Abdulle





THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST





THE TRAIL OF
THE BEAST
BY
ACHMED ABDULLAH
AUTHOR OF “BUCKING THE TIGER”
"THE BLUE-EYED MANCHU”
NEW YORK
JAMES A. McCANN COMPANY
1919


Copyright, 1919, by
JAMES A. McCANN COMPANY
TO ITEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
AMR. LINOX AYD
TILDNF:!':DATIONS
R 1925 L
AU Rights Reserved
Printed in the U. S. A.


*SFER FROM C. Q. SEP
1925
ROBERT SIMPSON
TO MY FRIEND





CONTENTS
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5
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99
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CHAPTER
PAGE
I. OLD FRIENDS . . . . . . . . . . . 9
II. SUSPICION . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
III. CLEWS . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
IV. THE LETTER . . . .
V. THE BLUE ULSTER . . . . . . . . . . 65
VI. ANGELE . . . . . .
VII. BIBI LE FARCEUR . . . . . . . . . . .
VIII. OUT OF THE DARK . . . . . . . . .
116
IX. MARKED CARDS . . . . . . . . . . .
133
X. THUNDER . . . . . . . . . . . .
147
XI. GUILLAUME NORDEG . . . . . . . . .
167
XII. “WHEN I HAVE DISCOVERED—" ..
XIII. THE ADVERTISEMENT . . . . . .
. . . 194
XIV. THE CONVICT . . . . . . . . . . .
XV. FIRST HONORS . . . .
228
XVI. MARCEL LANTAIGNE . . . . . . . . . . 246
XVII. THE OLD GUILT . . . . . . . . . . 261
XVIII. THE CREUZOT STEEL SPRING . . . . . . . 270
XIX. HOME . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
XX. M. ERNEST LAFARGE . . .
XXI. CORNERED . . . . . . . . • • . . . 302
XXII. MISCARRIED PLANS . . . . . . . . . 317
XXIII. CHECKMATE . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
XXIV. All's Well ............. 338
182
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210
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THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST





10
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
and applauded her more than once in the Théâtre Alex-
andre, where she played the ingénue rôles. Of course
Angele was a friend of Lord Menzies-Kerr. The bou-
levard papers spoke of it, some even making more or
less veiled allusions to a love affair between the two-
legitimate or not, according to the exact shade of yel-
low of the individual paper.
The ordinary observer would have dismissed the in-
cident as meaningless and negligible, explaining it neg-
atively with “why shouldn't Lord Menzies-Kerr and
Angele Lantaigne stroll about the Quarter of Saint-
Sulpice if it pleased them?” But Tennant was a
detective.
He was a great detective; and, by the same token,
he did not work with clews and finger-prints and other
mechanical details or devices. His weapons were com-
mon sense, plain, everyday logic, and straight psychol-
ogy. His maxim was that nothing happened, that
nothing was done or undone without a mental or emo-
tional reason. He used to say that it was the evo-
lution of this reason and its adaptation into the mazes
of the daily social rule called law which spelt the dif-
ference between criminals and honest men. And so,
seeing Lord Menzies-Kerr and Angele Lantaigne to-
gether in this evil, old part of town, where they did not
belong, he wondered. He puzzled. He began to look
for the reason.
The man-yes! He might have taken a fancy to an
afternoon stroll among the smelly streets of Saint-
Sulpice. For Lord Menzies-Kerr was erratic and ec-
centric. But why were they both here? What was
the girl doing here? There were no curio-shops in the
neighborhood, nor little dressmakers who knew how


OLD FRIENDS
11
to copy a thousand-franc frock of the Rue Royale for
fifty.
Tennant turned and watched them. He saw them
stop at the corner, in front of a little café, the Café
des Reines.
He knew the place. It did not have a very good
reputation. Yet the two went inside; not as if they
felt suddenly thirsty, but as if they had an appoint-
ment there.
Tennant shook his head.
He did not like it, simply because he did not know
the reason for it.
Should he shadow them? Find out what he might?
No! That would not be fair. He had no business
shadowing his best friend unless he suspected him of
of what? !
He walked on.
He would not give in to temptation.
He went straight back to his apartment on the Place
Fontenoy, and sat down near a window, looking out.
But he found no enjoyment in the street scene, epitome
of all Paris though it was, which spread below him
like a painted fan: with a view, beyond the Pasteur
monument, of the tracery of the elm-trees which bor-
dered the square, farther on the sharp contours of the
Military School and a tawny glimpse of the Champ de
Mars, to the north the bombastic dome of the Hôtel
des Invalides, the whole sprinkled and seasoned with
the types of all Paris-work-girls in black taffeta and
high-laced boots, carrying enormous round boxes;
silken-bearded, comfortable business men on a rapid
jump from office to café in search of a pink or pea-
green drink and a game of dominoes; once in a while
s, carrying business na pink of while


12
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
a blue-bloused artizan, a priest in sober garb talking
gently to a little child, and women of either world,
pleasantly conscious of their fine feathers.
Paris in miniature, with its wealth of bustle and
color and sound, its fine sweet Latin logic, its sober art
of living.
Tennant had looked forward to it ever since, a few
months earlier, he had received the cable from Henri
Ducastel, the head of the world-renowned detective
agency of the same name, asking him to sever his con-
nection with the O'Byrne agency of New York and to
join the Paris agency at a salary which was fabulous
for frugal France and generous even when measured
with the dollar yard-stick.
Of course he had accepted the offer. He knew and
loved Paris from former visits. He spoke the language
like a native. Too, to be called to Paris, the acknowl-
edged brain and heart of international detective work,
as a special investigator, put the final seal of approval
on his chosen career.
But to-day he was dissatisfied.
He rose. He thought he would go back to the office
and work—best medicine against the blues.
The next moment Lord Menzies-Kerr came into the
room. He was a man of Tennant's age, about thirty-
three, and at a cursory glance strangely alike to him
in clean-cut features and dark, curly hair, in cool,
gray-blue eyes and rather short, well-muscled body.
The only difference was the complexion.
Tennant's was an even, smooth, outdoor brown
speaking of golf and tennis and horseback rides after
the day's grind; while the other's was pale, with a
faintly greenish tinge which accentuated the fairly high


OLD FRIENDS
13
cheek-bones; and when the man rose, as he was doing
now, it was noticeable that he dragged his right foot
as if a heavy weight were attached to it, and that he
was conscious of it, as if he hadn't been used to it long.
“It's all your fault, Allistair,” Tennant began
abruptly.
“What is? You mean your cursed black mood?”
The nobleman talked with a slight guttural Highland
accent.
“Exactly."
“How so?”
“How?” Tennant rose, “Let me be frank about
it.”
“Go ahead, old chap. Frankness is said to be a
Yankee characteristic."
“I am not a Yankee; I am from Charleston, South
Carolina !”
The Scotchman made a noise in his throat which was
meant to be a laugh.
“Bit again, didn't you?” he asked. “Same old joke
I used to crack during our old school-days in Switzer-
land, seventeen years ago.”
“That's just it!” impatiently interrupted Tennant.
“Our old school-days! We used to be chums in those
days, weren't we?”
“Rather. The best of pals.”
“Quite romantic the other fellows thought our friend-
ship. I, plain American and rather offensively repub-
lican, I reckon, in the eyes of those blue-blooded young
jackanapes who were our classmates! And you, Lord
Allistair Menzies Neale Menzies-Kerr, only son of His
Grace the Duke of Shetland, tracing your descent back
to I don't know what pagan old Celtic swashbuckler!


14.
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
Well, we made a good team, you and I. Swore eternal
friendship. Meant it, too, I reckon.”
“Yes.”
“Then came manhood. We drifted apart. I to
Harvard law-school and, when my dear old dad stuck
to planting cotton in spite of fire, high water, low
prices, and the advice of government experts, and I
couldn't make a living as a lawyer, in to detective work;
you, to believe the New York Sunday supplements, into
a mad, eccentric whirl of travel and adventures.”
“Well?”
"I meet you here in Paris by a mere chance, after
seventeen years. We renew our friendship. We take
this apartment together, and"
“And?"
Tennant sat down across from Menzies-Kerr.
“You don't call this friendship,” he asked, “do you?”
“What?"
“You know exactly what I mean. Last I heard of
you-again through the newspapers and some mutual
friends—you were seen in French Indo-China, bound
for the interior, on one of your usual mysterious
errands. That was a little over two years ago. Then
I meet you, and you are a changed man. Just take
a good look at yourself. Look at your complexion; see
your limp!” he continued with an access to American
directness. “And when I ask you—and goodness
knows it isn't curiosity—you give evasive answers ;
you hedge like a pacifist on the stump, as if I were
a stranger-or a policeman!"
“But you are a detective, aren't you?” came the
drawling rejoinder.
“Not to you—unless I can help you, Allistair, I don't


OLD FRIENDS
15
want to be sentimental; it isn't my line. But-damn
it!-when the best friend I have in the world treats
me as you do”
“What do you mean-treats you?”
“Just this! When I speak to you suddenly you
glare at me as if I were about to bite you, or as if you
were about to bite me. When I ask you a question,
you weigh your reply before giving it-of course, I
know you're Scotch. But it isn't right to be Scotch
between friends. There's a limit even to being canny."
“Is that all?”
“No! I have to go through a confounded lengthy
rigmarole before I am allowed to enter your bedroom,
like last night, when I wanted to borrow a match.
You told me you couldn't let me in. Told me you
weren't dressed. Opened the door an inch and handed
me a match, as if you were a coy young girl. And"
“And?” There was faint hostility in the Scotch-
man's accents.
Tennant stepped up close.
“You are afraid of something, Allistair !"
“How do you know?” The words came sharp,
challenging, staccato.
“I am a detective.”
“That's no answer.”
“It's all the answer I'm going to give you. Some-
thing else: Why do you, Lord Allistair Menzies-Kerr,
only son of the Duke of Shetland, choose your friends
among the apaches of the Quartier des Halles, the rot-
tenest part of Paris? Why do you go on mysterious
errands two or three nights a week?”
“How do you know that I do?”
“Because I have seen you. I have recognized you;


16
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
since he did noght, and sortequite suddenle
your pale complexion," he continued brutally, “your
way of dragging your right foot, in spite of the fact
that you wore a loose coat and a battered old felt hat
pulled over your eyes. Why, man,” he added, half-
grim, half-jesting, "if you were a criminal I'd tell you
that you needed another disguise. Your complexion
and your limp are dead giveaways !"
He added in a lower voice, quite suddenly, speaking
before he thought, and sorry for it a moment later,
since he did not wish to be considered curious:
“What were you doing this afternoon in the Quarter
of Saint-Sulpice, together with Mlle. Lantaigne?”
Menzies-Kerr gave a start. Then he controlled
himself.
“Jealous?” he asked
“I don't know her.”
Again the other smiled.
“That's the worst of being a detective,” he remarked
sententiously. “Always sniffing about for clews like a
lackadaisical bloodhound. Anyway”-it was evident
that he was trying to change the subject_“I do know
a few decent people besides the apaches of the Quartier
des Halles.”
Tennant laughed. He was not the man to bear a
grudge very long.
"You bet,” he replied. “The boulevard sheets are
filled with spicy allusions. They say that you are
paying a lot of attention to Mlle. Lantaigne.”
“Are you jealous because she is pretty, or because
she is the daughter of M. Lantaigne, the chief of the
French secret political police?"
Tennant smiled.
“Neither one nor the other. I am not so easily
And that's the * Alwayınd. Anthe subjecte the Qu


OLD FRIENDS
17
captured by golden hair and blue eyes. And as to
her father--well, of course he is at the head of his
particular branch. But we of the Agence Ducastel
really do not need him. Our work is along different
lines.”
“Well,” laughed the Scotchman, "here's where I am
going to kill two birds with one stone. I'm going to
show you that the boulevard sheets are wrong and that
I am not in love with Mlle. Lantaigne; also I am going
to prove to you that I am your friend.”
“How?"
“By introducing you to her.” He walked to the
door. “Put on your duds if you care to come along.
She won't leave for the theater until after seven.”
“All right. I am with you.” Tennant consulted
his watch. “It's half-past six now. Enough time to
his watch.
It's Where does she live.th her father.”
“A couple of streets from here; with her father.”
“So you know the big chief ?”
“Of course, of course”
There was just a shade of annoyance-unreasonable
annoyance, it seemed—in Menzies-Kerr's words, and
Tennant was quick to notice it. But before he had
time to frame the rather belligerent reply which was
trembling on his lips, the hall-door opened and George
W. Brown, the aged colored servant who had followed
him, protesting, from South Carolina to New York,
and thence, still protesting, here to Paris, announced
that “M. Doumay's outside, suh. Wants to see you
right away, suh.”
"Nothing important, I wager.” Tennant turned to
Menzies-Kerr, who was about to step into the adjoining
room. “Stay. Doumay is one of my subagents and


18
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
inclined to be fussy. I'll put his mind at ease in half
a jiff.” A minute later M. Paul Doumay came in.
He was short, stout, and bearded, and his eyes and
mouth were hardened by his long years' contact with
Paris criminals; but there was both admiration and
honest liking in the way he looked at the American.
"Monsieur,” he announced, “Anatole Jarvet has been
found murdered in the library of his house in the Rue
Férou. The metropolitan police has, of course, called
in the Ducastel agency to help them solve the case,”
he added .with a certain pompous nonchalance.
At that moment Tennant, whose ears were delicately
attuned, heard a faint, choking sound behind him, from
the direction of the couch where Menzies-Kerr had sat
down.
He looked into the mirror, which, French style, was
between the two tall windows, and saw that his friend
had turned paler than ever and was trying hard to
control his quivering throat-muscles.


CHAPTER II
SUSPICION
Menzies-Kering careful tguite casually and
WHEN, only a few minutes earlier, Tennant had told
his friend that in his relations to him he was not a
detective, he had spoken the truth consciously. But
subconsciously, his sixth sense, his recording, register-
ing trigger sense, which made him what he was, began
to work as soon as he had noticed that the news of
the murder had given the other a nervous shock. He
asked:
“Did you know Anatole Jarvet?”
He asked the question quite casually and of the room
at large, being careful to address it neither direct to
Menzies-Kerr nor to Paul Doumay, and thus he was
confirmed in his uneasy, unformed suspicions when it
was the former who took it unto himself to reply:
“Yes.”
Tennant turned.
“Oh, you did ?”
The tone was still casual, but the Scotchman must
have caught an infinitesimal, hardly noticeable inflec-
tion, for he hastened to explain that of course he had
known who Anatole Jarvet was. Who hadn't, here in
Paris, where his name was a household word? Why,
Jarvet had been a powerful political figure, an ultra-
radical socialist and intolerant pacifist, an enemy of
19


20
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
everything that smacked of law and order and estab-
lished authority, nearly an anarchist, a ruthless dema-
gogue who had always been considered a grave danger
to the French Republic, with its sound ideas of uni-
versal military service as the main basis of national
defense.
“Term after term," continued Menzies-Kerr, whose
voice was steadying every second, but steadying with
an effort, as Tennant noticed, “he was elected into the
House of Deputies—"
“Yes,". Tennant interrupted, "he was sent up to the
House of Deputies by the apache gentry who inhabit
the Quartier des Halles, the part of town where you
have so many unsavory friends and where you go on
so many mysterious errands,” he added in an aside.
The subagent had caught just a few words.
“Yes," he said. “The Quartier des Halles. Ana-
tole Jarvet had many admirers there. Monsieur, those
gentlemen of the underworld adored and obeyed him
slavishly. He was their master; more than that, their
savior, their god; and he retaliated. Many a time
did he use his political influence to protect them when
they got into trouble with the police.”
He pointed at the wall calendar. The date was
January 4, 1914, about half a year before the out-
break of the great European war.
“Yesterday, M. Jarvet's Apache constituents re-
elected him into the House of Deputies. To-day,
alas—!” He shrugged his broad shoulders with mock
sympath you mused his precan with
“But you must know all that,” cut in Menzies-Kerr,
who had regained his presence of mind completely and
was looking at the American with an expression of sar-


SUSPICION
21
donic amusement, softened by the honest friendship he
felt for him.' “You must know all that, Jamie. After
all, you "
“After all, I'm a detective. Can that joke. It's
got whiskers. What I want to know is if you knew
Anatole Jarvet personally; and how well ?”
"I–12" Menzies-Kerr stammered, hesitated, then
came out with a rush: “I don't see how that's any
of your business. "
"Pardon, monsieur," broke in Doumay's cool,
metallic voice, “I believe that Milord Menzies-Kerr did
-ah-know the murdered M. Jarvet.”
“That's a lie!” Menzies-Kerr rose in his excitement.
He moved up threateningly to the Frenchman, who
stood there, unafraid, used to disagreeable scenes in
the course of his duties, and taking bad words as part
of the day's work. “I have never met Jarvet in all
my life. What the devil do you mean by”.
“Monsieur,” suavely interrupted the subagent, “I did
not mean to say that you knew Jarvet personally."
“Then what in blazes did you mean?”
“That you knew him impersonally, indirectly. Bon
sang! There are certain links—weak, hardly visible
to the naked eye—but we of the detective service"
Tennant lost no shade of inflection, no gesture, not
the slightest byplay. He knew better than to inter-
fere. He believed in letting a play play itself, without
interruptions, without too much help.
But when Doumay was silent and looked at him as
if asking permission to continue, he directed him with
a few words to go on.
"Fire away, Doumay. What did you mean by that
last cryptic allusion of yours?"


22
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
“Begging milord's pardon,”—the subagent bowed to
the Scotchman—"but I learn that milord has been
paying court of the most arduous, the most impas-
sioned, the most romantic, to Mlle. Angele Lan-
taigne”
“That's another lie!” boomed Menzies-Kerr.
Tennant smiled in spite of himself.
“Let it pass, Allistair," he said. “Don't forget that
Doumay is a Frenchman and likes to embroider a little
when it comes to affairs of the heart. All right, Dou-
may. I know that my friend has been often in the
company of Mlle. Angele Lantaigne. What's that got
to do with it?”
Doumay drew himself up triumphantly.
“Mademoiselle was also how shall I put it-mad-
emoiselle was also the very good friend of the murdered
M. Anatole Jarvet. She was—"
Menzies-Kerr gave a cry of rage and a leap, and it
was Tennant's body which catapulted between the
Scotchman and the object of his wrath and saved the
latter from a severe beating.
“Cut it out, both of you!” he said, holding them at
arm's length. “What do you mean, Doumay, by mak-
ing such remarks about"
"It's the truth—name of a name of a name!”
fumed Doumay. “Mademoiselle is—was" And
when Menzies-Kerr made another, quickly frustrated
attempt to get at him, Tennant pushed him toward the
hall-door.
“Never mind this, old man. Leave me alone with
Doumay. You go and call on Miss Lantaigne.”
“Call on her? Call on her?” Doumay broke into
peals of laughter. “That is impossible!"


SUSPICION
23
“Why?” asked Tennant.
“Because Mlle. Angele Lantaigne is in jail, charged
with the murder of M. Anatole Jarvet.”
“God! She's innocent!” The Scotchman's words
were thick, and the Frenchman, now thoroughly irate,
asked maliciously:
"Innocent, is she? Milord knows it? Milord is sure
of it? Ah-it appears that milord knows a great deal
about the murder of M. Anatole Jarvet !"
And Tennant was inclined to agree with him. He
remembered what he had seen earlier in the afternoon;
Menzies-Kerr and Angele Lantaigne together in that
evil old part of Paris which, ironically, takes its name
from sacred Saint-Sulpice.
There was mystery there, and drama, and the stark
figure of a murdered man. .
į And politics! He was sure of it. Politics was
always back of mystery and murder in France.
Two minutes later, Tennant was bunched over the
steering-wheel of his light American roadster, hastening
toward the scene of the murder, Paul Doumay by his
side. In and out of the traffic he guided the car,
speeding up, taking a corner on two wheels, shaving
a lamp-post, flashing a word here and there to an
excited, gesticulating, white-gloved policeman and
causing him to stand aside with a respectful salute
when he cried rapidly: “It's all right, officer. I'm
Tennant of the Agence Ducastel!” He pushed
straight into the heart of the Latin Quarter.
There, not far from the flaunting Luxembourg
Gardens, a spider's web of narrow, crooked, cobble-
stoned streets and alleys and cul-de-sacs entangles itself
about the ancient Church of Saint-Sulpice. Streets
excited? Post, flashing a corne


24
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
answering to names flavored with a certain quaint,
provincial charm: Rue Palatine, Rue Garancière, Rue
Férou. Old, sad, silent. streets; so silent that the
mewing of some dusty ash-bin cat, the twittering of a
canary hanging in its cage from a kitchen window, or
the tinkly bell of a knife-sharpener's pushcart strikes
your ear with the force of a sudden blow; streets
detached from the noisy, whirling, clanking, laughing
Latin Quarter which hems them in on all sides; streets
clinging with the obstinacy of the very old to the dusty,
melancholy centuries that are past and gone; streets
where the houses, some of them terraced, stand each
in the center of its own walled garden and are shaded
by great trees, poplar and elm and oak and rose-pink
chestnut.
Streets quiet with the quiet of death.
Yet once these same streets had seen the history of
France in the making, the unmaking, and the remaking.
For there, during the Terror, the proscribed aristo-
crats went in search of refuge and asylum. There, in
the shadow of the old Church of Saint-Sulpice, they
tried to hide their powder-bags, their brocaded coats,
their lace jabots, their jeweled snuff-boxes, their sim-
pering love letters, and their worn-out, feudal ideals.
Thence the ragged, wool-capped hangmen of Robes-
pierre ferreted them out and dragged them forth to
lamp-post and guillotine and the potter's field, and it
had been with a certain amount of truth that one of
the late M. Anatole Jarvet's political opponents had
said that the Rue Férou, where Jarvet lived, was
“pregnant with the blood-stained specters of lust and
cruelty and thus a peculiarly fit milieu for a man of
his ruthless, anarchistic principles.”
said the M. Anatolatain amount potter's field.


