The Mysterious Mickey Finn (30 page)

His limbs began to tremble and shake.

‘You didn't kill them. I know that, too,' Evans said. ‘I want just one thing from you, the whereabouts of Miss Leonard, and if that information is not forthcoming before I count ten I will drop you out of that window head downward.'

Paty de Pussy drew himself up as nearly erect as he could and looked Evans squarely in the eye.

‘I do not know Miss Leonard, or where she is,' he said.

‘How long have you been here?'

‘About six hours, I suppose.'

‘You were called on the phone by Haute Costa de Bellevieu?'

‘The moment I get free, I shall send my seconds to him with a challenge ...'

‘At daylight, in the Bois, I suppose,' said Evans.

‘The Paty de Pussys have never submitted to such indignities,' the old man said.

Outside the house, all was confusion. A search was in progress and had netted the searchers no results. Through a slit in the draperies, Sergeant Frémont was watching the tool house and was rewarded by seeing the tall masked leader go there quickly, unobserved by the others, take a rapid look inside, and hurry away. Then the sergeant thought he heard a noise in the room next to the one in which Evans was talking with Paty de Pussy. The door was also locked, but Frémont was able to break it down with his shoulder. Evans was at his side as the panels crashed.

‘Miriam,' he cried, involuntarily, and instead of seeing Miriam he found himself looking down at the prefect of police, bound hand and foot, gagged and chained to the window casing.

Homer tore the gag from the prefect's mouth and held the cool muzzle of his automatic against the prone official's forehead.

‘Just one bit of information. Where is Miriam Leonard? I'll say “ Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité ”, while you're deciding, then pull the trigger. “Liberté, Éga ‒ ” '

‘Don't shoot. I'll tell you all I can,' the prefect said. Sergeant Frémont was shaking in a manner that put even Paty de Pussy to shame. Good-bye to glory, to groceries and dry goods forever, he was thinking, while Evans prodded his chief with the automatic.

‘It wasn't my fault...'

‘I know all about that. Where is she?'

‘The car that brought me here has gone back to fetch her,' the prefect said.

‘She'll be here any minute, then?'

‘Within half an hour, say between half and three quarters, if there are no flat tyres,' said the prefect.

‘Come on,' Evans cried, leaving the old painter and the prefect as they were, and the guard unconscious on the floor.

W
HEN
Aurora, Goddess of the Morning, got around to touching with her rosy fingers the roof of the Rendez-vous des Imprévoyants, the surrounding woods, the topmost spars of the
Presque Sans Souci
and the distant bends of the Seine she turned in a very creditable performance. As a dawn,
per se,
the one that greeted Hjalmar's watchful eyes had nothing to be ashamed of in comparison with the famous dawns of history. The colours were at first restrained, then a bit blatant, and in time had the good taste to moderate themselves so as not to distract the sober citizens who had work to do. The sound effects were noteworthy, for the birds, having been put on their mettle by the volume and cacophony of the prisoners' chorus the night before, outdid themselves.

‘Pipe down, you feathered buggers,' roared Hjalmar before he tried to awaken all hands. ‘I can't tell whether you're for us or against us.'

Forward, the corpse and the prisoners were motionless, the former propped against a crate of canned peaches, the latter snoring and cursing in their heavy drunken slumber.

The
Presque Sans Souci
had an engine of its own, a rusty one and not too powerful, but good enough for cruising downstream. With the disabled tug and the launch in tow, the huge ungainly barge reached that stage described too cautiously by the New England poet:

                    
‘She
seems
to feel

                    
A thrill of life along her keel.'

By noon, Mme Sosthène had so much money in pitchers and. buckets behind the bar that her easy-going husband was for retiring from business and buying some little farm that struck their fancy along the way. Madame, however, was all for sticking it out to the end of the voyage, in order that Gaby might have a magnificent
dot.

In distant Charenton, Homer Evans and Sergeant Frémont were streaking it down the stairs of the ominous house in the forest, across an Aubusson carpet, and out through a broken window pane. Risking discovery by the masked men and the guards who were assembled at the main gate for detailed instructions, they raced to the rear wall, and because of their heavy gloves, were able to vault it uninjured.

