True Crime & Murder Mysteries Collection. Moffett Cleveland
had sat and twisted hundreds of poor wretches, innocent and guilty, petty thieves, shifty-eyed scoundrels, dull brutes of murderers, and occasionally a criminal of a higher class, summoned for the preliminary examinations. Here, under the eye of a bored guard, they had passed miserable hours while the judge, smiling or frowning, hands in his pockets, strode back and forth over the shabby red-and-green carpet putting endless questions, sifting out truth from falsehood, struggling against stupidity and cunning, studying each new case as a separate problem with infinite tact and insight, never wearying, never losing his temper, coming back again and again to the essential point until more than one stubborn criminal had broken down and, from sheer exhaustion, confessed, like the assassin who finally blurted out: "Well, yes, I did it. I'd rather be guillotined than bothered like this."
Such was Judge Hauteville, cold, patient, inexorable in the pursuit of truth. And presently he arrived.
"You look serious this morning," he said, remarking Coquenil's pale face.
"Yes," nodded M. Paul, "that's how I feel," and settling himself in a chair he proceeded to relate the events of the night, ending with a frank account of his misadventure on the Champs Elysées.
The judge listened with grave attention. This was a more serious affair than he had imagined. Not only was there no longer any question of suicide, but it was obvious that they were dealing with a criminal of the most dangerous type and one possessed of extraordinary resources.
"You believe it was the assassin himself who met you?" questioned Hauteville.
"Don't you?"
"I'm not sure. You think his motive was to get the woman's address?"
"Isn't that reasonable?"
Hauteville shook his head. "He wouldn't have risked so much for that. How did he know that you hadn't copied the name and given it to one of us—say to me?"
"Ah, if I only had," sighed the detective.
"How did he know that you wouldn't remember the name? Can't you remember it—at all?"
"That's what I've been trying to do," replied the other gloomily, "I've tried and tried, but the name won't come back. I put those pieces together and read the words distinctly, the name and the address. It was a foreign name, English I should say, and the street was an avenue near the Champs Elysées, the Avenue d'Eylau, or the Avenue d'Iena, I cannot be sure. I didn't fix the thing in my mind because I had it in my pocket, and in the work of the night it faded away."
"A great pity! Still, this man could neither have known that nor guessed it. He took the address from you on a chance, but his chief purpose must have been to impress you with his knowledge and his power."
Coquenil stared at his brown seal ring and then muttered savagely: "How did he know the name of that infernal canary bird?"
The judge smiled. "He has established some very complete system of surveillance that we must try to circumvent. For the moment we had better decide upon immediate steps."
With this they turned to a fresh consideration of the case. Already the machinery of justice had begun to move. Martinez's body and the weapon had been taken to the morgue for an autopsy, the man's jewelry and money were in the hands of the judge, and photographs of the scene of the tragedy would be ready shortly as well as plaster impressions of the alleyway footprints. An hour before, as arranged the previous night, Papa Tignol had started out to search for Kittredge's lodgings, since the American, when questioned by Gibelin at the prison, had obstinately refused to tell where he lived and an examination of his quarters was a matter of immediate importance.
It was not Papa Tignol, however, who was to furnish this information, but the discomfited Gibelin whose presence in the outer office was at this moment announced by the judge's clerk.
"Ask him to come in," said Hauteville, and a moment later Coquenil's fat, red-haired rival entered with a smile that made his short mustache fairly bristle in triumph.
"Ah, you have news for us!" exclaimed the judge.
Gibelin beamed. "I haven't wasted my time," he nodded. Then, with a sarcastic glance at Coquenil: "The old school has its good points, after all."
"No doubt," agreed Coquenil curtly.
"Although I am no longer in charge of this case," rasped the fat man, "I suppose there is no objection to my rendering my distinguished associate," he bowed mockingly to M. Paul, "such assistance as is in my power."
"Of course not," replied Hauteville.
"I happened to hear that this American has a room on the Rue Racine and I just looked in there."
"Ah!" said the judge, and Coquenil rubbed his glasses nervously. There is no detective big-souled enough not to tingle with resentment when he finds that a rival has scored a point.
"Our friend lives at the Hôtel des Étrangers, near the corner of the Boulevard St. Michel," went on Gibelin. "I happened to be talking with the man who sent out the banquet invitations and he told me. M. Kittredge has a little room with a brick floor up six flights. And long! And black!" He rubbed his knees ruefully. "But it was worth the trouble. Ah, yes!" His small eyes brightened.
"You examined his things?"
"Pour sûr! I spent an hour there. And talked the soul out of the chambermaid. A good-looking wench! And a sharp one!" he chuckled. "She knows the value of a ten-franc piece!"
"Well, well," broke in M. Paul, "what did you discover?"
Gibelin lifted his pudgy hands deprecatingly. "For one thing I discovered a photograph of the woman who was in Number Six with Martinez."
"The devil!" cried Coquenil.
"It is not of much importance, since already you have the woman's name and address." He shot a keen glance at his rival.
M. Paul was silent. What humiliation was this! No doubt Gibelin had heard the truth and was gloating over it!
"How do you know it is the woman's photograph?" questioned the judge.
"I'll tell you," replied Gibelin, delighted with his sensation. "It's quite a story. I suppose you know that when this woman slipped out of the Ansonia, she drove directly to the house where we arrested the American. You knew that?" He turned to Coquenil.
"No."
"Well, I happened to speak to the concierge there and she remembers perfectly a lady in an evening gown with a rain coat over it like the one this woman escaped in. This lady sent a note by the concierge up to the apartment of that she-dragon, the sacristan's wife, where M. Kittredge was calling on Alice."
"Ah! What time was that?"
"About a quarter to ten. The note was for M. Kittredge. It must have been a wild one, for he hurried down, white as a sheet, and drove off with the lady. Fifteen minutes later they stopped at his hotel and he went up to his room, two steps, at a time, while she waited in the cab. And Jean, the garçon, had a good look at her and he told Rose, the chambermaid, and she had a look and recognized her as the woman whose photograph she had often seen in the American's room."
"Ah, that's lucky!" rejoined the judge. "And you have this photograph?"
"No, but——"
"You said you found it?" put in Coquenil.
"I did, that is, I found a piece of it, a corner that wasn't burned."
"Burned?" cried the others.
"Yes," said Gibelin, "that's what Kittredge went upstairs for, to burn the photograph and a lot of letters—her letters, probably. The fireplace was full of fresh ashes. Rose says it was clean before he went up, so I picked out the best fragments—here they are." He drew a small package from his pocket, and opening it carefully, showed a number of charred or half-burned pieces of paper