SUSPICION
25
The night before had heard the culminating cheers
of weeks of electioneering. Jarvet had been sent back
by an overwhelming majority of his old ward into the
House of Deputies, though the election posters, stick-
ing to fences and houses and kiosks, proved that the
sentiment of Anatole Jarvet's opponent, quoted above,
was echoed by others.
Tennant read a line or two as the car whizzed past.
They were posters used by the candidate of the Re-
publicans—the party in the saddle—who had tried to
buck the game here, in the very heart of the apache
quarter which for years had given to Jarvet admira-
tion, slavish obedience and yotes.
The posters were trenchant with the ferocious per-
sonal animosity characteristic of French elections.
“Do NOT VOTE FOR JARVET, THE INTERNATIONAL-
IST!” screamed one poster, staring black on brightest
orange. “A VOTE FOR JARVET IS A VOTE FOR THE
ENEMY. JARVET MEANS UNPREPAREDNESS, DISASTER !
JARVET MEANS A PAWN GIVEN INTO THE HANDS OF
GERMANY! REMEMBER THE LOST PROVINCES! RE-
MEMBER ALSACE AND LORRAINE! REMEMBER SEDAN !"
Another poster said succinctly that Jarvet was the
sort of man who would like to drench France in the
blood of her best because the perverted sensation of
such a monstrosity would amuse him, while a third,
beginning glibly and politely with the statement that
Jarvet was a man of splendid education and great cul-
ture, a man of undoubted genius, of charm, of person-
ality, a born leader, went on to say:
“YET THIS SAME JARVET HAS PROSTITUTED THE
DIVINE GIFTS WHICH GOD HAS GIVEN HIM TO STRIKE A
BLOW AGAINST FRANCE, THE MOTHER! HE WANTS TO


26
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
SEE FRANCE UNPREPARED, DEFENSELESS CARRION FOR
THE BIRD OF PREY THAT FLAPS ITS SINISTER WINGS
BEYOND THE RHINE! JARVET HAS THE BOWELS OF
COMPASSION OF A HYENA AND LESS PRINCIPLES AND
DECENCY THAN THE HORNED TOAD. HE IS A DANGER.
A DANGER WHICH SHOULD BE CRUSHED UNDER THE HEEL
OF THE REPUBLIC !”
And always the refrain was the same:"VOTE AGAINST
JARVET !” and Jarvet's own posters seemed mildly in-
nocuous in comparison, saying simply: “VOTE FOR
JARVET! VOTE FOR LIBERTY! DowN WITH THE
ARMY! DOWN WITH THE BRASS-BUTTONED, RED-
TROUSERED POPINJAYS!”
Doumay smiled.
6. Do not vote for Jarvet, enemy of the Republic ! »
he quoted sarcastically, pointing at a long array of
crimson three-foot letters on a sign-board above a low-
roofed shop.
"Well, they did vote for him, for all that,” came
Tennant's answer above the running of the engine.
“Yes—and to-day he's dead—and I expect the
gentlemen of the government are not exactly dis-
pleased.”
“Not they!” replied Tennant, slowing down the car
as the gray, fretted, turreted pile of Saint-Sulpice
stood clear from the crowding, uneven house-tops.
“But what about these people—there?” He swept his
left hand toward the muttering, nervous, uneasy mob
that was surging from the near-by streets toward the
bottlelike entrance of the Rue Férou.
“What about the gentry of the underworld ?” he con-
tinued. "Just look at them! Listen!"
He whirred the roadster skillfully in and out of the


SUSPICION
27
mag in a solid hom the sidewallsty-built
swerving masses which were spilling over from dank,
low-ceilinged drinking shops and greasy, jerry-built
houses to the sidewalks and from the sidewalks to the
streets, moving in a solid phalanx, minatory, uncon-
sciously dramatic, toward the ancient peace of the Rue
Férou.
Jarvet was dead! Dead-murdered—the man whom
they had adored, followed, obeyed !
A low, sinister grumble rose from the crowd—like
the grumble of beasts of prey, hungry for flesh, thought
Tennant. On they moved, and the cordon of blue-
coated gendarmes drawn across the opening of the
street had its work cut out trying to stem the giant
human tide.
“Give way there!"
“Look out-damn you !"
A mounted policeman's horse reared and plunged
and snorted with fear.
Came raucous shouts. Words of hate bitten off and
flung free. Curses. Cries of pain. Now and then a
smart swish-swish-swish as the flat of a saber whipped
across leg or back or clutching hand.
“Give way!"
“Back!”
“Ah-thou wilt then, wilt thou-saľ cochon!”
“Assassin! Hyena! Rhinoceros! Lump of nause-
ating pig flesh!"
"O les vaches!”
The crowd became thicker, and Tennant, stopping
at a stone's throw from the Rue Férou, hailed and
requisitioned a passing policeman, gave the car into
his keeping, and walked by the side of Doumay toward
the scene of the murder, straight into the crowd, clear-


28
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
of the lof bad tobac protrudin hat they havice.
ing a way with elbow and fist and foot, and an occa-
sional, good-humored, appealing:
“But you must let me through, citizens! I have
come here to clear up the murder of M. Anatole Jarvet,
the man whom you loved. I come to bring the guilty
to justice !”
They were decidedly not prepossessing, these denizens
of the underworld. They were obviously unwashed,
reeking of bad tobacco and worse cognac; and it was
evident, from their protruding jaws to their shifty
eyes and low, apish foreheads, that they had been con-
ceived and born in an ether of crime and vice. They
were the original apaches, the descendants of long gen-
erations that had spawned and sinned and spawned
again in these old streets since the days of François
Villon. They were pungent and scabbed with vicious-
ness and bestial lust. They were the base metal-
basest of base—which Anatole Jarvet had forged into
a weapon for himself, and against the weal of the Re-
public-Anatole Jarvet who lay murdered in the library
of his house. But in this also were they apaches that
they had the strange, steely, unreasoning loyalty of the
underworld.
They had loved Jarvet. And now, when Tennant
told them that he had come here to investigate the
murder, to bring justice, and the vengeance which jus-
tice implies, they screwed their vicious faces into a sem-
blance of geniality and gave way; and a few minutes
later Tennant and Doumay found themselves up
against the cordon of gendarmes.
A rapid word, a salute, and they passed quickly down
the street. They stopped in front of number fourteen.


SUSPICION
29
| Henri Ducastel himself, the head of the agency, was
at the garden gate waiting for them.
“Ah, at last!” he said impatiently, taking the Amer-
ican by the arm and leading him through the garden
and into the house; a detached villa, like so many
houses of that old Quarter. “Come straight up to the
library. We left the body as we found it."
Tennant followed quickly. Once he stopped for a
moment and listened.
A great cry, a solid volume of sound blown out in
unison by a thousand lips, rose from the packed mass
beyond the police cordon. A cry that was tense,
tragic, shuddering:
“The government murdered Jarvet, friend of the
people! Down with the government !"
Then a pause, and agaín a cry—but thin, slightly
halting, jerked out by a single throat:
"Down with the army!”
“What's the matter?” inquired Ducastel nervously.
“What are you stopping for?”
“Did you hear that last cry?”
“Yes. What about it?"
“Oh-nothing !" replied Tennant as he opened the
door of the library.


CHAPTER III
CLEWS
JAMES OLIVER TENNANT was not the sort of detective
of fiction who moves through the room where a crime
has been committed on his hands and knees, nose and
eyes close to the ground after the manner of a slobber-
ing, sniffling, blue-mottled otter-hound, looking for
cigar ashes or hair-pins or bits of limburger with which
to construct his case.
Nor was he the sort who, on the spur of the moment,
often even before the spur of the moment, invents,
develops, perfects, manufactures, and uses a marvel-
ously intricate and delicate recording apparatus which
automatically, when clamped around the jugular vein
or the liver of the culprit, bellows through a gramo-
phone-horn: “Thou art the Man! Confess!” After
which follows confession, contrition, and conviction
not to speak of compensation.
On the contrary, it is doubtful if he had ever heard
of deductive ratiocination, and he shocked the French
and therefore uncompromisingly logical mind of his
chief, Henri Ducastel, by succeeding in spite of his
methods, which were unorthodox, negligent, cavalierly
-quite South Carolinian, in fact.
For he calmly passed over most small details, saying
that a criminal who was big enough would either him-
30


32
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
but his logical Latin, mind insisted on the question and
the implied protest.
“No. Why should I?”.
“But, my friend !” Ducastel clutched his neat, gray
beard with a gesture of despair. “You are a special
investigator. I pay you a salary worthy of the purse
of Fortunatus!"
"Don't I earn it?” came the calm query, and then
the reply:
"Yes. Of course, my boy. But you should ascer-
tain how the assassin got into the room, and how he
left!"
Tennant lifted a corner of the white cloth which
covered the face of the dead man. He said it made
no difference to him how the murderer got in nor how
he got out. The man had come in somehow and got
out somehow. That was all there was to it.
“But-but" the other stammered, then whispered
the potent shibboleth of his craft:
“Finger-prints, Tennant! Finger-prints !"
He pronounced the word with a sibilant, dramatic
hiss, but Tennant was unimpressed.
“Why look for finger-prints,” he asked, “şince the
police have already arrested Mlle. Lantaigne as the
culprit.”
“The police have been at work less than an hour.
The murder was committed a little before six. There
was an upturned clock, which stopped clicking, also the
testimony of Anatole Jarvet's housekeeper. She said
that_”
"Never mind just now what she said. What about
the police and the finger-prints ?”
“The case against mademoiselle is not yet perfect.
cu,


CLEWS
33
The police have found certain evidence. But they found
no finger-prints. They thought that's where you would
help.”
“Not I!" Tennant shook his head. “All the finger-
prints I want are those of the fellow who gave that
last yell just before we came in here, 'Down with the
army ! »
“What's he got to do with it? There you go off on
one of your usual tangents !” Ducastel repeated, ex-
citedly: “What's that apache got to do with the mur-
der?”
“I don't know exactly, yet! As to the other finger-
prints—there aren't going to be any.".
“Why not?”
“The person who committed the murder wore gloves.”
“How do you know?”
“Psychology, monsieur, psychology! Anatole Jar-
vet was a dangerous and mighty shrewd man and, by
clear reasoning, his enemy-he who killed him-must
have been as dangerous and as shrewd. Otherwise he
would not have succeeded, as he did succeed." He
pointed at the stark form in the armchair. “And thus,
being shrewd and dangerous, he most certainly took
the ordinary precaution of wearing gloves.”
He drew the white cloth away, exposing the dead
man's face to the rays of the electric bulb which
dropped from above the table. Even in death and
though slightly bloated and blackened by strangula-
tion, the features had a certain greatness, a certain
cruel, massive, satanic beauty. “The face of a vicious
latter-day Roman emperor with a touch of Manchu,"
Tennant said as he bent close and examined the swollen
neck.
haveld not the stad dans of we away elect


34
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
nad It wasel point the des of the spa
below the at the heirs had mete said: 35. No of Aesh ands.
“Strangled,” he went on, "and, as I told you, no
finger-prints."
“I suppose your first guess was right,” grumblingly
admitted Ducastel. “She must have worn gloves."
Tennant smiled grimly.
“It wasn't a she who wore the gloves; it was a he !"
Ducastel pointed at the blue marks which ran from
below the ears of the dead man and met in a deep black-
ish spot at the height of the spinal column, where the
murderer's thumbs had met.
“A very small hand," he said; "a woman's hand.”
“Small, yes. But not a woman's. No woman had
the strength to kill that huge machine of flesh and
blood and bones and vital energy with her bare hands.
I know what you are going to say," he went on as Du-
castel was about to interrupt. “You were going to
give me the good old bromid that even the weakest
woman will find superhuman strength in moments of
stress and despair."
. “Exactly."
“Well, there's some truth in that. A weak woman
can become a monster in strength. But only on the
spur of the moment. She can only kill suddenly, before
she realizes what she is doing, with a single great effort;
while it took continuous pressure, steady brutal
strength, and an iron will to strangle this man to
death.” And he walked away from the table and up
and down the length of the room, his hands folded
behind his back, a puckered frown torturing his fore-
head.
“Hunting for clews after all?" Ducastel asked, a
trifle sarcastically.
Tennant shook his head without stopping.


CLEWS
35
“Not a bit of it. I am looking for a confirmation of
my opinion.”
“You have one already formed?” Ducastel's tone was
still sarcastic, and he was utterly taken aback when
he heard the other's calm, matter-of-fact reply:
“Oh, yes."
Ducastel could not help smiling. He had a deep
personal liking for this keen young American, and while
French logic told him that the man's methods were
wrong, the same logic told him that his results were
good. Alert, interested, he watched him walk up and
down, looking at the ceiling and the bookcases and the
soft Smyrna rug as if for a spark of inspiration.
But when Ducastel made a jocular remark, asking
the other why he was blowing up his nostrils like a
race-horse on the end stretch, and inquiring if he were
trying to sniff in a bit of that applied psychology of
which he was in the habit of boasting, Tennant re-
plied that he was simply wondering if Jarvet had been
an opium smoker.
"No," replied the Frenchman. “I knew him per-
sonally. He was a very abstemious man-except with
women. Why do you ask?”
“Take a little sniff for yourself. Won't cost you
anything," said the American
“That's so.” For the first time Ducastel became
aware of the faint, stale, acrid odor that permeated
the room.
But when Tennant went on to say that, since Jarvet
was not an opium smoker, the murderer must have
been, and that this was an additional sign of Mlle.
Lantaigne's innocence, the Frenchman protested vigor-
ously.


36
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
those who smokestuff somehow.nds on. This
note to get theke cheap on want. On the they c
“Nothing of the sort. There's more than one actress
in Paris—"
“Who smokes opium? Sure enough. I don't deny
it. But," Again he bent over the inert mass in the
chair, inhaling the odor. “There is opium and opium.
The murderer .smoked a cheap brand; I am familiar
with it from New York."
“What does that signify?”.
“Just this. People like Mlle. Lantaigne use only
the best sort of poppy-juice. To them the little pipe
is a pleasant luxury, a pleasant vice if you prefer,
and there are lots of drug-stores where they can buy
the expensive stuff they want. On the other hand,
those who smoke cheap opium do so because they have
got to get the stuff somehow; because they buy any
stuff they can lay their hands on. This goes to
prove”
“What?”
“That, as I told you before, I would like to get the
finger-prints of the apache who gave that last yell,
*Down with the army!'”
“Tonnerre de Dieu !” Ducastel threw up his hands in
a gesture of supreme annoyance. “There's that same
mysterious allusion again! What do you mean by it?”
Tennant smiled boyishly.
"I won't tell you, chief. If I am wrong, you'll josh
me about it to the end of my days. And if I am
right-" He turned to resume his walk up and down
the length of the room. “But then I know I am right,"
he added under his breath.
A few minutes later Tennant turned to Ducastel, who
had been quietly laughing to himself.
“What's up?" he inquired.


CLEWS
“A joke! A joke on you, my friend! A scream of
a joke on your confounded American cocksureness !"
"Darned good thing to have—when you have cause
for it.”
“Aha—when! And now, just to punish you for not
listening to the advice of an old man, a detective who
has grown gray in the profession, I shall tell you one
or two little things which you have overlooked. One
is, you didn't see ".
Those marks on the table?" Tennant indicated
some fresh abrasions on the oak table to the right of
the dead man. “You bet I saw them.”
"Oh!” Ducastel was taken aback, but he returned
to the charge at once. “What about the other marks?”
he asked softly.
“What others?"
“The scratches on Jarvet's hands!" the Frenchman
announced triumphantly. But again he failed to im-
press the American who said with a drawl: “I thought
right along those marks would be on Jarvet's hands,
too. I really did not take the trouble to look for
them.”
"Ah! You didrt, did you?" Ducastel cracked his
finger joints in his excitement. “That's what you call
bluff in your own country! The great American bluff,
hein? For those scratches are most important clews.
They will help to convict Mlle. Lantaigne, in spite of
the opium, in spite of what you say about her being
too weak to strangle a man like Jarvet. She made
them with her hatpin when she attacked Jarvet, before
she strangled him. The police discovered blood spots
on the point of her hatpin. It dovetails, mon vieux!”
Tennant laughed.


36
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
“Nothing of the sort. There's more than one actress
in Paris "
“Who smokes opium? Sure enough. I don't deny
it. But," Again he bent over the inert mass in the
chair, inhaling the odor. “There is opium and opium.
The murderer .smoked a cheap brand; I am familiar
with it from New York.”
“What does that signify?”,
“Just this. People like Mlle. Lantaigne use only
the best sort of poppy-juice. To them the little pipe
is a pleasant luxury, a pleasant vice if you prefer,
and there are lots of drug-stores where they can buy
the expensive stuff they want. On the other hand,
those who smoke cheap opium do so because they have
got to get the stuff somehow; because they buy any
stuff they can lay their hands on. This goes to,
prove"
“What?”
“That, as I told you before, I would like to get the
finger-prints of the apache who gave that last yell,
‘Down with the army!'”
“Tonnerre de Dieu !” Ducastel threw up his hands in
a gesture of supreme annoyance. “There's that same
mysterious allusion again! What do you mean by it?”
Tennant smiled boyishly
"I won't tell you, chief. If I am wrong, you'll josh
me about it to the end of my days. And if I am
right—" He turned to resume his walk up and down
the length of the room. “But then I know I am right,”
he added under his breath.
A few minutes later Tennant turned to Ducastel, who
had been quietly laughing to himself.
“What's up?" he inquired.


CLEWS
37
“A joke! A joke on you, my friend! A scream of
a joke on your confounded American cocksureness !"
“Darned good thing to have—when you have cause
for it.”
“Aha—when! And now, just to punish you for not
listening to the advice of an old man, a detective who
has grown gray in the profession, I shall tell you one
or two little things which you have overlooked. One
is, you didn't see”
"Those marks on the table?" Tennant indicated
some fresh abrasions on the oak table to the right of
the dead man. “You bet I saw them."
“Oh!” Ducastel was taken aback, but he returned
to the charge at once. “What about the other marks?”
he asked softly.
“What others?”
“The scratches on Jarvet's hands !" the Frenchman
announced triumphantly. But again he failed to im-
press the American who said with a drawl: “I thought
right along those marks would be on Jarvets hands,
too. I really did not take the trouble to look for
them.”
“Ah! You didr't, did you?” Ducastel cracked his
finger joints in his excitement. “That's what you call
bluff in your own country! The great American bluff,
hein? For those scratches are most important clews.
They will help to convict Mlle. Lantaigne, in spite of
the opium, in spite of what you say about her being
too weak to strangle a man like Jarvet. She made
them with her hatpin when she attacked Jarvet, before
she strangled him. The police discovered blood spots
on the point of her hatpin. It dovetails, mon vieux!”
Tennant laughed.


38
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
“Ducastel,” he said, “the police are fools."
“To be sure; but not in this particular case. You
say yourself that you saw the marks on the table. Now
look at Jarvet's hands and convince yourself.”
“What's the use? I know what they look like. Same
as those on the table, aren't they?”.
“Yes.”
“Exactly the same?”
“Yes, yes”
“All right. Now you look at those marks on the
table and on Jarvet's palms. What do you see?”
Ducastel did as he was told, and said they were cuts
freshly made with an instrument. “Mademoiselle's hat-
pin," he repeated.
“What else did you see?” continued Tennant, and
when the other did not reply, he pointed out that the
cuts on the table as well as on the dead man's palms
were symmetrical, arranged in a distinct pattern like
the flat segment of a circle, each cut about a fourth
of an inch from the next, and all the same depth. To
a few of them minute bits of rough, fibrous cloth were
sticking. Tennant picked these out with his pocket-
knife and put them into his purse.
“Don't you see?” He turned to the other. “If
Mlle. Lantaigne had attacked him with her hatpin she
would hardly have taken the trouble to cut a symmet-
rical pattern into the table and his hands. She
wouldn't have had the time nor the presence of mind.
Those cuts "
“Well?”
“Were made inadvertently-by the man who bent
over Jarvet from behind, a little to the right, strangling


CLEWS
39
him. Notice those bits of fibrous cloth I picked out?”
“Yes; what about them?”
“They prove that I am right. No, no!" Tennant
laughed. “I shan't tell you till my whole case is com-
plete. I told you I didn't want you to josh me, if I
should be wrong. And now," he went on, walking to the
hall door and opening it, "let's hear what the witnesses
for the police have got to say for themselves. Dou-
may!” he called. “Oh, Doumay!”
"Monsieur?" came the subagent's metallic voice from
below.
✓ He received his instructions and, a minute later,
ushered into the room M. Xavier Roux, captain of
police, a tall, fair, mustached man who looked well in
his tight-fitting uniform, and an old woman with the
short, voluminous, pleated skirt, the tiny lace bonnet,
and the heavy shoes of a Norman peasant. Norman,
too, were her pale-blue eyes, the thin, compressed
mouth, and the huge nose beaking away from the
sunken cheeks.
Roux greeted Tennant civilly. He knew him from
former cases. He had no liking for him, considering
him a foreign interloper; but he knew from experience
that the American had usually an ace up his sleeve,
and he knew, furthermore, that Henri Ducastel, the
honored dean of his craft in Paris, perhaps in the
whole of Europe, had supreme faith in this young man,
though at times he was inclined to criticize his un-
orthodox and negligent methods.
“I am very sorry about Mlle. Lantaigne," began
Roux, his lips curling in a thin smile. “I know that
your friend, Lord Menzies-Kerr, takes a great deal of
though at od negligen hout Mlle


40
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
interest in her. Too, she is the daughter of M. Lan-
taigne, the chief of the secret police. We would have
done anything in our power to "
"Oh, no, you wouldn't!" Tennant broke in curtly.
“I am an American, but I have a hatful of information
about the more muddy spots of French politics. I
know, for instance, that the political police-Lan-
taigne's branch and the regular, metropolitan police
to which you belong, aren't exactly on kissing terms,
and that you weren't so very damned sorry when you
thought you could fasten this crime on M. Lantaigne's
daughter.”
“We have proof, monsieur!”
“Proof, poppycock! Don't believe much in proof
myself. Proof lies like the devil at times. By the way,
have you notified mademoiselle's father?”
“Of course not. The law says nothing about notify-
ing the parents of suspected criminals over twenty-one
years of age!” The answer was heated; then he added,
more mildly: “Too, we have hardly had time. The
murder occurred to-day around six. Mademoiselle was
arrested twenty minutes later. Quick work, eh?”
“You bet. Yet you called in the Agence Ducastel.”
“Yes, yes.” Roux blushed. “We
“You aren't as sure as you'd like to be. All right.
Let’s hear this woman. Who is she?” and Roux told
him that she was the housekeeper of the late M. Ana-
tole Jarvet, that her name was Anne Houlbrecque, and
that she was an old Norman who had worked for the
politician a lifetime.
“Any other servants?” asked Tennant.
“No. She was here alone. Even attended to the
garden.”
:.