‘We must intercept the car at a safe distance from here,' Evans said. Swiftly he formulated a plan. In coming to the estate, they had followed a long deserted lane before turning into the private roadway. Homer remembered a sharp ‘S' curve, where the trees were thick on each side. They leaped into the car they had hidden, and had just got back on the road when the sound of another motor was heard faintly and was evidently approaching the private drive. Had Evans' practised ear not detected at once that the vehicle was a heavy truck, he might have jumped at a false conclusion. Of course, it was possible, he thought, that the conspirators might have transported Miriam in a truck, after having nailed her into a packing case. More likely, it seemed, the truck was intended for the transportation of the now innocuous contact mines. He communicated this quickly to Sergeant Frémont.

‘The annoying feature is, that the truck blocks our way,' Frémont said. ‘It wouldn't do to meet it. We'll have to back off the roadway again.'

This they did and were well concealed when a large truck, looking larger in the thin light of dawn, rolled past. The moment it had entered the service gate, Evans and the sergeant were off again. They reached the ‘S' curve, concealed the roadster, and clutching their automatics, sat down on the running board to wait. Instead of hearing the purr of a motor, as they had hoped, they were startled by the sound of footsteps. Automatics in hand, they lay prone on the damp ground, fingers grimly on the triggers. Evans was the first to speak. With difficulty he restrained himself from laughing aloud, for plodding wearily along the road, ragged and forlorn, was Melchisedek Knockwoode. His energy was almost spent. His face was the picture of woe.

Knowing that the terrified chauffeur would bolt at the slightest sound, Evans let him pass, then slipped up behind him, and got hold of his belt.

‘Melchisedek,' he said.

Melchisedek turned the colour of half-cooked liver, his eyes rolled, he frothed at the mouth, his limbs began to jerk and tremble. When he saw the sergeant standing nearby, he collapsed and had to be revived with brandy and the remaining sandwiches. Slowly he grasped that he was among friends, that his sins had been forgiven; in fact, that he was about to be rewarded. Frémont, whose thoughts of Hydrangea had been stirred anew, was offering to make him his official chauffeur. Evans promised him a complete British officer's outfit, with medals, decorations and swagger stick, to use along the boulevards on his days off. Melchisedek was not a physical coward. Indeed he had proved that beyond the least doubt in the Argonne and the lowest dives around Memphis and Brest. It was an atavistic dread of irate authority, a truly Biblical awe of the law and tablets, that had driven him from Paris and his taxi. He bucked up, also, when told that Hydrangea was on her way to Paris, for he longed for news from Harlem and the sight of a good American coloured face and figure.

As soon as Melchisedek was calm, Evans told him briefly that Miss Leonard had been kidnapped and was being taken to a lonely chateau in a car that would pass any minute. It was agreed that Melchisedek should take the sergeant's roadster to the concealed portion of the ‘S' curve, and meet the oncoming car in an awkward place. Fremont and Evans would appear suddenly, one from each side of the lane, get the drop on the kidnappers, and take over, if possible, without gunfire.

‘Here they come,' Homer said, as the sound of an engine reached their ears. Silently, each man took his station. The kidnapper's car was a limousine, and not of a recent model. ‘God,'Evans said to himself, ‘it weighs four tons. If…'

The bulky limousine, moving at a reckless rate, had too much momentum for its squealing brakes and crashed into the front of the roadster. Melchisedek slid from the seat to the floor in a shower of broken glass, saved from going through the wind-shield only by his instinctive grip on the steering wheel. The road was blocked, however, and in an instant Frémont was on one running board and had covered the driver while Evans boarded the other side and threw open the door.

Two men were sitting with Miriam between them.

‘Hands up, and be quick,' Evans ordered. Then as they obeyed, he said gruffly to Miriam: ‘You gave me the fright of my life.'

Her limbs were stiff, from sitting in a cramped position so long, but she was unhurt and stepped from the limousine to the ground.

