The Mysterious Mickey Finn (29 page)

‘I'll swatch you like rat before scat-hole,' Jackson said, and wiped the pungent steam from his glasses, the better to perform the vigil.

Below them and around them flowed the black waters of the Seine, and overhead were the silently shifting constellations, Orion; the bear; the dippers, large and small; and winking benevolently, as if it had the
Presque Sans Souci
under its special protection, shone that guide to mariners and travellers, that distant and cold star with its five encircling suns—Polaris. Polaris, star of the north, faithful beacon, giver of direction. In the dewy woods the birds and small animals had grown accustomed to the sound of roistering and were getting in some of their soundest sleep before dawn.

Homer Evans, with Sergeant Frémont, in the office of the minister of justice, could not see the foregoing scene in detail, but his imagination, as usual, did not play him false. For one fleeting second he wondered if Hjalmar was staying sober. Then he dismissed the doubt as unworthy of his husky Norwegian friend. Hjalmar would be fit for duty, Evans was sure of that. At the time that was about the only thing Homer could be sure of.

‘Sergeant,' he said, ‘we must use our brains. For what they are worth we must exploit them. Our friend you have aptly re-christened Gonzo, together with Jackson, or Oklahoma Tom, are in midstream aboard the barge awaiting the dawn. If Gonzo is able to pilot the tug, the launch and the
Presque Sans Souci
with their tell-tale cargoes to the berth along the Seine near the Pont Royal, all the plotting and murdering our enemy has done will go for naught. In the boulevard Arago, a head will fall. That's the way our journalists put it.'

‘The guillotine. Upon my word, I'll get up early that morning and watch the performance … unless, of course, Hydrangea dissuades me. Her heart beats ever for the doomed, the disinherited, the unfortunate. .... Anyway, the
Presque Sans Souci
must get through safely. It's a good idea, transporting the prisoners and evidence by water. I'd hate to chance it by land,' the sergeant said.

‘How is it possible to attack an armed barge? What methods would occur to our foe? What means would he have for carrying them out? He can't make a show of force openly. There'd be a riot call. Hjalmar will stop at no one's command except yours or mine. Twenty, even forty men couldn't board her, with him at the head of the ladder, and sheltered from gun fire. Men in boats alongside might toss in incendiary grenades, but before they got half near enough, Gonzo's machine gun would riddle their dories. No. That won't do. ... They haven't time, I think, to sink a hidden obstruction in the channel. They can't stand off a few miles and use artillery. Charenton is a crowded industrial suburb. A trial shot, to find the range, would cause havoc on either shore. What remains?' Evans asked.

‘ My head aches,' said the sergeant miserably. ‘Ought we not to bargain, if our enemies are as powerful as you suggest? Why not drop the case, in return for Mlle Montana?'

‘ Another aspirin, sergeant. It'll buck you up no end.'

For a while Evans gazed at the maps he had had sent over from the ministry of war. Suddenly he slapped the desk and half rose, so abruptly that Frémont swallowed ten grains of aspirin without water or wine to wash them down.

‘I have it. Look at this. Contact mines. They manufacture contact mines in that little factory. Naturally it's in a somewhat secluded spot. The mines are transported to the sea by means of the river. The sight of a few of them, being loaded, unloaded, or transported would cause no alarm.'

‘I can't believe,' said the sergeant, ‘that they would dare blow up a barge in the Seine.'

‘They could make it appear like an accident. You know. Have a commission appointed, an investigation by some minister who wants a few favours done. Time passes. Public interest dies out. Nothing happens.'

‘Too often that's what takes place,' the sergeant said.

Evans grabbed the sergeant's hat and placed it on the latter's

head, then reached for his own. ‘ On our way….'He hesitated.

‘But wait. One more glimpse of the maps. Is there, for instance, a country estate near the factory, some wooded acres walled in and guarded and owned by a prominent Royalist? ... Ah ! Here ! By God ! Of course !'

He pointed. The sergeant groaned.

‘Impossible,' the sergeant said, when he read the name of the proprietor.

‘Nothing surer,' said Evans curtly.

The sergeant threw away the rest of the aspirin. ‘Farewell, career ! Farewell, monthly pay cheque ! Adieu, my ebony goddess, Hydrangea ! You were loved and lost by a little man who dared aim too high, who imagined, in his folly…'

‘Remember what I promised you. Promotion,' Evans said. ‘You seem to forget that we, too, can play politics, that we can pull wires with the best of them.'