CLEWS
“Yet Jarvet had money?”
“I believe so.”
Tennant looked about the room. There were some
splendid paintings, good books, including precious early
French editions, well-chosen bits of bric-à-brac, hand-
some rugs.
“Funny,” he said, half to himself, “Jarvet had
money, was not afraid to spend it—and had only one
servant.” He turned to Roux. “All right. I'll ask
her a question or two."
“You must talk loud to her," said the police captain.
“She is deaf.”
“She is? Good. Let's find out about her deafness.”
“What has that to do with the case? You are wast-
ing time, monsieur!”
“I am wasting my time, not yours !" came Tennant's
sharp reply, and he turned to the old servant, who
stepped forward with an old-fashioned .curtsy.
“Madame," he asked with a loud voice, “you are
deaf?"
“Yes, monsieur."
“Always have been deaf?”
“Since I was a child.”
“So you were deaf when you entered M. Jarvet's
service?”
“To be sure. We are from the same Norman vil-
lage.”
“And he engaged you in spite of your deafness?”
“To be sure, monsieur. M. Jarvet always said that
he preferred a servant who cannot hear to one who
hears too well.”
“Mark that!" Tennant turned to Ducastel. “It's
all in keeping with the fact that he had money, wasn't


42
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
afraid to spend it, and yet employed only one servant.
It's in keeping, too, with "
“With what?”
“The Apache who gave that last yell!” Tennant
whispered in his chief's ear.
Then he returned to Anne Houlbrecque.
“Madame,” he asked, “tell me exactly what you
saw and heard between five and six o'clock to-day.”
“I was out this afternoon, shopping."
“How long were you gone?”
“Over an hour. I had to go quite a distance to buy
fresh mushrooms. M. Jarvet was very fond of mush-
rooms and pimientos stewed in olive oil, Provençal
style. I returned about ten minutes before six.”
“What did you do then?”
“I crossed the garden. Then I saw that M. Jarvet
had a visitor.”
“How did you see that?”
“I saw the visitor silhouetted through the window
of the library, a little to one side of M. Jarvet, who
was seated at his desk.”
“Who was the visitor; a man or a woman?”
“A woman, monsieur."
“Aha!” exclaimed Roux triumphantly, but Tennant
paid no attention to him.
“Are you positive it was a woman?” he asked the
servant,
“Yes.”
“How can you be positive since you only saw a sil-
houette?”
“Monsieur, I am enough of a woman myself to be
able to tell a woman's coat; the outline of it, I mean.”


CLEWS
43
“So you only know that the visitor was a woman by
the outline of a coat?”
“And the hat. I saw that, too. Both coat and hat
were sharply silhouetted.”
"You could not see below the knee, nor could you
recognize the features?”
“No, monsieur. But I know a woman's coat and a
woman's hat,” she insisted stubbornly.
“What was the coat like?”
“Very loose.”
“Loose? Where?” continued Tennant, disregarding
Roux's impatient protest. “Around the shoulders, the
arms, the hips?”
“Around the hips,” came the old woman's answer.
“Very loose, indeed.”
“And yet”—Tennant turned to Roux—“coats this
year are worn very tight around the hips. Just take
a look along the boulevards and see."
“Well?”
“Mlle. Lantaigne is one of the best-dressed women in
Paris. Do you think she would wear a coat out of
fashion?” and he turned again to Anne Houlbrecque
with the question of what the visitor's hat had been
like. He received the answer that, again judging by
the outline, it had been a broad, flapping felt hat.
“Any feathers sticking out?"
“I only saw the shadow, and that was perfectly plain.
Just a broad-brimmed felt hat.”
“Therefore the only reason for your statement that
your master's visitor was a woman is the fact that you
saw the outlines of a coat that was loose around the
hips and a broad hat?”.


44
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
hou heard he point, and for to the
“Yes, monsieur."
“All right. Did you see the visitor leave the house?”
“No. I went direct to the kitchen and was busy for
a good half-hour. Then I went to the library to ask
M. Jarvet a question, and found him—" her voice
quavered and she pointed at the inert figure.
“You heard nothing?”
“I am deaf, monsieur.”
“Did M. Jarvet wear jewelry?" came the next ques-
tion, apparently illogical; and when the servant had
replied that Jarvet had always worn a handsome gold
watch, a seal ring, and a diamond stick-pin, the next
question seemed even more preposterous to the fuming
Roux. For Tennant asked if Jarvet had lunched at
home that day.
“But-monsieur!” boomed Roux's protesting bass,
cut through by Mme. Houlbrecque's shrill accents:
“Yes. M. Jarvet lunched here to-day.”
“He wore his jewelry then?” with a side smile at
Ducastel, who was beginning to see daylight.
“Yes.”
“Sure of that?”
“But yes, monsieur! I am not blind, though I am
deaf.”
“Did he leave the house after lunch?”
“No. He said he was going to stay in all afternoon.
He”-she pointed a shaking finger at the stark figure
in the armchair-“he has his slippers on.”
“Do you think he might have gone for a stroll while
you were away shopping?”
“Oh, no, monsieur."
“Why not?"
“Because he always wore his patent leathers when he


CLEWS
45
.
cocto you somethicovered its esult!”
went for afternoon walks, and they are still in the
kitchen. I have not cleaned them since yesterday."
“Bully! Perfectly bully!” A boyish smile lit up
Tennant's features. He dismissed Mme. Houlbrecque
with a courteous word of thanks, and immediately was
ready to reply to Xavier Roux, who, with an ill-con-
cealed snarl, demanded to know if M. l'Américain con-
sidered it smart to have discovered that the murdered
man's jewelry was missing.
“I myself discovered that as soon as I saw the
corpse!” he wound up. “I used my eyes! I didn't
have to put the servant through a cross-examination
to arrive at so wonderful a result !”
“Sure you discovered it," laughed Tennant. “And
I tell you something else you did, my friend. You con-
cocted a pretty theory by which you are trying to
prove that Mlle. Angele Lantaigne stole those jewels
on purpose so as to mislead the police, to make the
police believe it was a robber who killed Jarvet, and
not she. Didn't you, now? Fess up!"
“How-how did you-guess?”
“Old dope,” replied Tennant. "Same in Paris as in
New York. Prove your case by hook or by crook.
That's the maxim of the police the world over.”
“It is not !” cried Roux. “We of the police are posi-
tive that mademoiselle is guilty. We are positive that
mademoiselle took the jewels—for the very reasons you
mentioned. Nom d'une pipe!” he thundered, thor-
oughly exasperated, “she tried even more than that!
Have you looked at the safe, M. Tennant?”
“That thing over there?” asked Tennant, pointing
to the small, squat safe in a corner. “I looked at it in
passing. Why?”


,46
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
“Because mademoiselle endeavored to make doubly
sure. She tried to open the safe. Look here!” he con-
cluded triumphantly, indicating a symmetrical pattern
of scratches on the painted steel surface. “Just like
the scratches on the table, on Jarvet's palms. She
sought to~"
“Open the safe with that wicked, powerful, ubiqui-
tous, extraordinary weapon of hers, that hatpin. I get
you. Very womanlike, I call it.”
“I know it sounds ridiculous,” insisted the police
captain. “But you don't know what a woman might
do in a moment of supreme excitement."
“Right you are. But I do know that this safe has
been opened-most likely rifled--and then closed
again."
“Preposterous.”
“Preposterous, your eye! See that edge of white
paper sticking out, caught in the safe door?”
“Jarvet might have slammed the door on it.” .
"No. Men like Jarvet, men who play with the most
inflammable material of politics anarchy, pacifism, in-
ternationalism—know better than to leave anything
written or printed, any scrap of paper, exposed. On
the other hand, if a stranger-the murderer-had tried
to open the safe, had not succeeded, and had seen this
bit of paper, he would have tried to pull it out.”
“Why?”
“Natural reaction following disappointment,” replied
the American in dry, didactic tones. “This bit of pa-
per, since the edge is clean-cut and not torn and ragged,
proves to me that the safe was opened by somebody
other than Jarvet, presumably rifled, and that the
party who did it slammed the door in a hurry.”
“Preposting out, causlammed the door with the


CLEWS
47
"How do you know all that?” Roux inquired sar-
- castically, and before Tennant could frame a reply,
m Ducastel, who was beginning to enjoy himself hugely
like when he saw that the American, in spite of his negli-
La gent methods, was getting the best of the police,
chuckled:
“Applied psychology, M. Roux !"
“Right, chief !” agreed Tennant, while Roux ex-
| claimed that he would have a safe expert in at once.
CE“I shall have the safe opened. I shall prove that you
are wrong."
"You'll prove most likely that I am right-and
w that'll make you sorer than ever. But let's wait with
that till I have had a stab at the other witnesses."
“There is only one more.”
“Who?”
“A certain Guillaume Nordeg, a butcher who has
his shop on the corner of the Rue Férou.”
"Send for him.”
“Impossible. I took his deposition, and then allowed
him to go. He had some business this evening. His
testimony was straight and to the point.”
"Let's hear it if you don't mind."
"Nordeg said that at half-past five this afternoon
he saw a woman enter this house; that she looked like
Mlle. Angele Lantaigne, whom he has frequently seen
on the stage; and that he did not see her leave the house,
although he was seated in front of his shop, until after,
six."
“How did you happen to get a hold of this butcher,
this Guillaume Nordeg?”
“He came to us voluntarily."
“What do you mean by that?"


48
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
“He saw the police enter the house after Mme. Houl-
brecque had given the alarm. He stepped right over
and told me what he had seen.”
“Before he knew why the police were there? Before
he knew that murder had occurred, and that Mlle.
Lantaigne was suspected?”
“Why, yes; that's one of the main reasons why we
arrested mademoiselle! The butcher's testimony! Mon
Dieu!” as he saw Tennant raise his eyebrows quizzi-
cally. “Are you going to try and discard the butcher's
testimony, too?”
“Don't you yourself think it rather strange that this
butcher, ignorant of why the police had entered the
house, ignorant of the fact that murder had been com-
mitted, should come over of his free will and say that
he had seen Mlle. Lantaigne enter—and had not seen
her leave?”
And, when Roux did not reply, he continued:
“Don't think that I believe the butcher to be the
murderer. I am not such a fool. Neither is the
butcher. Only, take my advice, keep a close watch on
M. Nordeg, and—yes,” he added, after a short pause,
“take a good look at his passport. For I lay you odds
he comes from across the border; from Alsace, most
likely."
“Good Lord, he-he does !” stammered Roux, thor-
oughly mystified. “However did you guess?”
“Habit of mine. Very annoying habit. Ask the
chief,” said Tennant, pointing at Ducastel who was
grinning into his gray beard. “And now, please have .
somebody up who knows how to open a safe”; and while
the police captain was out of the room, Tennant turned
M. Nord Only, tak mot such as the butch


CLEWS
49
to Ducastel and asked him to have a look at the big
white blotter in front of the dead man.
“Some marks on it,” he said. “See if you can make
them out. You are said to be an expert at that sort
of reverse-English graphology."
“I used to be, my boy," the older man replied, flat-
tered; and he picked up the blotter, moistened it, held
it against the mirror, and read out the result a moment
later:
“My dear Lant,' then a few words missing. 'Un-
less by Saturday noon I receive'-another hiatus—the
gentleman with the limp will pay the penalty'—that's
all, Tennant. What do you make of it?" He put the
blotter back on the table.
“Don't know—yet. Aha," as the door opened, "here
is Captain Roux and our expert safe-cracker. What
-you, Doumay?” to the subagent who followed Roux
into the room. “Are you an expert?"
“Yes, M. Tennant,” replied the blushing Doumay.
“I used to be a cracksman before I became a detective,”
and he went to work, twirling the steel knob to right
and left, stopping, listening close to the click and drop
of the tumblers, making little notes, figuring, comput-
ing, finally swinging the safe-door open with a dra-
matic:
“Here you are, gentlemen !"
The others crowded around, and it was evident at
• once that Tennant's deductions had been right. The
safe had been opened, rifled, and closed again. It was
completely empty. There was nothing left except the
bit of paper which had caught in the slamming of the
door.
intjou, Doumour and wha,” as the


50
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
Roux picked it up and read it.
Then, suddenly, the expression of discomfiture on his
face changed into one of triumph.
“Monsieur- see for yourself, monsieur,” he cried,
giving the scrap of paper to Tennant. “Read what is
written there!”
Tennant read:
“ 'I love you with all my heart and all my soul,
Anatole !'”
And the signature was plain:
“Angele Lantaigne.”
“It is clear-clear!" exulted Xavier Roux. “She
asked Jarvet to return her love-letters to him because
your friend, Lord Menzies-Kerr, was paying court to
her. Jarvet refused. She killed him. She took the
letters—you know the old French quotation: 'Cherchez
la femme!'”
“Sure-look for the woman-fine and dandy advice
for a Frenchman,” replied Tennant. “But I am an
American.”
“And?”
“Well, I reckon I'm going to look for the man!"
Tennant drawled as he left the room.


CHAPTER IV
THE LETTER
He walked back rapidly up the Rue Férou.
Evening had died, with a gray, purple-nicked veil
pierced by the crimson lights reflected on innumerable
window panes and the dull, white lights of the street
lamps, and melting farther south into a drab cosmos
where the brown, moist haze from the Seine drifted up,
twisting and turning, to the call of the river wind.
Night had come as it comes in that part of Paris, with
the tinkling of tinny pianos, the acrid odor of potatoes
bobbing up and down in iron pots filled with rancid
mutton suet, the smell of black tobacco, or soft coal, of
stale wine, the tail-end of an obscene gutter song jerked
out challengingly:
“D'puis c'est moi le souteneur naturel de ma p'tiť
soeur-”
Night! On the other side of the Seine, the boule-
vards were greeting its advent with the popping of
champagne corks, light phrases, gayety, and the clap-
ping of white-gloved hands; while here, in the ancient,
tragic quarter that clustered around Saint-Sulpice, the
cordon of blue-coated policemen still faced the bottle-
like opening of the Rue Férou. Still, just beyond the
reach of a saber-point, groups of apaches were at their
grim death watch, staring down the street, trying to
51


52
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
catch a glimpse of the house where their beloved leader
and deputy, Anatole Jarvet, lay in his last sleep.
Talk ran free though it had changed from harsh
cries and wicked curses to a low, hushed undertone of
minatory mutterings. It passed from mouth to mouth.
It was taken up, spiced, sharpened, and flung back
again to the men in the street by frowzy women who
were hanging from the windows of neighboring houses,
dirty children at their bosoms, and always the refrain
was the same like the reply in some satanic litany:
"He was murdered by order of the government !
Down with the government !"
Tennant stopped for a moment. He listened close.
He wondered if he would hear that other cry again—
thin, slightly halting, jerked out by a single throat:
“Down with the army!”
And, smiling at the thought, he said to himself that
it would be a good thing for special investigators of
baffling crimes if a new Bertillon should discover a way
of registering and filing voices instead of finger-prints.
At the corner of the street he stopped once more.
He looked. There was a small shop-window lit up
by a single electric bulb and showing a meager assort-
ment of meat-andouilles and boudins and other culi-
nary specialties of the neighborhood—and above it a
gleaming sign:
GUILLAUME NORDEG.
CHARCUTIER
Nordeg! The Alsatian butcher who, without know-
ing the reason for the police visit, had introduced him-


THE LETTER
53
he
lah No us in and Police to shop, undecisou pa nouse
self to Capt. Xavier Roux and had testified that he
had seen Mlle. Lantaigne enter the Jarvet house!
"Clairvoyant son-of-a-gun, aren't you?” Tennant
smiled up at the sign, and stood undecided. There was
evidently nobody in the shop, and he wondered if he
should ask the police to force open the door, if he
should go in and investigate-find what he might find.
No use he thought the next moment-it would be
labor and effort wasted. Capt. Roux had told him
that the butcher had gone away on some business, and
he was quite sure that this unknown butcher was no
fool, quite sure that the man had left nothing incrim-
inating behind him. Perhaps the man had in fact pur-
posely left his shop to give the police a chance to enter
there during his absence, to find nothing.
But when Tennant turned to go he found his way
barred by a knot of gangsters who had come down the
Rue Palatine and to whom his immaculate clothes,
clean-shaven face, polished shoes, and general atmos-
phere of tub, soap, and brush was as a red rag to a bull.
They gathered about him.
"Ho, bourgeois!” growled one of them, lean, wizen,
underfed, undersized, vicious. “I say, down with the
government !”—and with a threatening purr: "What
dost thou say, mon bougre?”
Without hesitation Tennant returned the call.
“Down with the government-by all means!” he re-
plied, and when the others elaborated the slogan with
a deep-throated: “The government of assassins !” he
agreed to that too with a disarming American smile.
“Sure,” he said, “the government of assassins !"
But though he smiled, he felt in his heart the latent,
potential danger of the cry. For he knew Paris. He


54
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
knew how the streets and cafés and salons of Paris
snatch at a ball of rumor, how they gild and tinsel
and emboss it, how they fling it wide and catch it again.
Paris does not feed on sensations. But it needs and
uses sensations to spice its workaday food, to give tang
: to it, to whet the appetite. Standing as it does at the
very core of humanity, of civilization, of culture, of
history past, present, and future, embracing the sins
and virtues of all the world with its generous arms,
carrying on its tortured, stony shoulders the glory, the
faith, the sufferings, the infamies, the hopes, and the
promises of two thousand years, carrying it all bravely
but with a jest on its lips, Paris needs sensations, as
food needs salt.
But Tennant knew how such a sensation grows.
Grows like a snow-ball, from a tiny, white flake to a
sweeping avalanche, a Juggernaut of brutal, unreason-
ing force, killing, destroying, maiming, wrecking. Dy-
nasties had been ousted and revolutions had reddened
the land for less original cause than the Jarvet mys-
tery and Tennant knew, too, that Europe was a pow-
der-barrel. A match might flare-somewhere-over-
night—and then
“The assassins of the government!" growled the lean
apache. “Thy political principles are more sound than
thy aristocratic clothes, mon vieux!”_and Tennant,
who had the trick of talking about one thing and think-
ing of another, while engaging the apache in a slightly
joshing conversation, remembered the mysterious
words which Ducastel had pieced and read from Jar-
vet's blotting-paper.
“My dear Lant”-it had begun, and there was no
doubt in his mind that “Lant” stood for Lantaigne, the


THE LETTER
55
chief of the secret political police, the trusted agent
of the government; nor was there a doubt that the
rest of the mutilated message held a threat-a grave
threat against the “gentleman with the limp.”
And then he considered that Menzies-Kerr walked
with a limp; Menzies-Kerr who went on nightly visits
to this very part of Paris. He considered the friend-
ship between him and Angele Lantaigne. He consid-
ered how the news of the murder had startled him,
and-
He must see his friend at once. Doubtless he was at
this very moment with Lantaigne, telling him what had
happened to his daughter.
“A government of butchers!” he said out loud to
the rough, and then, pointing at the shop: “Speaking
about butchers, this is a new shop, isn't it?”
A random shot which happened to hit.
“Yes,” replied the gangster, “and a good butcher.
A sound citizen, this Guillaume Nordeg, a hater of
blood-sucking capitalists—"
“An enemy of the army!"
"To be sure !”
“Doing well in business?” casually went on Tennant.
“Not much money in the neighborhood. Still, our
butcher does not seem to have to live on dried snails
and stinking gray wine from the west. He has a jolly
little paunch, has our butcher, two jolly, twinkling blue
eyes; a jolly, rosy fatness of hand-and I doubt that
he gets all his income across the wooden counter. There
are ways and ways of making money in this part of
town with which Joan of Arc would have been decidedly
unfamiliar.”
“You mean-oh!" Tennant jerked a thumb at a


56
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
couple of girls dressed in tight black alpaca, garish, im-
probable flowers waving from huge hats, who just then
were entering a drinking-shop with a slow undulation
of hips and of arms held akimbo.
“Women? La traite des blanches? No, no! Our
butcher is of those extraordinary creatures called celi-
bates. But there are other ways around Saint-Sul-
pice.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that Nordeg and M. Jarvet"
“Shut up, you fool!” hoarsely whispered another
gangster into the ear of his loquacious friend, who shut
up at once. And with a wink and a parting curse
against the government, he swaggered up the street,
followed by his comrades, while Tennant turned south
toward the house of M. Lantaigne.
"Is Lord Menzies-Kerr here?” he asked of the elderly
servant who came to the door, sleepy, rubbing his eyes,
his feet in knitted bedroom slippers, his head crowned
with a mid-Victorian nightcap, spluttering candle held
high, after he had rung several times.
“No. Milord is not here.”
“When did he leave?"
“He has not been here all evening.”
“He has not?” Tennant was utterly amazed. He
had been quite sure that the Scotchman had gone to
consult with the girl's father as soon as he had heard
that Angele had been arrested for murder. It would
'have been the natural, logical thing to do.
“And M. Lantaigne?" he went on. “Does he know?”
“What, monsieur?”
“But about his daughter, man!"