‘I knew you'd find me,' she said. ‘Only ... I hope it hasn't prevented you from doing what you wanted to.'

‘Go to the sergeant's wrecked car, see if the coloured man at the wheel is badly hurt, and get yourself an automatic. There's one under the driver's cushion and it's loaded. Then come back here. We must take no chances,' Evans said. ‘And don't worry about the case in general. I'm glad you'll be in at the finish, and it's coming soon.'

Frémont was still covering the chauffeur, but he was worried about the truck. It would be quickly loaded and would return. He had seen Evans remove the explosives, and still he was decidedly nervous about the prospect of a collision on the sharp ‘S' curve. Also, he was anxious about Melchisedek, for even if the latter had survived the first smash-up, he might succumb if the light roadster were telescoped from behind by a truckload of contact mines.

In a moment, Miriam had lifted the unconscious Negro from the floor of the roadster, had staunched a flow of blood from a cut on his cheek and stretched him out in a shady spot near the roadway. She found the automatic and, with it in her hand, returned to Evans' side.

‘It's good to have your help again. I've been lost without you,' he said, ashamed of his first abrupt greeting.

‘To hear you say that, I'd be kidnapped twice a day,' she murmured, and the kidnappers, true Frenchmen, smiled wistfully, their hands still in the air.

‘The truck,
nom de Dieu.
The truck,' Sergeant Frémont said, from his perch on the opposite running board. ‘I think I can hear it now.'

‘Quick,' Evans said. ‘Make the chauffeur get out and precede you to that grove. Miriam, go with them and tie him up.' To the pair in the rear seat he said, ‘Get out on this side, one after the other, and walk straight toward that clump of birches. One false move, and I'll shoot.'

Everyone obeyed, and none too soon. There was the chugging of the heavy truck, a shriek of brake bands, loud curses, and the truck piled up on the two empty cars, driving what was left of the roadster half-way through the limousine. Miriam, once again, was equal to the occasion. Appearing casually on the road where the disgruntled truck driver was pacing up and down, she said:

‘Good morning. Don't feel badly, monsieur. My car was busted, anyhow.'

‘I told the damn fools at the chateau that they should send a car ahead of me,' he said. ‘You'd think I was carrying gum-drops the way those guys act.'

‘What are you carrying?' Evans asked, stepping from the thicket, and shewing the driver his credentials.

‘I knew there was something fishy about this job,' the driver said. ‘One of the guys from the château asked me if I'd do a job of hauling, said the count was an expert on high explosives. Something about the bloody national defence. There's usually something fishy when guys get to talking about that.'

Evans introduced Sergeant Frémont, who had tied up the chauffeur, under Miriam's direction, in what is known as the Deadwood style. Jacques Goujon, the driver, blinked at the sight of so much authority.

‘How would you like to see men like the count take charge of this country?' Evans asked.

‘I'd just as soon give it to the lousy Portuguese,' Jacques said, and grinned.

Succinctly Evans told him that the government would pay him double time for his truck and its load, until the case was finished,

‘Can I collect from those other mugs, too?' he asked.

‘If you can,' Evans said, and smiled.

T
HE
sun, great giver of light and heat, had scarcely taken in the first trick, when Jacques Goujon, now special deputy of the Paris Police, spread gunnysacks on the tailboard of his truck for Evans and the sergeant, and made room on the driver's seat for Miriam, who was heavily armed. Melchisedek had been left to guard the prisoners, still tied together in the Deadwood style, not without, however, having first exacted a promise from Evans that he would be relieved before the hour when stags (
Cervus elaphus
) are wont to drink their fill. It was not stags that made Melchisedek nervous but hoot owls (
Strigidae scops
)
.
He had heard, according to his own statement, enough hoot owls the night before to last him his natural span.

The contact mines, which had been covered with hay and a tarpaulin, were to be delivered at a little used shed by the river's brink, two miles or so upstream from Charenton. During the last several wars, this shed had been utilized as an emergency loading station when particularly dangerous explosives had to be handled.