The woe on the sergeant's face was so eloquent Evans could not laugh at his friend. ‘Farewell, farewell ! The moth of petty-officialdom is winging toward the flame of high politics ! Not an ash will remain. Just a wisp of smoke. Ah, Hydrangea ! You who are gazing this moment at the sea, counting the waves as they recede from between us. Will you be charitable, or merely sore? Should I console myself with the old phrase of those about to die: “I could not love you, dear, so much, loved I not honour more”. Ah, honour ! Honour cloaked in disgrace and dismissal. Honour without the monthly pay ! Gone are the dreams of bliss, of fragrant moments insured by the Fine Michael or Mickey Finn. I pit my automatic against a factory full of high explosives. I follow a friend, a dreamer who has no job to lose and whose monthly money comes from God knows where. Come, friend ! Let us haste to our destruction. I'll remonstrate no more.'

‘Promotion with glory,' Evans repeated, and led the way.

Before taking the driver's seat in Fremont's official car, Homer turned off the siren. There were, he knew, odds and ends still dangling. There was the Chatillon racer, parked illegally in front of Heiss and Lourde's; the car from the
pr
é
fecture
standing near the Hôtel des Hirondelles; the multimillionaire, the Russian colonel and the ambassador in their cups and even buckets, the pitiful Dinde who was as good as dead, Evans thought. And, of course, the corpses of Abel and Dodo suspended by picture wire from Paty de Pussy's chandelier. Furthermore, there was Paty de Pussy and his host, Haute Costa de Bellevieu. The missing prefect could not be ignored, or the phial of
Oleum machinae scribendi.
Lastly, and of more importance than all the rest, there was Miriam, who had followed him so faithfully and more than once had saved him from disaster.

‘I'm glad you're going to drive,' the sergeant said. ‘That raises the chances of an accident.'

‘ We must stop for a sandwich, some coffee, and must obtain two pairs of heavy driving gloves,' Evans said.

‘Don't mention food to me,' the sergeant said. ‘I have eaten chicken and noodle soup, stuffed fish, roast goose with parsnips, potato cakes, boiled beef with horseradish,
blini, apfel strudel,
frosted cake. ... I can't go on. In all my career I have never seen such appetites as those of Hugo Weiss and Lvov Kvek. The vodka, brandy, wine....'

‘All right. You get the gloves while I eat,' said Evans, pulling up at the Chicago Inn. Swiftly he ate a club sandwich, some coffee and apple pie and had an armful of provisions wrapped up to take with him in the car. Frémont reappeared with the heavy gloves, still muttering and shaking his head. They streaked along the boulevards, through the suburbs and entered Charenton by a side road. In a dark lane, they ran the car off the road and hid in in a clump of trees. Evans drew on the gloves and motioned to the sergeant to do likewise. Rapidly they set out on foot until they were within a hundred yards of a high stone wall, covered with ivy and topped with jagged glass set in concrete.

‘Stop,' whispered Evans. ‘We must see how well the place is guarded.'

The step of a sentry, in the shadow of the wall, warned them that it was guarded well. Sentries were all around, posted not more than fifty metres apart. Evans asked the sergeant to remain motionless where he was. He himself crawled forward inch by inch, pausing only once to place a smooth stone the size of his fist inside a leather driving glove. The sentry, unsuspecting, was whistling ‘
Oh, les fraises et les framboises,
' but at the exact second the impromptu weapon descended and the sentry ceased to whistle, Homer took up the tune in exactly the key.

Sergeant Frémont sighed admiringly. ‘Is it possible that the young man can save me after all? That was quick sure thinking. He is not a windbag by any means. Ah, Hydrangea ! Dark as this night. ...'

Meanwhile Evans had blended his own silhouette with that of the unconscious sentry, and by moving the fellow a yard or two was able to hang him bythe coat collar to the overhanging branch of the tree.

‘Won't you ever let up on that tune about the strawberries?' called the next sentry to the northward, impatiently.

‘As you wish,' Evans said, in a husky voice.

‘We'll all catch cold,' said the conscious sentry. ‘These woods are bristling with draughts and dampness.'