THE LETTER
57
The old servant nearly dropped the candle-stick.
“What—what has happened?” he asked in a flat,
dazed voice.
“You mean to say you don't know?”
“Ye-yes” He clutched Tennant by the arm. “Is
she wounded? Is she dead? Oh, Sainte Vierge!” His
voice rose in a shrill, cracked sob; then he called up
the long, dark landing: “Monsieur! M. Lantaigne !"
and, following a slamming of doors, a cough, a hurried
footstep, Lantaigne himself rushed out on the corridor.
“Yes. Yes. What is it?"
He recognized Tennant, whom he had met once or
twice before. He was an old man with a shrewd, rather
waspish face whose sharpness was still more emphasized
by the bushy eyebrows and the supercilious up-sweep
of an immense, snowy-white mustache. He was dressed
in the costume in which the Paris cartoonists loved to
picture him: the flat Basque cap with the silken tassel
roguishly over the left ear, a suit of velveteens of an
indescribable yellowish brown, with short, tight jacket
and voluminous, Zouavelike trousers; a costume which
made him look more like an elderly slapstick comedian
than like the chief of the secret political police, and
which was strangely in contrast with his shrewdness,
his marvelous insight, his superb pluck and immense
political influence.
“What is the matter, M. Tennant?” he asked. “All
right," as the American pointed at the half-open door
of the library, "let's go in there. And now," as he
closed the door and waved his visitor into a seat, “what
is it?"
“You—you really do not know?”


58
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
“No, no, no! I do not know. Go ahead and say
what you came to say. Enfin—it is late--and I am
very tired.”
And then Tennant blurted out, leaning forward, grip-
ping the arm-rests of his chair:
"Your daughter has been arrested; late this after-
noon!”
“Arrested?” Lantaigne dropped the match with
which he was about to light his cigarette. “Angelem
my little Angele? And for what, pray?"
“For murder !” replied the American, and he told
the other exactly what had happened. He was sur-
prised and, too, a little shocked when Lantaigne burst
into loud laughter instead of giving way to sorrow or
indignation.
“Those silly fools!” he cried. “Oh, those silly fools!
They have less use for brains than a professional athe-
ist has for a chapter out of the Book of Ecclesiastes !
By all the curly-tailed guinea-pigs, what monumental
fools !"
“Who?” Tennant was becoming exasperated.
“The gentlemen of the metropolitan police! The
blue-coated, brass-gallooned popinjays of the Palais
de Justice! The human fungi of the gendarmerie!
They, they”-again he broke into harsh, ungracious
laughter—"do they think they can play a trick on
me; on me because I have the ear of the government,
because I am not affected by the inane regulations of
the municipality? Nom d'une pipe! I shall”
Then, seeing the look of amazement on Tennant's
face, he cut short his flood of verbosity and said very
quietly:
“Monsieur, you are a brilliant detective. Your de-


THE LETTER
59
ductions were correct. My daughter is as innocent
of murder as-ah-as a little fluffy, white rabbit is
of eating raw meat!"
“I knot that,” came the dry reply, “but the police
refuse to believe me. Captain Roux-"
"Captain Roux is an ass who should be spanked.
Suppose they do refuse to believe you, monsieur-nor
your Scotch friend.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just this. You said that the murder is supposed
to have occurred about six in the evening?"
“Yes."
"You said, furthermore, that Jarvet's housekeeper
saw the silhouette of a visitor in her master's library
about ten minutes before six.” Receiving an affirma-
tive reply, he continued: “The police of course connect
the visitor with the murder?”
the visit be sure.” friend, Wetween five to my dauge
“Eh bien, my friend, what would you say if I told
you that this afternoon, between five and six, I was sip-
ping a grenadine in the company of my daughter and
Lord Menzies-Kerr at the Café des Reines ?”
“You mean the café at,"
“At the corner of the Rue Férou—just a few doors
away from the Jarvet house. True! And a most
conspicuous circumstance-made yet more suspicious
when I tell you that my daughter was not with us all
the time.”
“But-the alibi"
“Is perfect just the same, my dear Tennant. An-
gele left our table at half-past five"
“The time when the butcher said he saw her enter the
Jarvet house!"


60
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
“Yes. But she returned to our table ten minutes
later, and Jarvet's housekeeper saw the silhouette of
the mysterious visitor at ten minutes to six. There
is thus a hiatus of ten minutes, monsieur! And these
ten minutes spell my daughter's innocence, and” he
rose and walked over to the desk telephone_"her im-
mediate release from the clutches of these amorphous
and ill-bred hyenas of the criminal police-curse them
for a pack of simpering, cross-eyed, bristly-haired
idiots!"
He took the receiver from the hook, gave several
frantic “Ello-ello-ello's,” and asked central to be con-
nected immediately with the headquarters of the crim-
inal police.
“You, there,” he said a moment later in a low,
threatening rumble, “I wish to speak to Captain Roux.
Yes! Who am I? I am Lantaigneah!” And shortly
afterward Tennant was treated to the most explosive
and vituperative French he had ever heard in all his
life, Lantaigne finally slamming back the receiver, turn-
ing and announcing triumphantly: “The little matter
is settled. My daughter will be released at once. Roux
is apologizing-he is on his knees, at the other end of
the wire, of course-imploring forgiveness, and
What is the matter, M. Tennant?” he asked suddenly,
seeing the strange, tense expression in the other's steely
eyes.
Tennant did not speak. There was a deep silence
broken only by the ticking of the clock from the ormolu
mantelpiece.
“M. Lantaigne,” the American asked finally, “you
said that Lord Menzies-Kerr was with you this after-
noon at the Café des Reines ?”


THE LETTER
61
Dut?"
. “Yes”—puzzled.
“Was he with you all the time? Did he leave the
table at all between five and six, either before or after
your daughter?”
Lantaigne did not reply for a few seconds; then he
walked up to Tennant and looked at him straight.
“Monsieur,” he said, “I like you personally. But our
paths of life and endeavor lie in different directions.
I am of the political police, while you are a private
detective. A great private detective, I know," he said
with a generous gesture, "one of the greatest. But,"
“But?"
“We of the political police play with the destinies
of nations, while you gentlemen of the detective agencies
play with the destinies of individuals."
“The lines cross at times,” came Tennant's hard an-
swer; but when the other did not reply, only shrug-
ging his expressive shoulders, he bowed and walked to
the door.
"I get you,” he said brusquely, as he left the room,
but on his way back to his apartment he said to him-
self that he had not really "got” Lantaigne; had only
understood that for some reason the man was unwill-
ing to speak about Menzies-Kerr.
But why? What was the peculiar connection be-
tween Lantaigne and Menzies-Kerr-and the murdered
Jarvet—and the butcher who did not make his living
by selling sausages? There was some connection, he
had no doubt of it. And so, wondering, probing, he
walked back toward the Place Fontenoy, turning up the
collar of his ulster against the driving sleet that cut
through the night like a vibrating screen of swift, gray,
horizontal lines.


62
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
“Lord Menzies-Kerr come back?” he asked George
W. Brown, his faithful darky servant who was greet-
ing him with a toothy smile, with slippers carefully
warmed, a pipe cleaned and filled, and a glass of Ken-
tucky's best, heated and spiced.
“No, suh,” he replied. “He left shortly after you
did; a few minutes befo’ seven, I reckon."
“H-m. By the way, George, do you recollect what
time Lord Menzies-Kerr came home this afternoon?”
“Yes, suh. About twenty minutes after six. You
came back a few minutes after he did.”
“That's so. And I talked to him for about ten
or fifteen minutes, and then Doumay came with the
news of the murder. I do wonder where Menzies-Kerr
was at six!” he mused, speaking to himself.
“I beg yo'pa'don, suh?”
“That's all right, George. Go to bed."
“Good night, suh.”
“Good night," and Tennant walked into the library.
The books there belonged mostly to his friend. He
himself had little leisure to read, and an American
magazine bought at a ruinous price at Neale's book-
and-tea shop, or a yellow-backed French novel was all
the mental food he could stand after the day's grind.
But the Scotchman was different. He had a great
collection of books, and Tennant, considering sud-
denly that during the seventeen years' separation his
old friend had really become a stranger to him, con-
sidering, too, that the surest clew to a man's character
is an intimate look at the sort of literature he pre-
fers, turned to the center table where a mass of books
was piled up in disorder, just as Menzies-Kerr had left
them.


THE LETTER
63
63
He looked, and what he found was interesting, and
puzzling.
For cheek by jowl with heavy tomes on the ethnology
and topography of French Indo-China—the exotic land
where the Scotchman had taken his last flier after the
picturesque and adventurous—was an official report of
the governor of the French convict settlement of New
Caledonia. There were some volumes on military tac-
tics, an Italian cyclopedia dealing with political eco-
nomics, and then a mass of German books; some
memoirs of great German statesmen, others bound vol-
umes of the Preussische Jahrbücher, others again viru-
lent, bombastic, jingoistic pamphlets and brochures of
the Pan-German party and the German Navy League.
A crazy mixture of reading matter, thought Ten-
nant. But they were all well thumbed, their margins
covered with notes in a fine, cramped handwriting.
They had been read and reread.
He opened one of the German books at random. A
letter fell out and before he realized what he was do- .
ing his eyes had seen and read, his brain had caught**
and registered.
Just a few lines. And they were like lines of fire: .
And so, my dear Menzies-Kerr, you will see that Anatole Jarvet
has sworn revenge against the man with the limp unless-
Tennant rose, excited, ashamed.
“Good Lord,” he whispered. “I didn't mean it; I
didn't intend—”
But it was done. There was no receding now. He
had read and, though he tried to forget what he had
read, his brain refused to give it up.
He held the letter at arm's length, afraid even to


64
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
look at the outside. The words he had read seemed to
correspond, somehow, to the cryptic, broken message
which Ducastel had read from Jarvet's blotting-paper.
By reading the letter through he would be able to
solve the whole mystery.
His mind was in a whirl. The struggle was great.
Menzies-Kerr was his friend. On the other hand, he
was a detective, sworn to do his duty. From the posi-
tion in which he found himself there was no issue with-
out loss of honor-and he was a South Carolinian.
He knew that as long as that letter was under his
eyes—no!-as long as it was in this apartment, as
long as it was in existence, the temptation would be
there, the detective side of his brain and character
would urge him on to read, to find out, to solve !
And-
Yes! One course lay open. He acted on it at once.
He lit a match and held the letter to the crimson flame.
A moment later it had burned to a flaky heap of ash.
And immediately afterward Tennant cursed himself
for a maudlin fool.
“Lord, I should have read to the end !” he said, look-
ing down at the gray ashes.


CHAPTER V
THE BLUE ULSTER
MORNHeine with a Aures
MORNING came with a cold wintry blast that dropped
on the Seine with a thin coating of ice, whirled down
the boulevards in a flurry of frozen dew, and clad the
tracery of the elm trees that border the Place Fon-
tenoy with a romantic vestment of hoarfrost.
It came with coffee and hominy and sausage and
buckwheat cakes prepared by George W. Brown's
plum-colored paws-a daily shock and grievance to
the fat Burgundian cook who presided over the culi-
nary destinies of the apartment shared by Tennant
and Lord Menzies-Kerr. It came with a bundle of
newspapers, of which Tennant read a number of dif- .
ferent political persuasions so as to keep in contact
with "the business, the society, and the crimes of Paris,"
as he expressed it.
Every one of them, from the aristocratic Gaulois
beloved by the Faubourg Saint Germain to the Petit
Parisien beloved by janitor and workman, head-lined
the Jarvet murder, the arrest of Mlle. Angele Lan-
taigne, and—very last news, slipped in after a vio-
lent wrangle between the night editors and the fore-
man of the printing rooms—her subsequent release,
thanks to the alibi provided by her father, the chief
of the secret political police.
65


66
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
One or two of the more serious papers devoted short
editorials to speculating about the political conse-
quences of Jarvet's sudden death, reminding their read-
ers that the day before the murder Anatole Jarvet had
been reëlected to the House of Deputies; that he was
the most dangerous enemy of the Republican Party
in the saddle, the leader of the Internationalists, and
that without him—"a man as ruthless as Aristogeiton,
as coldly logical as Herbert Spencer, as energetic as
Pope Sixtus the Fifth, as shrewd as Jacques Cujas, as
impassioned as Demosthenes, as scholastic as Descartes,
and as foully venal as Judas Iscariot,” as the Temps
put it in a riot of hyperbole—the International Party
would be thrown into chaos.
A frivolous boulevard sheet, mostly devoted to frocks
and frills, suggested that, while the murder had really
happened, the arrest of Mlle. Angele Lantaigne, the
popular ingénue of the Théâtre Alexandre, was a
Machiavellian press-agent's trick. But most of the
morning papers simply reported and treated the mur-
der as a sensational mystery.
Breakfast over, Tennant devoted his early morning's
clear-headedness to vain attempts at a solution of the
crime. He had certain well-defined ideas as to the
motive behind it-too, as to some of the forces which
had been at work. What bothered him was the con-
nection between the late Jarvet, Lantaigne, and
Menzies-Kerr-"the gentleman with the limp.” For by
that last appellation nobody could be meant except the
latter, and it was proved not only by Menzies-Kerr's
strange behavior at the time when Subagent Doumay
had come with news of the murder, but also by the
letter which had dropped from between the pages of
th'the limnt excepterras


THE BLUE ULSTER
67
the German book and a few lines of which he had read
the Gerut meaning, not returned whatever
to appcontents, his omnt
Menzies-Kerr had not returned from the evening be-
fore, but the American banished whatever anxiety he
felt by telling himself that the Scotchman, after all,
was eccentric and erratic, and that this was not the
first time he had spent whole days and nights away
from home.
He had never vouchsafed any explanations for his
absences in the past-beyond saying, with a grim
laugh, that it was not a woman who had kept him
away-and Tennant doubted if he would in the present
case; and the incriminating letter destroyed, his own
lips automatically sealed as to its contents, he won-
dered how he would be able to approach his friend
and ask him straight out what was the matter-what
he had had to do with the murdered Jarvet and with
Lantaigne.
Too, it would be hard to cross-examine the other in
an indirect manner, for he knew that Menzies-Kerr was
cursed with Celtic supersensitiveness and was quick
at smelling insults_imagined ones as often as not.
He put on his ulster and called the darky.
"I'm off," he said. "If Lord Menzies-Kerr comes
back, ask him to look me up at the office, George."
As an after-thought, thinking that he would trust to
circumstances and the moment's inspiration to put the
question to his friend in the right manner, he added:
“Tell him it's very urgent.”
“Yes, suh.”
Fifteen minutes later Tennant's roadster was buzz-
ing and slipping across the bridge and up into the gray,
stolid, burgess respectability of the streets in back


68
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
of the Rue Rougemont, where the great Agence Du-
castel showed its modest little brass plate to the pass-
ing throng, surrounded by wholesale houses, the Paris
purchasing agencies of English and American depart-
ment stores, and a few boarding-houses catering to
the trade of clerks and the students of the nearby
Conservatory of Music.
He exchanged greetings with the stenographers and
subagents in the outer offices.
“Doumay in?” he asked.
“No. He sent word. He remained on watch all
last night at the Jarvet house-until six o'clock this
morning.”
“Guess he's making up for lost sleep, now,” said
Tennant, and went to his private office in the rear,
which was protected by a double layer of steel walls
and doors though only a thin board partition sepa-
rated it from that of M. Ducastel.
He had a mass of routine work to go through, and
it was nearly noon when he heard Henri Ducastel
open the door of his holiest of holies, where he sat
enthroned amid a splendor of Cordova wall-hangings,
carved mahogany, steel filing-cabinets, Turkey car-
pets, and framed autographed pictures of prominent
men and women, some of them crowned heads, whom
he had helped out of misfortunes and scrapes during
the fifty years of his eventful career--where he sat by
the hour, engaged in melancholy contemplation of the
past; where, when the mood took him, he gave of the
marvelous store of his former experiences in the crim-
inal annals of the world; and where at times, quite
suddenly, he would turn his canny old brain on
a project, an intrigue, a mystery, and solve it in the


THE BLUE ULSTER
69
twinkling of an eye-to Tennant's professional,
unenvying joy.
He heard Ducastel cough, then hum, then sing to
himself snatches of a song which had been popular
during the days of the third empire and Cora Pearl,
and, familiar with the old gentleman's habits, he was
not surprised when a moment later he saw him at the
door, a broad grin on his face, a twinkle in his eyes,
his thumbs in the arm holes of his white, brocaded
waistcoat.
“Why this expression of ghoulish delight, chief ?”
he greeted him.
Ducastel smiled more than ever.
“Bien!” he said. “You can tell by my face? More
-ah-applied psychology?” he added mockingly.
"No," came the dry, logical answer. "Physiology
—this time. Take a good look at your face, chief.
There's a mirror over there."
Ducastel did as he was told.
: “You are right,” he said. “My forehead, my nos-
trils, my lips, the sweep of my mustache express a
feeling of delight-of triumph, if you wish—and the
reason "
“I suppose you got the best of me in something?"
“Right, mon sympatique Américain!” exclaimed
Ducastel, sitting down across from the other. "You
remember, doubtless, your splendid psychological
deductions which proved the lamblike innocence of
little Angele Lantaigne?”
"You bet-and my deductions were borne out by the
alibi supplied by her father.”
“Yes—and yet—Tennant, I have it! I, the hoary
old man, the weak, defenseless old man whom you


70
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
youngsters use asmenfin—as a machine to pay your
preposterous salaries—I have put it over you, the
youngest, sharpest, brightest, most celebrated detec-
tive from across the Atlantic! Vive la France! I did
not believe Mlle. Lantaigne innocent last night, though
you endeavored to ram your mad psychological deduc-
tions down my throat in that brutal cowboy manner
of yours”-anything American was characterized as
“cowboy" by M. Ducastel—“and, by the fifteen
thousand pale-blue guinea-pigs !—I was right. And
you-mon pauvre petit,” he snapped his fingers with
a gesture of pitying contempt.
“You see,” he continued, “you will remember that
the day before yesterday Anatole Jarvet was re-
elected, and that yesterday morning the President of
the Republic called the House of Deputies to an extra
session—a secret session—to discuss most important
national affairs."
“Yes—increase of the standing army-supposed to
be, wasn't it? Bigger military budget, aeroplanes,
strengthening of the Paris fortifications"
“Yes, yes. Well, this morning I was sipping my
glass of coffee-au-kirsch at the Café de Naples, when,
at the next table, I see some members of the Inter-
nationalist, Jarvet's party–Lamotte, Palmier, Brouin,
and some others. We converse; and then Steynard
comes in and joins us. Raoul Steynard, you know,
the editor of the Etoile."
"I know. Filthy anarchist sheet; and Raoul Stey-
nard is the biggest blackguard who ever came out of
Alsace and said farewell to the German eagle to make
his fortune in long-suffering Paris.”
“Possibly so. But the Etoile is the party organ of


THE BLUE ULSTER
171
his that tells me in that Jarvet. Well, the chum
the Internationalists, and Steynard was the close chum
and associate of the late M. Jarvet. Well, this same
Steynard tells me in that wretched Alsatian accent of
his that for to-day—the day following the murder of
Jarvet-the latter had been expected by his party to
deliver a speech in the House of Deputies which would
have blown the government sky-high, and”—Ducastel's
voice rose and he gesticulated violently-"the govern-
ment knew it, my boy! Lantaigne had warned the
government !"
"How did he know?”
“Ask him; and he won't tell you. It's his business.
He is the head of the secret political police. At all
events, he knew, and"
“Well?”
“Jarvet is assassinated! A danger to the state is
providentially removed!”
“Proving what, according to your opinion?”
“According to my opinion?” snorted the older man
in disgust. “According to the opinion of every think-
ing man except obstinate Americans! It proves that
Angele Lantaigne murdered Jarvet with her father's
full knowledge. Perhaps he supervised the crime him-
self. You yourself told me that he was at the Café
des Reines, three doors from the Jarvet house, at the
time of the murder !”.
“Coincidence," suggested Tennant, and the other
picked up the word like a battle gauge.
“Coincidence is the argument of poor theologians;
and of fools!" .
“Not always, M. Ducastel. Yesterday I was told
that Mlle. Lantaigne murdered Jarvet to get possession
of some letters she had written to him, and now I hear
Angele bledge.
jf told


72
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
that she killed him so as to eliminate a danger to the
republic. A little slip there somewhere, isn't it?”
“Not a bit of it. She is emotional, high-strung,
romantic. Jarvet had loved her, and deceived her.
She meets Menzies-Kerr, falls in love with him, is afraid
that Jarvet-for he has done the same thing in the
past—will blackmail her with the help of her indis-
creet letters. She asks for their return. He refuses.
She decides to kill him. All right. Somehow, her
father learns of her intention. Does he dissuade her?
No! He encourages her. He helps her. He knows
that, by removing her former lover, she will also
remove an enemy of the republic!"
Tennant did not reply. He stared moodily in front
of him. What Ducastel said seemed to dovetail; and
even suppose he was wrong in so far that it was not
she who had done the actual killing, but that
He was afraid to complete the thought. But he
could not forget the cryptic letter marked on Jarvet's
blotter, nor Lantaigne's strange refusal to tell him if
Menzies-Kerr had been with him every minute of the
time between five and six—the afternoon of the murder.
But the next moment he remembered some other
things—and they gave him back his good humor and
his confidence. He could not be mistaken. Of course
there were some missing links in the chain of events
as he had thought them out, but fundamentally he
was right. He was convinced of it; and presently he
would solve the whole wretched mystery.
He turned to Ducastel, who was quietly smiling to
himself, pleased with the thought that his old brains
were still in working order, and that, for once, he had
got the better of his young American investigator.
had ba six-the Temeng good hoof co


THE BLUE ULSTER
73
“Chief !” he said.
Ducastel looked up, suspicious. He knew that tone
as a cavalry mount knows the battle trumpet.
“Well?” he asked rather meekly.
“Your reasoning is bully. It dovetails. But you
are overlooking a lot of negative testimony. For what
about the apache who cried ‘Down with the army'?”
And, though Ducastel with a burst of rage declared
that he was sick of these mysterious allusions that
meant nothing and led nowhere, Tennant continued
calmly:
“What about the strange, symmetrical pattern of
scratches on the table, on Jarvet's palms, and on the
safe? What about the butcher-who came over to
testify against Mlle. Lantaigne before he could possibly
have known that Jarvet had been murdered? And
the letter on the blotter.”
Suddenly he paused.
«« The gentleman with the limp,'” he said, as if to
himself; and then, rising: “I guess I'll take another
look at that blotter,” and he left the room.
But when he arrived at the house in the Rue Férou
and walked into the library, he found to his surprise
that the blotter was not there. He wondered if the
headquarters detectives might have removed it, and,
seeing Doumay just then coming up the stairs, he
asked him what had happened to it.
Doumay laughed.
“But, monsieur!” he exclaimed. “You took it your-
self last night when I was on watch.”
“I took it?"
Again Doumay laughed.
“You are overworked, monsieur. Your memory is


