The Secret of Chimneys (Superintendent Battle 1)

“Then why call this company meeting, as Father calls it?”

“Ah, there’s some deep idea behind that. Depend upon it. Wants us all here while he’s somewhere else—you know the sort of thing.”

“You don’t think he’ll come, then?”

“No fear. Run his head into the lion’s mouth? Why, the room’s bristling with detectives and high officials.”

“You don’t know much about King Victor, if you think that would deter him. By all accounts, it’s the kind of situation he loves above all, and he always manages to come out on top.”

Mr. Eversleigh shook his head doubtfully.

“That would take some doing—with the dice loaded against him. He’ll never—”

The door opened again and Tredwell announced:

“Mr. Cade.”

Anthony came straight across to his host.

“Lord Caterham,” he said, “I’m giving you a frightful lot of trouble, and I’m awfully sorry about it. But I really do think that tonight will see the clearing up of the mystery.”

Lord Caterham looked mollified. He had always had a secret liking for Anthony.

“No trouble at all,” he said heartily.

“It’s very kind of you,” said Anthony. “We’re all here, I see. Then I can get on with the good work.”

“I don’t understand,” said George Lomax weightily. “I don’t understand in the least. This is all very irregular. Mr. Cade has no standing—no standing whatever. The position is a very difficult and delicate one. I am strongly of the opinion—”

George’s flood of eloquence was arrested. Moving unobtrusively to the great man’s side, Superintendent Battle whispered a few words in his ear. George looked perplexed and baffled.

“Very well, if you say so,” he remarked grudgingly. Then added in a louder tone, “I’m sure we are all willing to listen to what Mr. Cade has to say.”

Anthony ignored the palpable condescension of the other’s tone.

“It’s just a little idea of mine, that’s all,” he said cheerfully. “Probably all of you know that we got hold of a certain message in cipher the other day. There was a reference to Richmond, and some numbers.” He paused. “Well, we had a shot at solving it—and we failed. Now in the late Count Stylptitch’s memoirs (which I happen to have read) there is a reference to a certain dinner—a ‘flower’ dinner which everyone attended wearing a badge representing a flower. The Count himself wore the exact duplicate of that curious device we found in the cavity in the secret passage. It represented a rose. If you remember, it was all rows of things—buttons, letter Es, and finally rows of knitting. Now, gentlemen, what is there in this house that is arranged in rows? Books, isn’t that so? Add to that, that in the catalogue of Lord Caterham’s library there is a book called The Life of the Earl of Richmond, and I think you will get a very fair idea of the hiding place. Starting at the volume in question, and using the numbers to denote shelves and books, I think you will find that the—er—object of our search is concealed in a dummy book, or in a cavity behind a particular book.”

Anthony looked round modestly, obviously waiting for applause.

“Upon my word, that’s very ingenious,” said Lord Caterham.

“Quite ingenious,” admitted George condescendingly. “But it remains to be seen—”

Anthony laughed.

“The proof of the pudding’s in the eating—eh? Well, I’ll soon settle that for you.” He sprang to his feet. “I’ll go to the library—”

He got no farther. M. Lemoine moved forward from the window.

“Just one moment, Mr. Cade. You permit, Lord Caterham?”

He went to the writing table, and hurriedly scribbled a few lines. He sealed them up in an envelope, and then rang the bell. Tredwell appeared in answer to it. Lemoine handed him the note.

“See that that is delivered at once, if you please.”

“Very good, sir,” said Tredwell.

With his usual dignified tread he withdrew.

Anthony, who had been standing, irresolute, sat down again.

“What’s the big idea, Lemoine?” he asked gently.

There was a sudden sense of strain in the atmosphere.

“If the jewel is where you say it is—well, it has been there for over seven years—a quarter of an hour more does not matter.”

“Go on,” said Anthony. “That wasn’t all you wanted to say?”

“No, it was not. At this juncture it is—unwise to permit any one person to leave the room. Especially if that person has rather questionable antecedents.”

Anthony raised his eyebrows and lighted a cigarette.

“I suppose a vagabond life is not very respectable,” he mused.

“Two months ago, Mr. Cade, you were in South Africa. That is admitted. Where were you before that?”

Anthony leaned back in his chair, idly blowing smoke rings.

“Canada. Wild Northwest.”

“Are you sure you were not in prison? A French prison?”

Automatically, Superintendent Battle moved a step nearer the door, as if to cut off a retreat that way, but Anthony showed no signs of doing anything dramatic.