Evans had dropped to the ground and was crawling in the other sentry's direction. Within five minutes, the latter too was unconscious and was suspended from a limb, not in such a way as to suffocate him but merely to make it appear from a short distance that he was erect and on the job.

‘All clear,' whispered Evans to Frémont. ‘Now for the wall, and be quick. No telling how much time we have.'

With his foot on the sturdy sergeant's shoulder, Evans was able to reach the top of the wall. The heavy gloves protected his hands from the jagged points of glass. On the top he crouched and pulled the sergeant up after him. Together they dropped to the ground, inside.

A low growl sounded and in an instant a pair of huge dogs were upon them, but Evans had a way with dogs. No sooner did they feel the touch of his hand than their tails began to wag. He fed them a club sandwich which they ate with evident relish and came back for more. It is an erroneous belief of the French aristocracy and others that watch-dogs should be half starved.

The house, or château, a massive structure, looked like a huge Swiss cuckoo clock in the darkness. One window was alight in the rear. On approaching nearer, however, Evans saw that the front and side windows were curtained heavily. After a rapid survey of the premises, and having learned that there were four sentries, two at the main gate, and two along the driveway, Evans made for a small shack which must have been intended for gardener's tools. While the dogs watched with friendly curiosity, Evans picked the lock, opened the door noiselessly and pointed.

The sergeant's hair bristled and his eyes almost popped from their sockets. Side by side, half obscured by gunnysacks, were four contact mines. Evans was on his knees, studying the mechanism. He found a screwdriver, loosened a number of screws, drew off an ugly-looking screw cap and peered inside. There was the deadly trinitrotoluol, enough to destroy the entire estate. The sergeant gasped when Evans reached in and drew out the frightful load, wrapping it in a gunnysack.

‘Bring me dirt or sand,' he whispered.

In an empty sack the sergeant packed some sand from a nearby sandpile and Evans placed a quantity of it in the shell of the mine. Within ten minutes, all four mines had been rendered harmless and the explosives had been buried in the sand-pile for future reference.

‘Now for Miriam,' Evans said softly. ‘She must be in that house.'

‘Breaking and entering,' wailed the sergeant. ‘No warrant. No authority. Ah, Americans.' Nevertheless he followed with alacrity.

‘These people never open a window,' Evans said. ‘We'll have to break a pane of glass. Too bad we've none of that flypaper.' The words had not left his lips before there was a hideous hue and cry. The outside sentries had discovered their unconscious companions, the dogs started barking and running toward the gate, the front door of the house flew open and three masked men, one tall and much older than the others, hurried out to find out what was wrong. All were armed with automatics.

‘Search the grounds ! Turn on the searchlights,' ordered the leader curtly. ‘And bring in those sentries. They must have seen and heard something.'

Instantly Evans made his decision. The house was unguarded for the moment, the focus of attention was outside. He shoved against a side windowpane, in the shadow of a vine, and was lucky once more. The fragments fell on a thick Aubusson carpet and made little noise, not enough to attract attention. Inside the house, he made at once for the stairway and ran upstairs, one flight, two flights, softly carpeted. Frémont was behind him, aghast but willing to carry on. Footsteps in the corridor told Evans that the upper rooms, in the attic, were guarded. As I thought, he said to himself. That's where Miriam is held prisoner. There was only one thing to be done. Fitting his silencer carefully to the muzzle of his automatic he crept up to the head of the stairway. The sentry's back was turned. Homer aimed carefully, meticulously, in fact, and fired. Rushing forward on tiptoes he caught the man's body before he fell. As he had planned, Evans had grazed the sentry's scalp, enough to stun him but not deep enough to cause his death. After all, he thought, I may as well save work for Dr Hyacinthe Toudoux. The centre room that had been so carefully guarded was locked and bolted, and no keys were in the guard's pockets. The silencer still on his gun, Homer shot away both hinges and flung himself inside. To his surprise and horror he found, not Miriam, but Paty de Pussy, handcuffed to a heavy oak chair.

‘Where is Miss Leonard?' Evans demanded. ‘I know exactly what part you played in this miserable affair. I have the canvas, the palette, the sensitizer 489, the bodies of Heiss and Lourde ....'

‘The bodies?' repeated the old man, feebly. ‘The bodies.'