74
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
playing you tricks. Don't you remember that you
came here late last night-after midnight. You wore
your heavy American ulster; not the one you are
wearing now, but the other one, the dark-blue one.
And don't you remember that you had hurt your foot;
that you walked with a limp; and that you would
hardly talk to me. Said you had a bad cough?”
“Of course, of course!” replied Tennant, and, send-
ing Doumay on a rapidly improvised errand, he tele-
phoned to his apartment.
“Yes, suh?” came George's voice across the wire a
moment later.
“Has Lord Menzies-Kerr returned?”
“Yes, suh."
“You gave him my message?”
“Yes. But he said as he wasn't gwine roun’ to your
office, suh; didn't have the time.”
“That so? By the way, did Lord Menzies-Kerr
wear his fur coat?”
“No, suh; he's wearing your blue ulster, suh."
“All right. Thanks," and Tennant rang off with
a smothered curse.
The early afternoon editions took up the tale of the
Jarvet murder where the morning papers had left it.
As yet not one of them breathed a word about the
fact that the death of the deputy had come at a most
opportune moment for the government.
But the French press is even less afraid of contempt
of court and of influencing public opinion before the
trial than the American, and Tennant was less sur-
prised than disgusted when the Intransigeant, yellowest
of yellow sheets, took it upon its editorial conscience
to investigate, riddle, and destroy the alibi through
e Americahen the Inter editorialibi throu


THE BLUE ULSTER
75
which the chief of the secret political police had caused
his daughter's release.
It appeared that one of their brilliant young
reporters had discovered that the Café des Reines had
been empty of other visitors at the time when M.
Lantaigne claimed that he had been there in the com-
pany of Angele and Lord Allistair Menzies-Kerr, and
that neither Mme. la Patronne, behind the cash regis-
ter, nor the solitary waiter, could remember at what
time Angele had left the table, nor when she had
returned.
“Thus,” continued the article, “the alibi of Mlle.
Angele Lantaigne stands and falls by the testimony
of two gentlemen, both of whom are directly interested
in her fate. Her father, and her lover, Lord Menzies-
Kerr! Of course the latter, when interviewed shortly
before twelve just as he was about to leave the apart-
ment which he shares with M. James Tennant, the
celebrated American detective, by our intrepid reporter,
objected strenuously to having his name mentioned in
connection with that of Mlle. Lantaigne and, with
characteristic Anglo-Saxon brutality, proposed to
throw our reporter out of the window and to chop his
body into small pieces of flesh which a self-respecting
ostrich would refuse to swallow if ever again he should
dare show his face in milord's apartment.
“Milord !” wound up the editorial in a direct appeal,
“it is not by such arguments—the arguments of a
hairy and uncouth troglodyte who has chilblains in the
place which nature provided for his gray matter
that you will be able to establish the innocence of the
woman you love !"
Even the more decent of the papers said sub rosa
in her fate.tlemen, both of and falls by alibi of Mlle.


76
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
that they considered Angele guilty in spite of her
father's alibi, though they sugared the pill in a typi-
cally French manner by suggesting that she had doubt-
less been justified and should promptly be acquitted.
For was she not twenty-one? Was she not as fair as
wheat and as blue-eyed as a cloudless summer sky?
Was she not a charming girl and a great actress?
On the other hand, had not the late M. Anatole Jarvet
been a hyena in human form who--to quote the Petit
Canard Quotidien-had “fattened his obese and nasty
body by feeding on the reputations of the women whom
first he had loved, then abandoned, and finally black-
mailed?”
But the real sensation boomed along when the
aperitif hour emptied the offices and counting-houses
and filled the boulevard cafés with men eager for vari-
ous-colored drinks to sluice the office dust from their
throats, more eager for spiced talk to clear the cob-
webs of ledger and catalogue from the corners of their
vivacious Gallic minds.
It was then that for the first time the whisper ran
from mouth to mouth-from costumer to Mme. la
Patronne, from her to aproned, hustling waiter, and
back again to the latest silk-hatted arrival—that per-
haps the government knew more about the Jarvet affair
than appeared on the surface-talk peppered with
hushed allusions to former political mysteries, with
such names as Dreyfus, Esterhazy, Béranger, Dérou-
lède, and Félix Faure.
And it was then that Tennant, walking down the
Boulevard des Italiens in search of Menzies-Kerr, who
usually strolled as far as the Madeleine as a before-
dinner constitutional, realized that the snowball of


THE BLUE ULSTER
77
gossip and rumor and scandal was about to assume
threatening proportions.
He had no doubt that, if he wanted to, he would
be able to trace the beginning of the rumor to the
office of the Etoile, the organ of the Internationalists,
edited by Jarvet's friend, Raoul Steynard. He saw
him, a short, squat, hook-nosed, black-bearded man, at
the entrance to the Café Riche, surrounded by a group
of admirers. The man was talking and gesticulating
violently, and Tennant caught a few words; just what
he had expected to hear:
“The government, they did it, my friends”
He walked on, looking to right and left for his
friend. Steadily the crowds were becoming thicker.
Steadily the undercurrent of rumor and gossip grew
and bloated; and when a stream of ragged newspaper
boys careened into the boulevards from a side street,
crying their wares, it was like oil on flames.
La Patir wares, ike boulevard of ragg
“La Presse!”
“Scandal in the House of Deputies!”
“Deputy accuses the government of murder!”
“Lantaigne implicated!”
An excited crowd was asking and answering ques-
tions. Papers were snatched, read, commented upon.
“What is it?"
“It appears that the government gave orders to have
Jarvet assassinated!”
“Lantaigne turned the trick!"
“Shame! This is worthy of Russia !”
“Ah-our little republican czars!"
Tennant smiled grimly. Here was the echo of the
cries which he had heard the evening before near Saint


178
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
Sulpice. Already it had swept across the bridges;
already it was whirling down the great boulevards.
Another hour and it would drift into the salons of
the Faubourg where politics were made, into the
embassies of the foreign powers, the offices of foreign
newspaper correspondents to be flashed around the
globe. Evidently something very grave had happened
in the House of Deputies to give substance to it.
He bought a paper, and read that a deputy of the
Internationalist Party had halted the secret delibera-
tions of the house by accusing the government point-
blank of having ordered the assassination of Jarvet-
and he had added that M. Lantaigne had been the
instrument of the government.
The minister of the interior had denied the charge
indignantly, had declared his supreme faith in the chief
of the secret political police, and had demanded a vote
of confidence; and the result of the vote, though favor-
able to the administration, had been obtained by a
dangerously close margin.
Tennant felt curiously ill at ease. Nor was it
because of his friend, Lord Menzies-Kerr. He knew
that, whatever the latter's connection with the whole
affair, and though it might cause him a lot of trouble
and ugly suspicion, his motives would finally be proved
to have been entirely honorable, though perhaps
quixotic. Menzies-Kerr would be cleared in the end.
Tennant knew it, not because his friendship for the
man forced his brain to believe as his heart would like
him to, but because his sixth sense--his detective sense
-told him so.
What disturbed him was the thought that France
-which he loved next only to his native America-..
ind the secrete and the nation, h


THE BLUE ULSTER
79
was about to stew some ghastly mess in her political
caldron, was on the eve of one of her usual internal
turmoils, at the same moment that the rest of Europe,
not to speak of the rest of the world, was trembling
on the brink of a volcano; a volcano that had belched
out evil odors during the Dreyfus trial, that had
rumbled threateningly during the Algeciras convention,
that had shown its fiery head two years earlier when
Germany-speaking suavely about the Russian danger
on her eastern marshes-had suddenly increased her
military establishment by twenty divisions of horse,
foot, and guns.
France had read the sign—a little late, naturally,
being a democracy with a thousand heads--and finally
the government had called the house to a secret session
to debate on how to strengthen the steel walls which
protected French civilization from German kultur.
And, at that very moment, came the Jarvet murder;
came one of France's chronic political nerve fits. The
boulevards enjoyed it; so did the newspapers, the
salons, the foyers of hotel and theater, and the people
of France knew that it was nothing but a storm in a
tea-pot. But what about the iron-fisted hordes across
the Rhine, those hordes, thinking and acting to the
will of a handful of men? They were not such experts
at national psychology as he, James Oliver Tennant,
was at individual. They might misread the signs, and
then
Decidedly he must get to the bottom of the affair, --
and so he returned to the Rue Férou. Excitement
there had died down somewhat, and the cordon of po-
licemen at the opening of the street had been thinned
to half a platoon. In passing, Tennant noticed that


80
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
the butcher-shop of Guillaume Nordeg had its blinds
down.
“Nordeg come back?” he asked a bluecoat.
“Yes, and left again.”
“All right. Look out for him, and slip me the word
as soon as you see him.”
The Jarvet house was empty but for Mme. Anne
Houlbrecque, the deaf old housekeeper who had re-
ceived permission to stay until further orders, Captain
Xavier Roux, and Subagent Doumay.
“Anybody been here to-day?” he asked the police
captain whom he met in the lower hall.
“Only M. Raoul Steynard."
“The editor of the Etoile?”
“The same, monsieur.”
“What did he want?” asked Tennant, rather sur-
prised.
“Certain documents. Certain very important docu-
ments which belong to him and which he had left in
M. Jarvet's hands a few days back.”
“And he had to have them in a hurry, I suppose?”
"Exactly.”
Tennant grinned.
“Good Lord,” he said, “Steynard might have thought
of something more original. That trick is so old it's
got whiskers. I don't suppose you fell for it, Roux,
did you?” he asked casually.
“What do you mean, monsieur?”
Tennant looked up sharply.
“I mean you weren't enough of a damned fool to
let him in; to allow him to look for those important
documents and carry them off?”
"Of course I let him in !" came the belligerent reply.


THE BLUE ULSTER
81
fron, you've got-pockets!he moment, pleome from upni
“Of course I allowed him to take his own property!
Why shouldn't I?”
Tennant gave a low exclamation of rage. He took
the other by the shoulders and shook him.
“What?" he cried. “You let him into the house?
You mean to say you let Raoul Steynard in? Stey-
nard; Jarvet's old side-kick? You allowed him to
search the premises, you infernal, muddle-brained idiot?
You let him take away-papers?” He brought out
the last word as if it choked him.
"I could not say 'no?!" the police captain defended
himself. “Steynard is the editor of the Etoile. He is
an important member of the Internationalist Party."
“But that's just why you should have kept him away
from here; why you should have stalled him! Lord,
man, you've got as much use for common sense as a
hog has for hip-pockets! You, you,"
"Monsieur Tennant! One moment, please!”
It was Doumay speaking. He had come from up-
stairs, and pulled the American into the little salon
which opened on the garden.
"I– he began, but at once Tennant whirled on
him.
“And you?” he said. “Why did you let Roux make
such a blunder? Couldn't you phone me or Ducastel?
What have you got to say for yourself?”
Doumay smiled.
“Monsieur Tennant," he said, “shortly after you
came from America and entered the Agence Ducastel,
you were kind enough to tell me it is a good idea in
criminal cases to give a man all the rope he wants-
if you can get a hold of the rope afterward. Do you
remember?!?


82
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
“Yes; something of the sort,” Tennant said, puzzled,
“What's that got to do with Steynard?”
“You remember also that before I became a private
detective, I was"
“A cracksman, I believe.”
“Yes. But not always. One does not become a
cracksman in a day nor a week nor a year. One starts
lower down. I”-he smiled reminiscently—“I went
through the whole gamut of crimes, enfin! When I
was very small I was an expert pickpocket-the best
in Paris,” he added with a peculiar mixture of pride
and shame.
“And—” impatiently from Tennant.
“I allowed M. Raoul Steynard to search the prem-
ises. He searched and searched and searched. The
library, the down-stairs salon, the dining-room-every-
where. It was warm in the house and he took off his
overcoat and searched some more. I did not watch
him. I did not want him to suspect. But afterward,
when he returned to the hall where he had left his
coat, after he had found what he was after, I-being a
Frenchman and of manners most exquisite--I helped
him on with his coat, and—” .
“I get you !” broke in Tennant, with a ringing laugh.
“You went through his pockets while you did the polite
act. Doumay, my boy, if I were a Frenchman I would
plant a smack on your noble forehead. Being an
American I'll content myself with telling you that you
are all to the mustard. And now, hand over what you
swiped from friend Steynard !”
"Here, monsieur," and the subagent gave Tennant a
small package wrapped in oil paper.
Tennant opened it, spread it out, smoothed the


THE BLUE ULSTER
83
creases, and looked. At first he was disappointed, for
the "important document” of M. Steynard was nothing
but a printed small-scale map of the Far-Eastern
French colony of Indo-China.
Looking at it more closely, he noticed that certain
portions of the map had been underlined in red ink,
and all in the southern part of the colony, Cambodia
and Cochin-China. Then he saw that double red lines
marked certain rivers, such as the lower Mekong, the
Prek Té, and the Vaico; while a number of towns, for
instance Kampot, Camau, and Bac Lieu, were accentu-
ated by small red crosses. Finally he noticed that a
fine network of red lines ran from the southwest, near
Kampsala, toward the northeast, in the direction of the
province of Annam.
“What do you make of it?” he asked Doumay. “I
mean what do you make of it taken in connection with
the fact that very evidently Steynard considered this
map most important?”
I don't know,” mused the other. “Of course Jar-
vet was the head of the Internationalist Party, and
Steynard was his chum and associate, and all the world
knows that the Internationalists are opposed to col-
onies, to imperialism. Monsieur,” he went on, “there
have been rumors before this that some of the native
rebellions out there were financed right here, in Paris,
by the Internationalists. Perhaps these”-he pointed
at the red crosses—“mark hidden ammunition depots,
and the thin lines are meant for lines of attack and
communication.”
Tennant shook his head.
“Sounds reasonable enough,” he said. “Only, look
here! Kampot and Camau and Bac Lieu are not the
ret was the s his chum ationalists at the went on, native


84
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
wou with utheasta meat
sort of places where anybody with half an ounce of
sense would hide guns and ammunitions. Swampy
land down there; unhealthy, malarial. Nor would a
rebellion spread from the south toward the northeast.
Just look at the rivers and the roads. The lines of
communication would be all wrong. Such a rebellion
could never succeed with Saigon and the French gar-
rison commanding the southeast, and Jarvet wasn't
exactly a fool! These red lines mean something en-
tirely different. I am sure of it.”
He turned the map over; and gave a low whistle of
intense surprise.
"Doumay!” he said. “Look!” He pointed at a
small printed square which said: “Verlag von Velhagen
& Klasing, Bielefeld und Leipzig”—“Doumay, this map
was made in Germany!”
“And?”
“Why should it have been?” continued Tennant.
“Suppose Jarvet or Steynard had wanted a map of
Indo-China, they could—would naturally have bought
one made in Paris. All the bookstores carry those
bully government maps. Why the devil did he buy a
German map?"
“Perhaps he was in Germany and bought it while
there."
“Must have been there recently. Look here; this is
dated 1913. Wait; I'll find out.” He called to Cap-
tain Roux and asked him to send Madame Houlbrecque.
“Madame,” he said when the old housekeeper had
shuffled into the room, her hand to her ear, “had your
late master been in Germany recently?”
“No. He has not been beyond the fortifications of
Paris for over three years. He was a very busy


THE BLUE ULSTER
85
I
I am degulbrecque.com
man—" and she went on with a lot of senile recollec-
tions how M. Jarvet could never be prevailed upon to
take a vacation which Tennant cut short with the
brusque question if, as far as she knew, M. Jarvet had
had any German friends. Had she ever heard German
spoken in the house?
Anne Houlbrecque smiled.
“I am deaf, monsieur. I could not have heard. But
I know what German squareheads look like. There
were never any in this house! M. Jarvet received but
few visitors.”
“Do you recollect any of them?”
“Yes; my memory is better than my hearing. I re-
member them all. There was M. Steynard and the
Deputies of M. Jarvet's party. There was that
butcher, Guillaume Nordeg-
“Was he here often?”
“Yes. He and M. Jarvet knew each other well.
And there was another man whom I did not know. He
used to come late at night, two or three times a week.
He walked with a limp.”
“A man about my height?” asked Tennant, thinking
of Menzies-Kerr and hoping that the answer would be
in the negative.
But the reply was a decisive:
“Yes. Just your height, monsieur. He wore a felt
hat pulled well over his eyes"
“And a loose coat?” Tennant could hardly keep
his voice from trembling.
“Yes."
“As loose as that of the visitor—the woman as you
said—whom you saw in M. Jarvet's library a few min-
utes before the murder?”


86
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
“But, yes, monsieur,” replied the old woman aston-
ished. Tennant dismissed her and turned his thoughts
to his friend, Lord Menzies-Kerr.
Could Menzies-Kerr have been the murderer after all?
The Scotchman had been in Indo-China not so long
ago, and here was a map of Indo-China made in Ger-
many! What did it all signify?
“Doumay.” He turned to the subagent. “This is
a prize mystery.”
The little Frenchman smiled.
“You'll solve it, monsieur, I have no doubt!"
“Solve it?” Tennant gave a strange, cracked laugh.
“I keep on solving it and my solution is right; but
every time I solve it, it pops up again with a new kink
in its cursed tail and "
“Monsieur?”
“I am afraid of the last kink-out there." And he
pointed due east, in the direction of the frontier, where
the sky was reddening as if a mouth of blood had kissed
and stained it.


88
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
tions, said to himself that he liked her tremendously.
Paradoxically, he was sorry that he did; for he had
come on an unpleasant errand.
“Mademoiselle,” he said brusquely, “I wish you had
not given me such a charming welcome.”
“Why?" she smiled.
“Because I have come here not as a friend, but as a
detective."
She looked straight at him. Her lips quivered. Then
she turned on him with a sudden flash of violence.
“I understand, monsieur!” she said in a low voice.
“It is because of that murder-Jarvet! You, monsieur,
know that I was arrested, suspected, accused. But you
know also that I was released immediately, that it was
all a mistake. But suppose my father had not been
able to prove my alibi, suppose I were still in prison,
even then you should know that I am innocent if you
have one tiny particle of that psychological insight for
which you are so famous !”
She said the last words with undisguised sarcasm;
and when Tennant tried to justify himself, saying he
knew she was innocent and had said so from the first,
she went on more vehemently, her small white hands
clenched tight, her blue eyes flashing.
"Monsieur, I have heard so much about chivalrous
American gentlemen that, bon sang! I used to believe
it!”
“But, my dear lady!”
“Why do you come here as a detective?” she insisted.
“It is none of your business to ask me questions about
that Jarvet affair, nor is it mine to answer. You do
not belong to the police; you are a private detective;
you have no right!"


ANGELE
89
Silently Tennant waived the point that he had the
right to ask her questions, since the police had given a
free hand to the Agence Ducastel. He preferred put-
ting it on moral instead of legal grounds. He knew
that the latter antagonized people, innocent as well as
guilty, less than the former. He had made a habit of
it throughout his detective career and owed part of his
success to it.
“Mademoiselle Lantaigne," he admitted, “I have no
right to be here nor to cross-examine you. But I have
more than a right. I have the duty to do it. The
duty !” he repeated emphatically, “and it is your duty
to answer !"
"I do not see it.”
“You will presently. Just hear me out. I repeat
that it is both your duty and mine, because”—he low-
ered his voice—“because we are both of us friends of
Lord Allistair Menzies-Kerr, who would not like to see
him harmed.”
“You mean—" she stammered, afraid to finish the
thought.
He did it for her.
“I mean that by refusing to answer the questions
which I am going to ask you, you will indirectly cause
Lord Menzies-Kerr to be suspected, perhaps arrested,
and ultimately—who knows?” He leaned forward in
his chair. “I am not a theologian, mademoiselle. I
have always believed it wise to let sleeping dogmas lie.
I merely believe in fair play, plain, average, strictly
human fair play. That's all the theology of which I
am capable. I guess you, too, believe in being fair and
square.”
Her deep low voice came like an echo.


ANGELE
91
and loved and adored him. How they called him the
modern Robespierre who would lead the Internationale
to victory; who would bring real freedom and democ-
racy, an end to all strife and war and misery and
hunger, peace and plenty and happiness to everybody!
And, monsieur"—there was the ghost of a smile on her
lips-"you know the young. We are world-stormers.
We believe in change, in revolution, in reform. Revo-
lution against everything—God and the dear saints in-
cluded. It is both the sweetness and the penalty of
youth.
"I made a hero of Anatole Jarvet. I read his ar-
ticles and his pamphlets. I listened to his speeches.
Once in a while, it is true, I would hear a whisper of
gossip about him. If it was something nice, I would
believe it; if it was something not so nice I would call it
a lie and forget it. For he was my hero! Then I met
him at the opera ball, and Anatole Jarvet was a very
f it was someth was something a whisper of
hand at the operait; For her not so nice nice, I would
Tennne man.““ ball, and Ans my hero? would call it
Tennant inclined his head as he thought of how he
had seen Jarvet last, crumpled up in his chair, dead,
but still with that satanic beauty on the heavy fea-
tures.
“We met often,” she continued. “We talked of love
and I wrote him letters; the awkward, passionate, fool-
ish letters of a young girl who does not know. He
loved those letters; he told me so. And then one eve-
ning as I walked to the theater I saw him with another
woman; a woman of the streets. I met him the next
day. I reproached him and, bon Dieu! I would have
forgiven him had he said the word, for I loved him so.
But he laughed at me; he told me insulting things.”
"I understand,”. Tennant said gently.