Instead, he stared at the French detective, and then burst out laughing.

“My poor Lemoine. It is a monomania with you! You do indeed see King Victor everywhere. So you fancy that I am that interesting gentleman?”

“Do you deny it?”

Anthony brushed a fleck of ash from his coat sleeve.

“I never deny anything that amuses me,” he said lightly. “But the accusation is really too ridiculous.”

“Ah! you think so?” The Frenchman leant forward. His face was twitching painfully, and yet he seemed perplexed and baffled—as though something in Anthony’s manner puzzled him. “What if I tell you, monsieur, that this time—this time—I am out to get King Victor, and nothing shall stop me!”

“Very laudable,” was Anthony’s comment. “You’ve been out to get him before, though, haven’t you, Lemoine? And he’s got the better of you. Aren’t you afraid that that may happen again? He’s a slippery fellow, by all accounts.”

The conversation had developed into a duel between the detective and Anthony. Everyone else in the room was conscious of the tension. It was a fight to a finish between the Frenchman, painfully in earnest, and the man who smoked so calmly and whose words seemed to show that he had not a care in the world.

“If I were you, Lemoine,” continued Anthony, “I should be very, very careful. Watch your step, and all that sort of thing.”

“This time,” said Lemoine grimly, “there will be no mistake.”

“You seem very sure about it all,” said Anthony. “But there’s such a thing as evidence, you know.”

Lemoine smiled, and something in his smile seemed to attract Anthony’s attention. He sat up and stubbed out his cigarette.

“You saw that note I wrote just now?” said the French detective. “It was to my people at the inn. Yesterday I received from France the fingerprints and the Bertillon measurements of King Victor—the so-called Captain O’Neill. I have asked for them to be sent up to me here. In a few minutes we shall know whether you are the man!”

Anthony stared steadily at him. Then a little smile crept over his face.

“You’re really rather clever, Lemoine. I never thought of that. The documents will arrive, you will induce me to dip my fingers in the ink, or something equally unpleasant, and you will measure my ears and look for my distinguishing marks. And if they agree—”

“Well,” said Lemoine, “if they agree—eh?”

Anthony leaned forward in his chair.

“Well, if they do agree,” he said very gently, “what then?”

“What then?” The detective seemed taken aback. “But—I shall have proved then that you are King Victor!”

But for the first time, a shade of uncertainty crept into his manner.

“That will doubtless be

a great satisfaction to you,” said Anthony. “But I don’t quite see where it’s going to hurt me. I’m not admitting anything, but supposing, just for the sake of argument, that I was King Victor—I might be trying to repent, you know.”

“Repent?”

“That’s the idea. Put yourself in King Victor’s place, Lemoine. Use your imagination. You’ve just come out of prison. You’re getting on in life. You’ve lost the first fine rapture of the adventurous life. Say, even that you meet a beautiful girl. You think of marrying and settling down somewhere in the country where you can grow vegetable marrows. You decide from henceforth to lead a blameless life. Put yourself in King Victor’s place. Can’t you imagine feeling like that?”

“I do not think that I should feel like that,” said Lemoine with a sardonic smile.

“Perhaps you wouldn’t,” admitted Anthony. “But then you’re not King Victor, are you? You can’t possibly know what he feels like.”

“But it is nonsense, what you are saying there,” spluttered the Frenchman.

“Oh, no, it isn’t. Come now, Lemoine, if I’m King Victor, what have you against me after all? You could never get the necessary evidence in the old, old days, remember. I’ve served my sentence, and that’s all there is to it. I suppose you could arrest me for the French equivalent of ‘Loitering with intent to commit a felony,’ but that would be poor satisfaction, wouldn’t it?”

“You forget,” said Lemoine. “America! How about this business of obtaining money under false pretences, and passing yourself off as Prince Nicholas Obolovitch?”

“No good, Lemoine,” said Anthony, “I was nowhere near America at the time. And I can prove that easily enough. If King Victor impersonated Prince Nicholas in America, then I’m not King Victor. You’re sure he was impersonated? That it wasn’t the man himself?”

Superintendent Battle suddenly interposed.

“The man was an imposter all right, Mr. Cade.”

“I wouldn’t contradict you, Battle,” said Anthony. “You have such a habit of being always right. Are you equally sure that Prince Nicholas died in the Congo?”

Battle looked at him curiously.

“I wouldn’t swear to that, sir. But it’s generally believed.”