be sure of catching the American mail."

"Were both letters addressed to correspondents in America?"

"No, one only. The other was to a man about a dog."

A slight titter relieved the gray monotony of the court at this explanation, but the coroner frowned it down, and Rupert added that he was buying a retriever in readiness for the shooting season.

But the coroner's questions suddenly assumed a sinister import when William Campbell, driver of taxicab number X L 4001, stated that on the Tuesday evening, at 7.20, he had taken a gentleman dressed in a dark gray suit and a tall hat from the corner of Berkeley Street (opposite the Ritz Hotel) to the end of the street in Knightsbridge in which Feldisham Mansions were situated, had waited there for him for about fifteen minutes, and had brought him back to Berkeley Street.

"I thought I might know him again, sir, an', as I said yesterday – " the man continued, glancing at Rupert, but he was stopped peremptorily.

"Never mind what you said yesterday," broke in the coroner. "You will have another opportunity of telling the jury what happened subsequently. At present I want you to answer my questions only."

An ominous hush in the court betrayed the public appreciation of the issues that might lurk behind this deferred evidence. Rupert remembered looking at the driver with a certain vague astonishment, and feeling that countless eyes were piercing him without cause.

The hall-porter, too, Simmonds by name, introduced a further element of mystery by saying that at least two gentlemen had gone up the stairs after Mr. Osborne's departure in his automobile, and that one of them bore some resemblance to the young millionaire.

"Are you sure it was not Mr. Osborne?" said the coroner.

"Yes, sir – leastways, I'm nearly positive."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because Mr. Osborne, like all American gentlemen, uses the lift, sir."

"Can any stranger enter the Mansions without telling you their business?"

"Not as a rule, sir. But it does so happen that between seven an' eight o'clock I have a lot of things to attend to, and I often have to run round the corner to get a taxi for ladies and gentlemen goin' out to dinner or the theater."

So, there was a doubt, and Rupert Osborne had not realized its deadly application to himself until he read question and answer in cold type while he toyed with his breakfast on the day after the inquest, which, by request of Mr. Winter, had been adjourned for a fortnight.

It was well for such shreds of stoicism as remained in his tortured brain that the housemaid was still unable to give evidence, and that no mention was made of the stone ax-head found in Rose de Bercy's drawing-room. The only official witnesses called were the constable first summoned by the hall-porter, and the doctor who made the autopsy. The latter – who was positive that Mademoiselle de Bercy had not been dead many minutes when he was brought to her flat at ten minutes to eight – ascribed the cause of death to "injuries inflicted with a sharp instrument," and the coroner, who knew the trend of the inquiry, would not sate public curiosity by putting, or permitting the jury to put, any additional questions until the adjourned inquest. Neither Clarke nor Furneaux was present in court. To all seeming, Chief Inspector Winter was in charge of the proceedings on behalf of the police.

Rupert ultimately abandoned the effort to eat, shoved his chair away from the table, and determined to reperuse with some show of calmness and criticism, the practically verbatim report of the coroner's inquiry.

Then he saw clearly two things – Rose de Bercy had willfully misled him as to her past life, and he was now regarded by the public as her probable betrayer and certain murderer. There was no blinking the facts. He had almost committed the imprudence of marrying a woman unworthy of an honorable man's love, and, as if such folly called for condign punishment, he must rest under the gravest suspicion until her slayer was discovered and brought to justice.

Rupert Osborne's lot had hitherto been cast in pleasant places, but now he was face to face with a crisis, and it remained to be seen if the force that had kept three generations of ancestors in the forefront of the strenuous commercial warfare of Wall Street had weakened or wholly vanished in the person of their dilettante descendant.