92
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
She shook her head.
“No. You do not understand. You are a decent
man, a clean man. You do not know what a man like
Jarvet is. You do not know what he told me"
There was a sob in her voice. Tennant felt sorry and
guilty, too. He took her hand and petted it.
“Never mind, child,” he whispered. “I didn't ask
you to crucify yourself.”
She swallowed hard. She was determined to go
through with her confession, and there was that in
Tennant's face, his voice, and the cool touch of his
long, brown hands which made it easier for her than
she had thought.
She thanked him with a look, and went on:
“Then I heard from a friend of mine, an older act-
ress at the Théâtre Alexandre, that for years Anatole
Jarvet had made it a business—yes, a regular business
- to make love to women, to have them write to him,
and, afterward, to blackmail them with the help of
their foolish, pitiful letters. And so I made up my
mind to get mine back. I went to him.”
Tennant sat up, tense, alert.
“You went to him on the afternoon of the mur-
der?"
“Yes. I was with my father and Lord Menzies-Kerr
at the Café des Reines. At half past five I excused
myself for a few minutes. M. Jarvet's house is only a
step from the little café. I went to him and asked him
to return my letters.
“He refused. I insisted. He said they were worth
money, more than I could possibly raise; that Lord
Menzies-Kerr was very wealthy and I should ask him
to lend me the money; and when I said I could not


ANGELE:
93
ask him for money, Jarvet replied: 'Never mind the
money then. I will give you back your letters if you
persuade his lordship to help me with Indo-China. Tell
him that ! »
“Were those Jarvet's exact words ?”
“Yes. I thought them very strange. I remember
them exactly.”
Tennant felt tremendously excited. Here was an
important piece of news. But, the next moment, his
trained detective mind told him that he must not forget
the smaller points which, in criminal cases, are apt
to suddenly loom large. So he continued his questions.
“Did you notice if M. Jarvet's safe was open while
you were there?”
"He opened it just before I left. He showed me my
letters, tied together, and again told me he would re-
turn them if I could persuade Lord Menzies-Kerr to
help him with Indo-China. Then I left and returned
to the café. I was not gone over ten minutes.”
“One more question, mademoiselle, though it may
strike you as irrelevant. You know about the butcher
Guillaume Nordeg's incriminating testimony against
, tied to come chingone Overiselle, out the
gains
you?"
“Yes.”
“Had he any reason to wish you harm?”
“Why, no," came her puzzled reply.
“You knew him?”
“I have seen him.”
“Where?"
“When I called on Anatole Jarvet, several weeks ago.
They were together in the library. They were looking
at something that looked like"
“A map?"


94
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
Angele smiled.
“You are not a detective, monsieur; you are a clair-
voyant. Yes; it looked like an automobile map."
“Good! Good! And now-a final question—when
you returned to your table, was Lord Menzies-Kerr
still there?”
“Yes.”
“When did he leave the café?”
“About”
“Angele, I forbid you to answer!" came a sharp voice
from the door.
It was Lantaigne, the chief of the secret political
police, who had come into the room.
Lantaigne shook hands cordially with Tennant, and
told him, with slight mockery, how sorry he was that
he had come home at such an inopportune moment.
"Opportune for you!” grimly corrected Tennant,
who, being an American, enjoyed a joke even when it
was on himself.
Lantaigne smiled a fleeting, hard smile, like the curly
glitter on steel.
“M. Tennant,” he said, “we decided the other day
that the work of the secret political police and that of
private detective agencies run on different lines.”
“It was you who decided that; not I!” cut in Ten-
nant; but the other went on, unheeding :
“For reasons which I have no intention of commu-
nicating to you, I also decided that the question which
you asked my daughter as I came into the roommat
what time Lord Menzies-Kerr left our table at the café
on the evening of the murder-belongs to those where
your and my branch of criminal investigation are at
odds. I have refused to answer that question. I re-


ANGELE
95
fuse now. I shall always refuse without an explana-
tion of any sort. And that applies to you, too, An-
gele!” He walked up to her and petted her cheek.
“Promise me, child, that you will not answer this ques-
tion, ever, unless I give you permission.”
The girl looked from her father to Tennant,,con-
fused, apologetic; then she whispered the desired prom-
ise, and her father kissed her gently.
"You are a good daughter; and now it is time for
you to go to the theater."
Angele shook her head.
“I am not going, father.”
“Why not?”
“I cannot. My name has been in all the papers,
with all sorts of comment. Some try to be decent; try
to excuse me. But they all think the same thing. They
all still suspect me of this--this horrible crime.”
Lantaigne drew her to him.
“That is just why you must go, child. If you do
not appear on the boards to-night people will say that
you are afraid, and will conclude that you are guilty.
It's human nature. Prove to them with voice and ges-
ture that you are innocent. You are brave; you have
always been brave. Go!”
The girl smiled. She picked up a large, silver-framed
photograph of a young man, about twenty-five, which
stood on the center-table. Tennant had noticed the
striking likeness between it and Angele.
“Am I as brave as Marcel was, father?” she asked.
“Yes.” The man's voice was hushed, as with the
memory of grief. “You are as brave as Marcel --who
died in the Alps, trying to save a friend's life. You
must never forget that, daughter,” and Tennant was


96
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
surprised at the rather hectic note which crept into
Lantaigne's voice as he continued: “You must never
forget that your brother was a clean, honorable gen-
tleman, who died an honorable death.”
"I was very young when he died, and he was so
much older than I. I hardly remember him."
· The older man had regained his composure.
“But you are as brave as he was," he said, “and to-
night you must prove it to all the world. Go to the
theater; your friends will be there to applaud you."
“You bet!” exclaimed Tennant. “I'll be one of them.
I'll be there to-night with the number nine gloves and
the lusty voice, and you'll hear me. I learned rooting
at football games back home.”
When the girl had left the room, smiling her thanks,
Tennant turned suddenly to Lantaigne, who was stand-
ing beside the door, very polite, but evidently expect-
ing his visitor to leave.
“Close the door,” said the American calmly. “My
finer sensibilities are hard-boiled and my tact is above
the freezing point when I am asking questions."
“I told you I wouldn't reply.”
“To that about Menzies-Kerr. Sure. I know.
But there's something else I've got to ask you, and you
might as well make up your mind right now to reply,
For it affects you really more than me!"
“Is that so?” Lantaigne tried to appear bored, but
did not succeed, and Tennant pressed the slight ad-
vantage sharply home, telling him about the blotter
which he had found on Jarvet's library table and which
Ducastel had read to him.
“That letter was addressed to you. 'Lant stands
for Lantaigne. And look at the rest of the message


ANGELE
97
cut and broken, but not so very blamed cryptic. 'Un-
less by Saturday I receive' and 'the gentleman with
the limp will pay the penalty.' It's both a warning and
a threat; that's clear, isn't it?”
“I never received such a letter in my life!” cried the
other. “Jarvet has not written to me for years !"
“Is that the truth?” Tennant demanded brutally,
and Lantaigne replied with a violent flood of words,
objurgations, protestations, but clear through it was
a note of utter sincerity:
"I received no such letter. I give you my word
of honor as a gentleman!”
“I believe you, and I beg your pardon.” Tennant
bowed.
Rapidly, on the spur of the moment, he concluded
that Jarvet must have been killed while he was writing
that very letter, and that the assassin must have car-
ried away the unfinished letter as well as the love-let-
ters written to Jarvet by Angele.
But the next minute he returned to the attack with
another question about another letter: the one which
had slipped from between the pages of one of Menzies-
Kerr's German books.
Without meaning to, he had read a few lines. But
he had not seen the signature. All right. He would
bluff. He would try a shot into the blue, and see if
he could wing something.
"Monsieur,” he said to the chief of the secret political
police, “I repeat that I believe you, and once more I
offer you my humble apologies. But," lending his
words the emphasis of a suddenly lowered voice_“why
did you write to Lord Menzies-Kerr? Why did you
warn him? Don't deny it. I saw the letter in which
would nething the chie


98
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
you told him that Jarvet had sworn revenge against-"
Lantaigne interrupted him with a quick gesture and
a laugh.
"I do not deny it. I did write that letter. Only” —
again he laughed—“it is evident that you did not read
the whole letter. It was not a warning meant for Men-
zies-Kerr. It was a warning to be communicated by
him to-ah--to the gentleman with the limp!”
“And he is"
"Monsieur,” smiled Lantaigne, opening the door, "I
understand that you are a famous American detective.
Find out, monsieur! Find out!"


CHAPTER VII
BIBI LE FARCEUR
It was on his way back to his apartment to dress
for the theater that Tennant ran across the wizen
apache of the Saint-Sulpice gang who had told him a
day or two earlier that Guillaume Nordeg, the butcher,
had “ways of earning money with which the late la-
mented Joan of Arc would have been decidedly unfa-
miliar.”
He met him as he was taking a short-cut through one
of those packed, crowded, noisy alleys on that side of
the Seine where tumble-down mansions of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries lean against each other for
mutual support, and echo to the shrill sounds and
shouts and laughter of its motley population; book-
binders and cobblers, news-venders and fruiterers, deal-
ers in all kinds of second-hand odds and ends, lock-
smiths and knife-sharpeners and wheelwrights.
The meeting was rather violent. For Tennant, think-
ing deeply with puckered eyes searching the ground as
if for the master-key to the Jarvet mystery, bumped
smartly against the apache who came shuffling along
from the opposite direction, slightly the worse for his
evening libations of the cloudy, green liquor, the high-
peaked cap pushed back on his round, close-cropped
skull at a rakish, devil-may-care angle, velveteen peg-
99


100
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
top trousers tightly encircling the ankles, pointed yel-
low shoes giving the finishing touch of effeminacy to
this parasite of society.
“Ooff!" ejaculated the American as he bumped
against the human obstacle, and then came a flood of
foul invective on the part of the apache, a savage in-
quiry if the blankety-blank aristocrat thought that the
streets of Paris were specially made so that he could
promenade his blankety-blank aristocratic patent-
leathers across the defenseless bodies of honest work-
men, an invitation to Tennant to pick out his slab in
the morgue right then and there, and an instinctive,
feline reaching for the ever-ready dagger in the folds
of the crimson shawl which was around his waspish
waist.
But Tennant was the happy possessor of two valu-
able qualities: a splendid memory for faces and the cir-
cumstances under which he had seen them first, and a
never-failing politeness, which he scotched only when
brought into contact with the professional, self-satisfied
stupidity of the metropolitan police.
Add to these two characteristics a keen presence of
mind, a boyish smile, and a soft voice, and there was
small wonder that the apache dropped the handle of
his dagger and screwed his features into a semblance of
amiability when he heard the American exclaim:
“I beg your pardon! No bones broken, I hope. I
had no idea you were ever in this neighborhood. Quite
a ways from your regular beat of Saint-Sulpice, aren't
you?”
The next instant the apache recognized him.
“Aha! The citizen who took such great interest in
our friend, the butcher. And what brings you here.
screwed hd the Americaoken, I hoperuite


BIBI LE FARCEUR
101
to
thought and conting
thetic liand buying a
"You pache lat. sausages three yaoing uped with
Perhaps—” He winked wickedly and blew a kiss in
the air.
Tennant held out his cigarette-case—the calumet of
Latin lands.
“Just going home,” he replied, while the other took
a cigarette and lit it; then, since it was the apache who
had first mentioned the butcher, he thought it safe to
pursue the subject gently, and continued with the
smooth, ready lie: “I thought of going up to the Rue
Férou and buying about three yards of those sympa-
thetic little pork sausages I saw in Nordeg's window.”
The apache laughed.
“You'll have to curb your appetite or buy your
supper somewhere else, citizen. Guillaume Nordeg has
left the neighborhood. He drove away yesterday in
a taxicab like a bloated capitalist. His shop is closed.”
“What? He has left? Where did he go?”
Tennant's questions came sharp and crackling, like
musketry fire, and the apache looked up, tense, suspi-
cious, his eyes narrowing to tiny points, his nervous
nostrils dilating. A criminal, the son and grandson
and great-grandson of criminals, the comrade and chum
of criminals, a hereditary enemy of society, he was quick
at catching inflections of voice, quick at sensing who
was the hound and who the hare, and, naturally, his
sympathies were for the hare every time.
So he stuck his pointed chin forward truculently and
snarled that monsieur the aristocrat was taking alto-
gether too great an interest in the affairs of the quarter
of Saint-Sulpice.
“Go back to your own part of town, citizen,” he
wound up. “Go back to your silk-hatted gentlemen and
your painted, yellow-haired—” Here came an obscen-


104
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
not quite comprehich his stuntecontained a treme
6_1_” The man stammered. Then, the blood
rushing to his face: “It was the government which I
cursed. I did not curse France-no! I said 'to hell
with the government, not 'to hell with France ! I-
I am a Frenchman!” And he repeated, wondering,
dazed, halting, as if the words contained a tremendous
spiritual truth which his stunted, tainted nature could
not quite comprehend but was afraid to disregard: “A
Frenchman-nom de Dieu!”
“First, last, and all the time?” asked Tennant, and
then the other's echoing voice, as in a dream:
"First, last, and all the time !"
There was a silence. Unconscious of the teeming
street life about them, of the people walking past them,
staring, whispering, laughing at the strange spectacle
of a rough gangster and a well-dressed gentleman con-
versing together earnestly, the two looked at each other
as if to probe their souls.
Finally the apache spoke.
“I, too, would work for France. Would I fight and
suffer? I don't know. I never had the chance; except
three years in an Algerian convict regiment which I
drew for nearly croaking a citizen.”
“Then tell me. Where did Nordeg go to? It is
important that I should know.”
“Faith of a mouse! I don't know. But I'll keep my
eyes peeled. Yes. I know your name and address.
Who in Paris doesn't? Also, you know my name. Bibi
le Farceur. The quarter of Saint-Sulpice knows my
mug and my signature," he indicated his knife, smil-
ing. “So do the police. And if ever you need me in
a hurry—for France, mind you, not for that pig of a
government-send word to the Au Caveau, a little


BIBI LE FARCEUR
105
restaurant in the Rue des Innocents, not far from the
Halles Centrales.”
And he walked away without another word while
Tennant stepped into the nearest post-office, whence
he telephoned to the Agence Ducastel.
It was Doumay's voice which answered across the
wire.
“Good !" Tennant spoke into the receiver. “You're
just the man I want. Remember Nordeg, the butcher
of the Rue Férou? All right. He has left-shop closed
—and I want him. I want him badly, Doumay! But
don't arrest him, nor molest him, nor make him nervous
in any way. Why? Oh, I am going to use him for bait
to catch ”
"A fish?” came Doumay's laughing inquiry from the
other end of the wire.
“No! A bird! What sort of a bird? An eagle, my
boy; a big, black, iron-clawed eagle You don't un-
derstand? Never mind! I'm not sure that I do my-
self-yet!”-and he hooked the receiver back, left the
post-office, and hurried home toward the Place Fon-
tenoy.
It was late when he reached his home. He knew he
could not waste much time over his post-prandial coffee
and perfecto and would have to hurry into his dress
clothes if he wanted to get to the Théâtre Alexandre
without missing the greater part of the first act. He
had seen the play once before. Angele would come on
about ten minutes after the curtain went up.
"Have dinner served right away,” he said to the
darky who opened the door. “Have my dress suit
ready-get a move on."
“Yes, suh," and as he was about to shuffle away:
ng the gre before. An went up. oid to the


106
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
“Lord Menzies-Kerr's come back, suh. He's in the
dining-room having his cocktail.”
But when Tennant hurried into the dining-room, a
dozen eager questions crowding on his lips, Allistair
Menzies-Kerr, looking rather handsome and stately and
tragic in the orange glow of the light which hung low
over the dining-table, got there ahead of him.
"I know,” he said, and Tennant knew by the slight
Scotch rasp in the man's voice that he was more ex-
cited than the words showed, “you've been to see Lan-
taigne and tried to jolly well pump him and didn't suc-
ceed, and now you think I am your meat, don't you?”
And he continued, without waiting for a reply: "Save
your breath, my South Carolinian friend. I sha'n't
answer any of your questions."
Tennant felt slightly nettled.
“I only meant to help you,” he said stiffly.
“Thanks. I don't need help.”
The answer was so ungracious that the American's
habitual good-humor suffered a severe jolt--and reared.
“You don't, eh? Then why in blazes did you pur-
loin my blue ulster and masquerade as me? Why did
you sneak into the library of the Jarvet house a few
hours after the murder and swipe the blotter with the
marks about the gentleman with the limp?”
“And suppose I did? What earthly good did it do
me? That particular cat is out of its particular bag
anyway. The Etoile, Raoul Steynard's paper, got a
hold of that bit of news somehow. Here-take a
look !"
Menzies-Kerr brought a paper from his pocket and
pointed at the head-lines:
“Who is the Gentleman with the Limp?”
anyway." at particuldid? Whath the lin


BIBI LE FARCEUR
107
one for. At all evenaked out. c. enough to
goin mind, old company hime questionstrimly,
Tennant read. He crumpled the paper into a ball.
“Who the devil can have told Steynard?”
Then he considered. The Jarvet house had swarmed
with policemen and reporters after the murder and
the arrest of Angele Lantaigne. Doubtless, some of
them belong to the Internationalist Party. Or perhaps
one of them had been bribed; had seen and read the
blotter. At all events, no matter how, the news of the
cryptic letter had leaked out.
“I hope you had at least sense enough to destroy the
blotter?” he asked the Scotchman, who smiled grimly,
said he wasn't going to answer any more questions, and
told Tennant he would accompany him to the theatre
-“unless you mind, old fellow. Lantaigne told me
you were going.”
They ate dinner in silence, and it was in silence that,
in festive black and white, sitting side by side in the
American's steel-gray, low-slung roadster, they buzzed
down the boulevards in the direction of the Théâtre
Alexandre-straight toward the dying sunset which was
graying slowly into night.
Once or twice, as he slowed the car at a crossing,
Tennant turned to his companion, words on his lips.
He was fond of the man. Erratic, eccentric, of un-
bridled temper, impatient of thwarted desires, super-
sensitive-yet was there something in the man's dark,
northern nature which appealed to the American's mix-
ture-racial, national American mixture of idealism
and love of the practical.
It was his idealism which spurred him on to catapult
himself into the life of a man, nominally his friend, yet
in reality jealously guarding its intimate sides from
him; it was his utilitarianism which made him see that


108
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
here was splendid human material frightfully wasted,
which made him want to snatch this particular brand
from the burning, to help the man out of whatever
trouble he found himself in-and incidentally assist
himself to find the missing links in the Jarvet mystery.
On the other hand, it was this same realization of
practical values which told Tennant how useless it was
to try to force Menzies-Kerr to talk. Might as well
install a dictaphone in the pyramid or between the
crumbling paws of the great sphinx; there would be
no sound except shivering, ghostly echoes.
He remembered old days, seventeen years ago, in
their boarding school at Geneva, when these sudden
silent moods had overtaken the Scotchman, rising like
a film of white mist out of the heather. Even when
under the greatest provocation, when accused of some-
thing which he could easily have refuted, he had just
bitten his lips and kept perfectly quiet, only his face
growing a shade more pale.
It was so to-night. The man was very pale, but the
next moment Tennant realized that it was not alto-
gether inner turmoil which caused the paleness. For,
bumping against him as the car took a corner, he smelt
the pungent odor of opium. Menzies-Kerr must have
been smoking the little black pellets freely of late.
Again Tennant thought of the stale opium scent which
had permeated the Jarvet library the evening of the
murder.
A few minutes later the car slid to a stop in front of
the Théâtre Alexandre and, going to the ticket-window
to ask for their seats, the American noticed that two
men in the outer lobby were looking curiously at his
friend. They whispered to each other. Faintly Ten-
next momeer turmoil whithe car took a Kerr must have
-
-
-
-


BIBI LE FARCEUR
109
nant heard the words: “Yes; the gentleman with the
limp," as one of them pointed at the clumsy way in
which Menzies-Kerr dragged his right foot.
Tennant thought he recognized a reporter of the
Etoile in the speaker and was going to speak to him,
to remonstrate. But glancing at his companion, he
noticed that the latter did not seem to have heard the
remark, and so he kept his peace and entered the audi-
torium through the center doors while the two men
disappeared through the left entrance which led into
the pit.
The curtain must have been up several minutes, for
the house was dark, the audience hushed, the play was
in full swing and, just as they stepped into their stage-
box, which squatted in baroque cream-and-gold out-
lines a few feet above the orchestra seats, Angele Lan-
taigne came on—a charming, girlish figure in white
Chantilly lace, her hair piled into a glorious aureole,
her slender white arms gleaming beneath the foamy
tulle of her sleeves—with the opening lines:
"Nerveuse! Pourquoi voulez-vous que je sois ner-
veuse, où prenez-vous que je sois nerveuse? Ce n'est
pas que cela me fâche, mais on ne dit pas—”
That was as far as she got.
For, suddenly, a shrill, kitelike whistle cut through
the gloom of the house from somewhere in back of the
pit. Twice repeated, like a signal, it caused Angele
Lantaigne to stop, her arms stretched out rigid, speech
frozen on her lips, staring with wide-open fascinated
eyes into the dark sea at her feet as if terror lay wait-
ing there, ready to leap out upon her. It caused the
audience to turn like one man, bewildered, nervous, as
if to see and hear and absorb that same terror. It


110
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
caused a shiver of apprehension-apprehension of the
unknown, the unexpected—to run down Tennant's
spine.
What was going to happen? What was brewing back
in the pit? Just a shrill whistle-yes —but, somehow,
he did not like it. This was not a New York audience,
roughly gracious, roughly good-humored. This was
France-Paris—the thoughts raced through his brain
like sheets of foam-
Came again the kitelike whistle.
Then, grotesque, monstrous, cruel, a flat, dead voice
boomed out from the back rows:
“Murderess!”
Then other voices joined in, by ones and twos, in
that same flat, leaden intonation:
"Murderess! Murderess!" repeating the word over
and over again, without the slightest inflection or modu-
lation, in an ever-swelling chorus that seemed to rise
like a shriek of horror from the abyss of the damned,
to glide and shift and swirl forward, toward the stage:
“Murderess! Murderess! Murderess!"
Then an ominous pause-like a monster's gigantic
intake of breath-a shivering, sinister silence, followed
by another cry, intoned first by a single voice, then
bloated into that same chorus of flat, dead voices:
"To the guillotine! To the guillotine!” syncopated
by hisses and groans and accentuated by the staccato
stamping of feet and walking-sticks—like an enormous,
jagged, resonant mass of hate, poured out in thickly
fluid form across the heads of the audience; straight
toward the slim, girlish figure who stood there-wide-
-eyed, immobile, as if turned into stone.
Tennant felt as if something were plucking at the
-eyed, imme, slim, girlish.eads of the red


BIBI LE FARCEUR
111
core of his heart. Nor was it altogether pity for An-
gele. It was something bigger, sweeter, finer than pity;
something soft and tender and wonderfully human-
“Angele! Angele!” he strained his voice to a cracked
pitch above the turmoil, and she heard. She became
less rigid. The ghost of a smile flickered across her
pale features. She looked toward the stage-box and
caught Tennant's eye; she made a slight gesture, as of
thanks, courage, hope
Suddenly she whirled to the left. Her voice flew
free and clear.
“No! No!” to a grimy stage hand who was flitting
through the wings toward the electric button which
would bring down the curtain. “I shall play-play
through!”
She picked up her cue:
“Nerveuse! Pourquoi voulez-vous que je soi ner-
veuse" to the juvenile who was playing across from
her and who had stumbled in a half-faint against a
property mantelpiece that was slowly tearing and rip-
ping under his weight, while the people in the boxes
and orchestra seats and balconies, admiring her pluck,
started applauding frantically, while again from the
pit there came the flat, crushing, grotesque chant of:
“Murderess! Murderess! To the guillotine !"
Still Angele was trying to carry her part through,
by gesture and movement since her voice was drowned
in the turmoil, when one of the men in the pit hurled
a heavy malacca walking-stick across the heads of the
audience, missing the girl's shoulder by the fraction of
an inch. Amidst a chorus of yells and shrieks and
curses, somebody rang down the curtain, somebody
else found the electric switch which controlled the huge
rip
ping orchestria uding fra crushing: the guilloart througea
Stiller deress the flat, antically, es, admiti in the


112
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
on, warghalist Party them by shoot thirty
chandelier, turned it, and drenched the house in a flood
of white light, and Tennant, looking toward the pit,
saw the men who had caused the scene.
They were sitting in a row—twenty or thirty of
them and he knew several of them by sight. Deputies
of the Internationalist Party, political henchmen and
hangers-on, ward-heelers from around the Quartier
des Halles, reporters of the radical press, and a sprin-
kling of apaches-looking strangely out of place, with
their peaked caps and crimson waist-shawls amidst the
sober black and white.
In the center, erect, his hand which had thrown the
walking-stick still raised above his head, stood Raoul
Steynard, the editor of the Etoile, his gross, sensuous,
purple-blotched face showing above his snowy shirt
like a bloated balloon, and as he opened his mouth to
fling a last, vindictive: “Murderess! Murderess! To
the guillotine!” toward the descending curtain, the
words seemed to drip from his sagging lips like so much
deadly venom.
Tennant felt his muscles stiffen. For a moment he
was not the detective, intent only on his craft, his
search, on ferreting out the last crooked trail of the
Jarvet mystery and bringing to the merciless light of
day the grave, sinister threat that he felt beneath it,
but just a man--an average, clean, decent American
whose heart had gone out to that brave little girl.
He clenched his fists. But before he could decide
what to do, with utter, unexpected suddenness—for the
man throughout had kept absolutely quiet, as if the
whole thing didn't affect him in any way—Allistair
Menzies-Kerr passed in front of his eyes like a streak
of black and white. In spite of his limp, he cleared the


BIBI LE FARCEUR
113
box railing. He rushed through the orchestra seats,
evading the ushers who were trying to close in on him
and the policemen whom somebody had called in. On
he ran, up the aisle, toward the pit.
There! He had reached Steynard. The editor's
friends surged about Menzies-Kerr, but he flung himself
free. His fist crashed between the man's eyes. But,
even as Steynard tumbled back under the savage blow,
his voice jerked clear through the sudden silence which
had dropped like a pall:
“Ah! Milord Menzies-Kerr, the gentleman with the
limp—the accomplice of mademoiselle, the murderess!"
The next moment, Tennant reached his friend's side.
“Keep away!” he shouted to policemen and ushers.
“I am Tennant! What-arrest him for assault?
And what about Monsieur Steynard? Why don't you
arrest him? It was he who threw that stick at Made-
moiselle Lantaigne! Good God, are you all in the pay
of the Internationalist Party?”—and he hurried the
Scotchman out of the theater, through the outer lobby,
and into his motor-car.
Silently, as they had come, they returned, each a
prey to his own thoughts. Silently they pulled up in
front of their house on the Place Fontenoy. Menzies-
Kerr stepped out first, while Tennant reversed the gear
to back the machine into the little garage; and already
the former had inserted the key into the lock when a
man detached himself from the inky shadows of the
doorway.
Menzies-Kerr seemed to recognize him at once, for
he showed neither fear nor surprise.
“All right,” he said, “I'll come with you.”
He turned to his friend :


114
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
use the matte. But a
“Don't kņow when I'll be home;" and, without an-
other word, he walked away by the side of the stranger,
a man about his own height, who wore a flopping felt
hat pulled over his eyes and an overcoat which was
very large around the hips.
Tennant, looking after them, saw that both men
walked with the same limp, dragging the right foot as
if a heavy weight were attached to it. He was
about to follow them, to shadow them, when a frizzy
head appeared in the open window above him, and a
familiar voice inquired:
“That you, suh?”
“Yes, George. What's the matter?”
“Nuthin' exac'ly the matter, suh. But a gentleman
brought a letter a while back-an' he said it's mighty
impo'tant, suh."
“All right, George. Coming up!"
A moment later, Tennant, in his room, was opening
the sealed letter which his servant had given him. It
was a short typewritten communication, and said sim-
ply:
Come to-night at twelve o'clock sharp to the restaurant Au Caveau
in the Rue des Innocents. Bring with you the map of French Indo-
China which you found in the late M. Jarvet's library. Order a
pewter of beer. Drink it. Put the map inside, and ask the
waiter to have it refilled. He will bring it back. Inside you will
find five hundred thousand dollars in American bank notes.
mighty
There was aveau, Rue des arceur, had given
There was no signature. Tennant thought for a
while. Au Caveau, Rue des Innocents, the same place
which the apache, Bibi le Farceur, had given him as
address if he ever needed his help “for France !"
He looked at his watch. It was a little before ten.
Then he called up Doumay.


BIBI LE FARCEUR
115
“Hello! That you, Doumay? Found our butcher
yet? No! Keep on looking! By the way, you don't
happen to know an expert forger, do you? Yes! An
expert forger; that's what I said. You do know one?
Bully for you! Send him straight over to my apart-
ment; as soon as possible.”
He turned to the servant.
“Mix me a mint julep, George. I deserve one!" And
he stretched himself luxuriously on the couch while
waiting for the aromatic drink—and the forger.


CHAPTER VIII
OUT OF THE DARK
It was nearly half past ten and the mint julep which
George W. Brown had mixed had dwindled to its last
clinking, nostalgic bit of ice when a furious ringing
of the down-stairs bell, followed by the usual acrimoni-
ous wrangle between janitor and late arrival startled
Tennant fully awake.
A minute later George announced M. Henri Ducastel
who came into the room, rosy, smiling, high hat tilted
the least coquettish bit over his left eye, an oblong,
black-enameled box under his arm.
“Hullo, chief !” greeted Tennant, rising, rather as-
tonished. “Late caller, aren't you?”
“I thought you wanted me?"
“Wanted you?”
“Yes," replied Ducastel, “you phoned Doumay half
an hour back. He caught me at the club where I was
playing a game of écarté, and I went directly home, got
my little box, and came here."
“Doumay? Phoned? Little box?” Tennant was
bewildered. “I did telephone to Doumay; I asked him
to send over an expert forger.”
Ducastel winked a slow, elderly wink.
“My paraphernalia !” he exclaimed, putting the black
box on the table, opening it, and disclosing a neat array
of tubes and tiny bottles and camel hair brushes.
116


O
117
OF THE DARK
“But”
Again Ducastel winked.
“My friend,” he said, “there is no better forger in
France than I, even though my hand is wrinkled and
feeble and shaky and my hair of a dignified and—I
have been told—rather handsome silver.”
Tennant burst into laughter.
“Tell me, chief,” he asked. “Is the entire staff of
the Ducastel Agency recruited from former"
“Toyers with the law? Lance-tilters with the civil
code? Flirters with police regulations? Side-steppers
of the codified conventions of society? No. Not alto-
gether. But Doumay and myself and perhaps one or
two others-enfin, que voulez-vous, mon ami?-we
sinned our little sins and paid for our little peccadillos.
We ran with the foxes before we discovered that it is
more safe and decidedly more profitable to hunt with the
hounds.” He shrugged his shoulders and threw out a
deprecating palm. “And now, my sympathetic Amer-
ican, what do you want done?”
Tennant opened his safe and took out the German-
made map of Indo-China which Steynard had removed
from Jarvet's house, only to have it taken from him
by Doumay's nimble fingers.
"Can you copy this?” he asked, smoothing the map
on the table. “Including the imprint here?” He
turned the map and pointed at the square giving the
German publisher's name and address: “Verlag von
Velhagen & Klasing, Bielefeld und Leipzig."
The other examined the map minutely, looked at the
tubes and bottles and brushes in his painting box; and
finally drew a roll of a dozen different sorts of pa-
per from his overcoat pocket, each of which he com-


118
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
pared with the paper on which the map was printed.
“Yes,” he said. “I can do it all right. I have the
necessary colors and just about the same paper-unless
you go hunting for the water-mark. You want the map
copied exactly the way it is?”
“No, monsieur. Not exactly. That's just it. Look
here."
He ran his finger along the double red lines which
marked the lower Mekong, the Prek Té, and the Vaico,
pointed at the towns, such as Kampot, Camau, and
Bac Lieu which were accentuated by tiny red crosses,
and at the fine network of red lines extending from the
southwest, near Kampsala, toward the northeast, in the
direction of the province of Annam.
"I want you to move these lines and crosses; not
enough to create suspicion, yet sufficiently to make this
map useless, supposing”—he lowered his voice“sup-
posing it had, let us say, strategic or military impor-
tance. For instance, move the cross from Kampot a
little to the right. Here, to Hatiem. The Bac Lieu
cross over here to Tra Vinh, and so forth. Use your
own judgment. And please hurry.” He looked at his
watch. “You have less than an hour.”
"Have you a drawing-board?”
“No. Use the table. Got thumb tacks? All right.
I'll smoke a pipe in the next room. Go to it, chief,”
and he stepped into the little salon while Ducastel bent
over his work, smiling to himself and murmuring some-
thing about “Ah, these sacrés Americans !"
Patiently, steadily, rapidly, his high-veined, crinkled
old hands whisked over the tight-stretched paper. His
old eyes peered and measured and compared. He
worked with his body, his heart, his brain, like an aged


OUT OF THE DARK
119
craftsman come into his own again, taking pride in
the art which he had nearly forgotten; and an hour had
not yet elapsed when he called to Tennant that the
work was finished.
“See, my friend,” he said as the American came back
into the room and held out two maps to him. “Which
is which? Which is the original and which is the fake?
Good; is it not? I still have the brains, the skill, the
fine hand; eh?”
Tennant marveled. But for the slight changes in
the thin red lines and crosses the two maps were iden-
tical. Every spot, every thumb-mark was the same.
“Thanks. Bully work.” He put the original map
back into the safe and the forged one into his pocket.
“I'm off.”
“Wait. What is it all about?"
Tennant smiled. He told Ducastel that Steynard
had taken the map from Jarvet's house and that Dou-
may, in his turn, had taken it from Steynard, and that
now he was going to return it, altered here and there.
“To Steynard?” cut in Ducastel.
“I don't know. I wish I did. Perhaps to Steynard.
Perhaps to a certain butcher. Perhaps to the man
higher up. Perhaps to—"
"Scrognieugnieu!” thundered Ducastel. “I wish you
would not annoy me with these mysterious allusions
of yours. I wish you'd come straight out and tell me."
“Remember what I told you when we were up at Jar-
vet's house?”
“You said some foolish triviality-yes !—you wished
for the finger-prints of the apache who gave that cry:
‘Down with the army! Are you looking for him with
that map?"


THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
“No.” Again the American smiled. “Doumay is
looking for him."
"I thought Doumay was looking for Nordeg, the
butcher.”
“Sure; one and the same fellow. Didn't you know?”
asked Tennant innocently, and when the other only
snorted his disgust he continued: “No. What I want
you to remember is that, as I told you that day in
Jarvet's library, I've darned near solved the mystery.
Now I'm going to catch up with a few of the missing
links.”
He put on his ulster.
“Perhaps you'll catch a Tartar instead,” came the
ironic reply.
“Or an Alsatian, or”
“What?"
“What's directly east of Alsace, chief?”
“Prussia.”
“Right you are. So long," as he walked to the door.
“Got to hurry up.”
“Where are you going?”
“To exchange this forged map against five hundred
thousand dollars in sound American greenbacks.”
“But where—where?”
“To a certain dive called Au Caveau in the Rue des
Innocents.”
“The Caveau?” Ducastel rose, rather excited, hon-
est apprehension in his eyes. “It is not a very safe
place, my boy. Not even for as great a detective as
you are. You'll have no chance there if somebody
shouldenfin; it is an evil place. The beginnings of
many unsavory things have been brewed in that dive;
things which men do not speak of except in whispers


OUT OF THE DARK
121
"Your weapAnd it's a gº Au rev
behind closed doors; things which are not mentioned in
police reports nor in diplomatic archives. Don't go
alone.”
“I've got to, chief."
“Are you armed?"
“What's the good of asking me that, chief? You
know I never carry a gun.”
“Oh, yes.” Ducastel spoke with biting sarcasm.
“Your weapon is psychology, I believe.”
"Sure. And it's a good enough weapon. It hasn't
missed fire very often. Au revoir! Make yourself at
home. Call George if you want a drink;" and he walked
out of the room.
He walked along at a good clip. He was expectant,
eager, enthusiastic. But his racial American gayety
seemed to have gone suddenly out of his enthusiasm.
The yellow lights in the houses that lined the square
were like evil, winking eyes, and the shadows seemed
to wag at him with mocking fingers.
Turning to the left, through the Rue de Turbigo, it
was as if some memory of the past were speaking to
him from the ancient streets and alleys. For more
than all the rest of Paris, not excepting even the Bas-
tille and the Quarter of Saint-Antoine, are these streets
tainted with blood-stained reminiscences.
It was there, in the Rue de la Ferronnerie, that the
bigot madman Ravaillac assassinated Henri the Fourth,
best and wisest of kings, and it was next door, where
now is the Rue de la Lingerie, that during the callous
middle ages Paris dumped the bodies of the poor who
had died unshriven into underground vaults.
But James Tennant shook himself free from the tra-
gic associations. What had he to do with them, he asked
The Like evil, winkimocking fingene Rue de ]


120
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
"No." Again the American smiled. “Doumay is
looking for him.”
“I thought Doumay was looking for Nordeg, the
butcher.”
“Sure; one and the same fellow. Didn't you know?"
asked Tennant innocently, and when the other only
snorted his disgust he continued: “No. What I want
you to remember is that, as I told you that day in
Jarvet's library, I've darned near solved the mystery.
Now I'm going to catch up with a few of the missing
links.”
He put on his ulster.
“Perhaps you'll catch a Tartar instead,” came the
ironic reply.
“Or an Alsatian, or—"
“What?”
“What's directly east of Alsace, chief?”
“Prussia.”
“Right you are. So long," as he walked to the door.
“Got to hurry up.”
“Where are you going?”
“To exchange this forged map against five hundred
thousand dollars in sound American greenbacks.”
“But where—where?”
“To a certain dive called Au Caveau in the Rue des
Innocents.”
“The Caveau?” Ducastel rose, rather excited, hon-
est apprehension in his eyes. “It is not a very safe
place, my boy. Not even for as great a detective as
you are. You'll have no chance there if somebody
shouldenfin; it is an evil place. The beginnings of
many unsavory things have been brewed in that dive;
things which men do not speak of except in whispers


OUT OF THE DARK
121
behind closed doors; things which are not mentioned in
police reports nor in diplomatic archives. Don't go
alone.”
“I've got to, chief.”
“Are you armed?”
“What's the good of asking me that, chief? You
know I never carry a gun."
“Oh, yes.” Ducastel spoke with biting sarcasm.
“Your weapon is psychology, I believe.”
“Sure. And it's a good enough weapon. It hasn't
missed fire very often. Au revoir! Make yourself at
home. Call George if you want a drink;" and he walked
out of the room.
He walked along at a good clip. He was expectant,
eager, enthusiastic. But his racial American gayety
seemed to have gone suddenly out of his enthusiasm.
The yellow lights in the houses that lined the square
were like evil, winking eyes, and the shadows seemed
to wag at him with mocking fingers.
Turning to the left, through the Rue de Turbigo, it
was as if some memory of the past were speaking to
him from the ancient streets and alleys. For more
than all the rest of Paris, not excepting even the Bas-
tille and the Quarter of Saint-Antoine, are these streets
tainted with blood-stained reminiscences.
It was there, in the Rue de la Ferronnerie, that the
bigot madman Ravaillac assassinated Henri the Fourth,
best and wisest of kings, and it was next door, where
now is the Rue de la Lingerie, that during the callous
middle ages Paris dumped the bodies of the poor who
had died unshriven into underground vaults.
But James Tennant shook himself free from the tra-
gic associations. What had he to do with them, he asked


122
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
himself, he, the modern son of the New World? He
turned into the Rue des Innocents which, in memory
of the daily street market, was still littered with
cabbage-leaves and orange-peels and crushed snail-
shells, still pungent with the odors of countless rounds
of cheese stored in the adjoining market-sheds.
He stopped in front of No. 15. He looked at the
sign-board which was moving lazily in the wind. Au
Caveau was painted on it in Gothic letters.
He pushed open the age-gangrened door and stepped
into the narrow entrance hall, which was almost com-
pletely filled by an enormous tin counter, presided over
by a green-aproned barman who gave him the custom-
ary salutation of that locality.
“Bon soir, souť neur!”
Tennant acknowledged the greeting in a similarly
ribald manner and passed through the hall and down
the narrow, low staircase which led to the Caveau,
properly speaking, without asking directions of the
aproned, mustached Ganymede. For suddenly he
recognized the place and remembered having been there,
years ago, in search of thrills, when he had still been
a member of the inquisitive genus tourist, since the
Caveau is, after all, one of the more grimy show-
places of Paris.
Once it was a row of cells occupied by, let us hope,
saintly monks; but following the days when the
democracy of France brushed away the cobwebs and
dry-rot of Bourbon and Rome, an enterprising wine
merchant bought the place, turned the low, vaulted
cells into boxes' and drinking dens, and commenced to
collect toll from the less reputable ingredients of
society.


OUT OF THE DARK
123
Yes, the last time Tennant had been there as a
tourist, eager to be shocked and happy when he read
the many signatures and bits of naughty prose and
verse which thief, assassin, burglar, and anarchist had
scribbled on the smoke-stained, dismal walls of the
little boxes.
Then he had been an observer, an outsider, while
to-day a detective, working as he did with these people
as the very elements of his daily tasks, he was one of
the crowd; and he felt a curious sympathy with the
sodden, wicked, fate-crushed bits of humanity who were
leaning across the dirty tables and exchanging greet-
ings and curses, reminiscences and tips in the metallic
argot of their craft.
All the boxes: were occupied, and he was about to
pass to the right where another staircase led down to
a second tier of cells when, from the last den, a voice
greeted him:
“Here you are, citizen!
He stopped, turned, and looked. The man who had
addressed him rose. He was a waiter, dirty, unkempt,
a leer in his watery, blue eyes.
“Here you are!” he repeated. “I kept this table
for you”; and then, with a wink: “I believe you want
a pewter of beer?”
“Right!" said Tennant, and he sat down.
A minute later the waiter returned with a foaming
glass which he put in front of the American. The
latter was about to drink when an unsteady figure
half walked and half fell into the box, tumbled against
him, knocked the glass from his hand, and called him
an obscene name.
“What do you mean by coming to the Caveau?” he


124
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
his brew he hit hat do
before the nt square in by
shouted. “You damned, sneaking bloodhound of a
detective! What do you mean by—" and the same
instant he hit Tennant square in the face, and, under
his breath, before the American knew exactly what was
happening, he whispered: “Hit back! Make this a real
fight! Quick! It's the only way to save yourself!"
And then Tennant saw that his attacker was Bibi le
Farceur, the apache, and he landed a heavy blow.
"Hit me, will you?" shouted the apache. “By God,
I'll cut out your liver for that!” And in another
whisper: "Reach behind you. The electric light.”
And Tennant, obeying instantly, reached behind him
and found the electric switch which evidently controlled
the lighting system of the whole place.
He turned it, and the next moment the Caveau was
plunged into inky darkness. Came laughter and
shouts, a rushing about of people in all directions, a
few wicked swear words, and the beginnings of what
promised to develop into half a dozen free-for-all
fight.lbi le Faire box andand ch
llars.
Bibi le Farceur gripped Tennant's arm and piloted
him out of the box and down the landing, stumbling
over people and tables and chairs.
“Make a dash for it-quick-before somebody turns
the switch!” And, kicking and hitting with foot and
elbow and fist, he cleared a path, Tennant close at his
heels, up and away, through the entrance hall, out into
the Rue des Innocents.
“What's the matter?” asked Tennant out of breath.
“Can't tell you now.” Bibi le Farceur's words
tumbled over each other. “Told you, didn't I, that
I'd help you—for the sake of France?"
“Yes, yes; go on. Tell me!"


OUT OF THE DARK
125
“That beer was poisoned. They were going to croak
you because of that map.”
“Who?"
“You. Oh!”
The apache's reply broke off in the middle, changed
into a gurgle, a choked, bitter rattle. Then, quite
suddenly, he fell forward on his face dead!
For a moment Tennant stood stock-still. He looked.
A knife was sticking from between the man's shoulder
blades—a knife that had been thrown—whence? That
had been meant for him—or for the other?
Then he ran as quick as he could down the Rue des
Innocents, skirting several perilous, black pits that
gave access to cellars, until he reached the Rue de la
Grande Truanderie,
Here, with the first dawning of day, a crowd
was already collecting-porters, kitchen-gardeners,
butchers, market laborers, vegetable hucksters, and
sellers of roast potatoes—for Paris was beginning to
stir massively in her sleep, and so the Central Market,
the stomach of Paris, which is just around the corner
from the Truanderie, was about to open for business.
Tennant lost himself in the crowd. He turned south.
Several times he stopped in his tracks to make sure
that he was not being followed. Then he swung along
steadily in the direction of his house.
He felt for the map in his breast-pocket. It seemed
like a heavy weight.
“M. Lantaigne to see you," said Doumay to Tennant
early the following forenoon, and a second later the
chief of the secret political police entered the Ameri-
can's private office in the Agence Ducastel.


126
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
rusty swinghe
to Werent from
Tennant was rather surprised when he saw his
visitor, for the latter was not dressed in his usual cos-
tume, consisting of tasseled basque bonnet and tight
jacket and voluminous, Zouavelike trousers in yellowish
brown velveteen, but in cutaway coat, patent-leathers,
striped trousers, silk hat, .pearl gray ascot, and the
ribbon of the Legion of Honor in the buttonhole
looking altogether more like an elderly dandy of the
Faubourg Saint-Germain with a touch of Haymarket
and Burlington Arcades than like the eccentric char-
acter whom the boulevard cartoonists loved to picture.
And his dignified attire was in keeping with his suave
greeting, his way of bowing—he folded his body from
the hips like a rusty jack-knife-and his smile, quite
different from his every-day manner, which was inclined
to be sarcastic and superior and slightly joshing.
“M. Tennant,” he said, “I salute you. I have just
come from an important interview with the minister
for foreign affairs."
"I gathered that much," Tennant replied dryly,
with a wink at the high hat and crimson ribbon.
“Monsieur,” continued Lantaigne, “I shall put my
cards on the table.”
“All your cards?” asked Tennant, remembering
Lantaigne's refusal to answer his question about
Menzies-Kerr and the “gentleman with the limp.” And
when the other only shrugged his expressive shoulders
he went on:
"No use playing poker with me. Poker isn't a
logical game. It's a psychological game. And while
I grant that you, being a Frenchman, can beat me in
that Latin invention called logic, I can do you brown
when it comes to poker-and psychology. My nigger


OUT OF THE DARK
127
mammy taught me the first and Harvard the second.”
“The cards which I shall put on the table are official
cards,” Lantaigne replied with a smile. “The minister
for foreign affairs, speaking for the government, told
me that he does not want the Jarvet murder case
investigated any farther. He told me that he does not
mind the police nor”-sharply—“the Agence Ducastel
going through the gestures of investigation. To save
your faces with press and public you can even arrest
a stool-pigeon or an agent provocateur-I shall supply
the latter if you wish-clap him in jail and release him
a few months later, with a couple of thousand francs
hush-money, when the boulevards have forgotten this
present sensation and have passed on to the next.
But—no more than that, monsieur! The Jarvet
murder mystery must remain a sealed book.”
"You don't call that putting your cards on the
table?” asked Tennant. “You've got to give me
reasons”; and his demand was echoed by Ducastel, who
had heard every word through the thin board partition
which separated his room from that of the American,
and who came bobbing in, eyes glistening, his white hair
ruffled, looking for all the world like an excited jack-
rabbit.
“Reasons, please, Lantaigne !” he repeated. “Here”
- he waved a sheet of foolscap with an official-looking
blue seal in the left corner—"here is a letter I received
this very morning from the Chef de Sureté, your
respected colleague of the metropolitan police.”
"A hopeless idiot!" remarked Lantaigne, and
Ducastel agreed to the terse characterization.
"Exactly. But he is the Chef de Sureté. He is
employed by the municipality of Paris. He has
rated word thro was echoe got to


128
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
.
nothing to do with you, nor with the minister for
foreign affairs. Well, he writes me this letter,
demanding in an insultingly sarcastic manner why we,
the 'famous Agence Ducastel, have not yet discovered
the assassin of Anatole Jarvet. And now you come
here, dressed up like a festive undertaker of the days
under the empire, and you have the nerve to tell me
to-"
“To squash the investigation; quite so.”
Tennant shook his head.
“M. Lantaigne,” he said, "you are the head of the
secret police. I know. But the Jarvet murder is
beyond your jurisdiction. You have no right to inter-
fere with ordinary civil or criminal procedure. That's
up to the municipal police, the prosecutor, and the
assize court.”
He spoke without haste, without excitement. If
Lantaigne wanted to play poker, all right. He him-
self had a good hand, and he was going to stand pat.
But he was not prepared for the other's next move
--for Lantaigne suddenly leaned over, asked if the
room was sound-proof, and, being assured that it was
separated by double steel walls from the outside offices,
rose with a great deal of dignity, put his hand on
the crimson ribbon in his buttonhole, and said that he
had received it for serving France, “with every last
cell of my brain, with every ounce of my strength, with
every fiber of my being. Through thick and thin.
Regardless of what press and public thought of me.
Negligent of my own conscience. And you, gentle-
men,” he continued with a dramatic gesture, you would
also serve France, would you not?”
“Mais oui~assurément !” cried Ducastel, giving his


OUT OF THE DARK
129
He they se regu
House
white mustache a martial twist while Tennant smiled
oddly, remembering that just a few days ago he had
used the same argument with Bibi le Farceur, the
vicious, wizened apache who had died, doubtless because
of it. He had said he was an American, “and that
means a pretty good Frenchman, when it comes to a
show-down !”
Lantaigne bowed his appreciation of the gracious
sentiment.
“The reasons for my strange request are political,
gentlemen,” he said. “They are of the very gravest
political nature.” He coughed. “Doubtless you know
that the House of Deputies, was called into secret ses-
sion the day after the Jarvet murder to deliberate
about certain—enfin”—he smiled deprecatingly—“you
know "
“Call a spade a spade,” Tennant cut in. “Don't
give us any of your "secret diplomacy. It's the most
damnable thing in the world. It has caused war and
misery in the past, and it's going to do the same in
miseruume the past, and it's going
“Necessary, monsieur,” boomed Lantaigne. “This
is Europe, not America. We know nothing about your
Yankee methods; your shirt-sleeve diplomacy and
dollar diplomacy.”
“Better an honest dollar than an ocean of blood.
Better a plain American's shirt-sleeve than a lying,
forging, cheating European diplomat's gold-encrusted
court uniform. Call a spade a spade,” he repeated,
“if you want to talk with me. The House of Deputies
has gone into secret session to see what can be done
-and done in a hurry-about military preparations
against Germany."


130
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
“Defensive; strictly defensive, monsieur.”
“You said a true word there. But military prepa-
rations just the same, and small blame to France.
Preparations against Germany which recently increased
the peace strength of her army by a number of divi-
sions; which held her last maneuvers near Sarrelouis
on the French frontier and near Krefeld on the Bel-
gian; which, while the emperor stalks about calling
himself an apostle of peace, has offered a thousand
million francs to Fräulein Bertha Krupp to make a
howitzer that can shoot forty miles; which has caused
Bulgaria to leave the old Balkan alliance and join
hands with her old enemy, the Turk; which has tried
to make trouble wherever other nations wanted peace
-peace and a chance for everybody-in India,
Morocco, Egypt, the Philippines, Mexico"
"Monsieur, monsieur!” cried Lantaigne who had been
trying in vain to interrupt Tennant's flow of words.
“You must not say such things—"
“True things.”
“True or not, it makes no difference. You must not
pronounce them. You are playing with dynamite.”
“I am not afraid of dynamite. But, all right; we
understand each other now. Go ahead and shoot.
Tell us what Germany's designs and France's—I won't
say fear—but nerves, apprehension, doubt have to do
with the Jarvet murder."
Lantaigne looked at him quizzically, in a way
admiringly.
“You are sure you don't know?” he asked softly.
“You who, I have been told, remarked upon the fact
that the butcher Nordeg was an Alsatian from across
the border; who tried to find the apache who cried
*
You are sure
been told, rem alsatian from acaried


OUT OF THE DARK
131
id that monsieurs Only
and Fran
'Down with the army'; who only last night escaped
from a certain dive by the skin of his teeth."
Tennant was silent for a moment. He wondered if
the other would mention the map of Indo-China. But
when Lantaigne repeated his last question and by the
expression in his face Tennant judged that he had said
all he knew about this particular case—he smiled and
said that Lantaigne's information was good—“very
good indeed, monsieur, and I don't mind owning up
that I know something. Only I want it officially con-,
firmed, so that I may help you—and France."
Lantaigne bowed his thanks.
"Monsieur," he said, "you will help France by
keeping quiet about the Jarvet murder. The govern-
ment does not want you or anybody else to discover
too much. There are moments when a nation is forced
into—ah-unpleasantness against her will; when a
grave political, international discovery, becoming
known, would inflame the public, and then "
“Have you discovered such a grave secret?” per-
sisted the American.
“No, frankly speaking. And we do not wish to
discover one. We do not wish to play the other man's,
the other nation's, game.”
Tennant pointed through the window, east, where
the sun was riding in a sea of crimson against a ,
cloudless sky.
Old M. Ducastel, who had been silent, shook his head.
“The blue of peace," he said in a low voice, “and
then the red of war. I remember eighteen hundred
and seventy."
"Gentlemen,” went on Lantaigne, and his voice was
hushed, “I repeat that wemwe of the political police


132
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
investigatnd the Steinberrible affair Men Paro
-do not know exactly. We feel. We sense. We
suspect. And we do not want to find out what we
fear to find out. The Jarvet case must be squashed
as the Cailloux case was squashed; as we squashed the
investigation into the death of Félix Faure, of M.
Jaurès, and the Steinheil case. We tried to squash the
Dreyfus case; that terrible affair which grew out of
a little article printed in the Libre Parole to which
Captain Crémieux-Foa took exception. I, I myself,
backed by the minister for foreign affairs, tried to hush
it up. But we did not succeed. And the result was—”
"War; very nearly," chimed in Ducastel. “War
and revenge for Alsace and Lorraine !"
“We do not wish revenge!” said Lantaigne. “We
do not wish war. We want peace; and therefore, once
more, do as I beg you to. I would order you, but”—
he shrugged his shoulders—“this is France; not Russia
nor Germany. I cannot order."
“What about the newspapers?” inquired Tennant.
“We have passed the word to them to keep quiet,
and they agreed, all of them.”
“All of them?” asked Tennant, after a short pause,
as he suddenly pointed down into the street.
“Yes; why?"
“Listen!” The American threw open the window.
An excited humming rose from the pavement.
The humming crystallized into a cry, à shout-
then a roar. “L'Etoile! L'Etoile!” came the metallic
chorus of newspaper boys, darting through the crowd.
“The government exposed! Latest developments of
the Jarvet murder affair!"
“My God!" whispered Lantaigne.
He had grown deadly pale.


CHAPTER IX
MARKED CARDS
THE article screamed from the front page of the
Etoile, and was signed boldly with Raoul Steynard's
full name.
CITIZENS OF FRANCE!
A great man has been assassinated, a noble citizen of the world,
a stanch and fearless freeman whose sonorous voice was always
raised against that wholesale rape called imperialism and colonial
expansion, that systematized and organized professional butchery
called militarism, that stinking, sectarian balderdash called na-
tionalism and patriotism! A true citizen of the world indeed !
An internationalist who, building massively on Robespierre's un-
finished foundations, dreamed of bringing peace and plenty and
happiness to the whole world, east, north, south, and west! A
man who fought, not with steel and bullet as do the uniformed
murderers called soldiers, but with the strength of his brain,
the greatness of his heart, the silver of his tongue!
He was killed. Anatole Jarvet was killed.
Who did the deed? asked the common people, who loved him;
and the authorities—the authorities of the capitalist, blood-
stained, sectarian, patriotic government of militarists replied:
Wait! We shall find the assassin and punish him!
We waited. Nothing happened-unti], this very morning, there
came to the office of the Etoile, as to that of every other news-
paper in Paris, a gentleman of the secret political police, who
said: “Keep quiet! Hush up the Jarvet murder! These are the
orders of the government !"
But I, Raoul Steynard, will not keep quiet.
I know-and I accuse!
I accuse the government of having decreed the murder of
Anatole Jarvet !
133


134
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
I accuse M. Lantaigne, chief of the secret political police, of
having arranged the details of the murder!
I accuse Mlle. Lantaigne of having committed the actual mur-
der! Assisted by the political police, she arranged a fake rob-
bery so as to mislead the metropolitan police, the press, and the
public. She rified his safe, and having murdered the great Jarvet
who once had given her the love of his noble heart, she improved
the occasion by stealing the love-letters which Jarvet had kept
as a sacred memento!
every si 150 that the case, might frame-up, der urged one
Followed an exposé of the murder which closely
enough paralleled the facts, but which was spiced on
every line with diabolically clever suggestions and half-
truths so that the average reader, unfamiliar with all
the aspects of the case, might well believe that the
murder was really a political frame-up, that Angele
Lantaigne had really committed the murder, urged on
by her father, who, in his turn, had been obeying the
orders of the government.
The article wound up with a crimson, three-inch
smear which said:
Let us hope that the bloodhounds of the government will not
consider it necessary to murder me as they murdered Jarvet.
Jarvet had dangerous knowledge. So have I.
(Signed) Raoul STEYNARD.
“All bets are off," said Tennant, after he had
finished reading; and when both Lantaigne and Du-
castel looked at him inquiringly, he continued: “You
can't fight fire with oil. It is too late to hush up the
Jarvet case, with this”-he pointed at the newspaper
-“being screamed down the boulevards."
“The issue will be suppressed-confiscated!”
“What of that, M. Lantaigne? The harm has been
done. By to-night every foreign correspondent in
Paris will have flashed the news to his home paper. I,


MARKED CARDS
135
used to Reines the Menzies-Ri' and if
for one, am going to keep straight on with my inves-
tigation. I know what I am after, and I am going to
get it.”
“But, monsieur," expostulated the chief of the secret
political police, “the minister for foreign affairs,”
“Can do what he jolly well pleases. I am not going
to ask him to help me, nor," brusquely, "am I going to
ask you to help me. I asked you once to tell me what
you know about the “gentleman with the limp,' and if
you remembered at what time Lord Menzies-Kerr left
your table at the Café des Reines the afternoon of the
murder. You refused to reply; forbade your daugh-
ter to tell me
"Exactly! And I am going to refuse again!"
“Sure. I don't doubt it. But I'll keep on digging
just the same. The only thing which strikes me as
strange is that you refused your help long before the
minister for foreign affairs slipped you the word that
he wanted the Jarvet affair squashed.”
Lantaigne's face was crimson, and Tennant, observ-
ing closely, thought that it was not altogether the re-
sult of rage, but also-at least partially-of nervous-
ness, perhaps even fear, so much more so since the man,
instead of bursting into excited remonstrances às would
have been natural had he been in a rage, chose his
words with a certain slow, supercilious care-as one
might speak to a child.
“My dear sir, I am quite sure I told you at the time
that we of the political police and you private detec-
tives work along entirely different lines.”
“Right. You told me so. But I didn't believe you
then, nor now. I am going to keep on digging, and I
think it is a mighty good thing all around that the


136
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
Etoile popped out with this bit of orange journalism.
It is bound to put a crimp in the ostrichlike attitude of
the French government; that silly policy of trying not
to see because you are nervous as to what you might
see. Heavens !” He sighed.
“I am an American. It's the same thing back home.
Our politicians are so busy telling their rube constitu-
ents what glorious people they are, and dipping their
pudgy palms in the almighty pork barrel, that they
haven't the time for such negligible side issues as pre-
paredness and the grasping of international situations.
Don't buy your ammunition until you see the white of
the enemy's eyes! That's the American slogan; and
the French; and the British. Well, never mind. I shall
call Raoul Steynard's bluff, and perhaps slip him a
card-a marked card,” he added as he rose.
Ducastel threw up his hands.
“My boy," he said, “your French is exquisite, your
diction superb, your accent faultless, and the inflection
of your voice Parisian of the most Parisian! But at
times—your American phraseology! Picturesque, I
grant you. But like a cubist picture. An old man
like myself cannot grasp it. In other words, what do
Duca boy," he sur accent the most Par Picturesquenan
och is ea the Buty
you myself cabut like", phraseoloost Parisithe inflection
"Just this !” answered Tennant, turning at the door.
“Raoul Steynard lied when he wrote in that article that
he had dangerous knowledge. He had it once in the
shape of a German-printed map of Indo-China marked
with thin red lines and tiny red crosses which he took
from Jarvet's library-only to have it lifted out of his
pocket by friend Doumay's nimble fingers. Given pos-
session of that map, he could raise all sorts of a rumpus.
But now it's in my safe.”


MARKED CARDS
137
“Then why does he lie about it? Why does he try
to frighten the government ?"
“That's only incidental. That article of his isn't
meant altogether for governmental consumption.
It's meant primarily for the people for whom he
works.”
“And who may they be?" put in Lantaigne sarcastic-
ally.
“Right back at you with your own dope'secret
diplomacy'!” mocked Tennant, and, continuing, to Du-
castel: “He wants them—his employers—to believe
that he still has the map. He is afraid of them. Au
revoir, gentlemen.”
“Where are you going?” asked Ducastel.
“To slip that marked card I told you about to Raoul
Steynard and"
"And what?”
“To rake in the pot if I can get away with it;" and
as he opened the door, Tennant mumbled to himself:
“Five hundred thousand dollars isn't to be sneezed at
-if honestly earned from a dishonest party!"
M. Raoul Steynard lived in the northern part of
Paris, on the very crest of Montmartre, that great hog-
back hill dedicated to the sainted memories of early
Christian martyrs where, during the days of the Roman
proconsuls, had stood two temples, to Mars and Mer-
cury; where until the Revolution the Parisians had
emptied their Sunday picnic baskets in the shadow of
the windmills—only two of which remain, the Moulin
Rouge and the Moulin de la Galette, and these two are
devoted to forms of recreation which possess nothing
whatever of rural character; where many of Paris's
greatest lived until fortune smiled on them, and where
t the saint the days ors and Mind


138
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
they returned to sleep their last sleep in the old ceme-
tery which dominates the whole of the town.
From the east window of his house, which stood on
a lonely street, undisturbed but for the occasional soft
footstep of a black-robed priest, an employee of the
municipal gas office five blocks to the left, and perhaps
a belated reveler who wished to look down on the roofs
of Paris in imitation of Balzac's hero, Steynard could
see the church of the Sacré Cour and hear the Savoy-
arde, the huge bell which the province of Savoy gave
as a votary offering to the basilica of the church.
The house was surrounded by a walled garden, the
wall of solid masonry ten feet high and crowned with
a glittering array of broken glass; while the gate was
of massively wrought iron, reënforced on the inside with
fine mesh wire net and what looked to Tennant's trained
eye like an electric alarm device.
“Careful gentlemen,” he said to himself, smiling, and
his smile deepened when he caught a glimpse of the
house itself through the snow-clad arabesques of the
trees and bushes. It was cool and white, pagan in its
slim Greek simplicity, but of that simplicity which,
more than marble and gold and porphyry, proclaims
that money is no object.
He pondered that the Etoile, being a radical daily,
thus appealing to the shiftless and ignorant and dis-
gruntled elements of society, and in consequence worth-
less as an advertising medium, was a precarious ven-
ture from a financial point of view, and that its editor,
like the late Anatole Jarvet, had risen from the humble
walks of life, had always been in politics on the losing
side of politics which had no right to spoils and pork
—yet that, again like Jarvet, he lived in a private resi-
more than marble Cany; but of that simen pagan in its


MARKED CARDS
139
dence which would easily bring about fifteen thousand
francs a year rental.
“M. Steynard in ?” he asked the elderly, green-
aproned, felt-slippered, bleary-eyed servant who came
shuffling down the garden path.
The old man puckered his eyes and peered suspi-
ciously through the wire net. He took in the American
from head to foot, finally announcing with a cracked
voice.
“Monsieur will please go away. I do not know mon-
sieur."
“Devilish sorry, my friend,” replied Tennant. “My
loss, I am sure. But I don't want to see you, I want
to see M. Raoul Steynard. He lives here, doesn't he?"
“Yes.”
“All right. Trickle along, and tell his butler or
housekeeper or majordomo or upstairs parlor-maid
or whoever happens to be the correct domestic dig-
nitary that I would like to speak to the master of the
house.”
The other grinned like a malevolent gargoyle.
“I am M. Steynard's butler and majordomo and
housekeeper and parlor-maid. I am his gardener and
groom and cook. I am his confidential clerk. He and
I live alone; but”—with a suddenly angry croak-
“don't you imagine that you can get in here because I
am old and weak!"
He flashed out an ugly blue automatic, while Ten-
nant smiled to himself and made a mental note of what
he had heard: Steynard lived alone, but for one elderly
servant, in this well-appointed house. So had Jarvet
lived alone with his deaf old housekeeper, Anne Houl-
brecque. There was evidently a premium among the


140 THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
leaders of the Internationalist Party on aged and de-
crepit domestics.
“All right,” he said finally. “I am not here to com-
mit burglary or arson or mayhem. Just you tell M.
Steynard I would like to see him. He took a card from
his pocketbook, folded it, and pushed it through the
wire net. The old servant shuffled back to the house,
to return a few minutes later.
“M. Steynard regrets infinitely," he announced, his
rasping accents giving the lie to the polite words,
“Some other time perhaps he will be at leisure. But
not to-day.” And he was about to walk away when
the American stopped him with a curt:
“You go straight back to your master and tell him
I have got to see him. Absolutely vital. No use play-
ing possum with me! Tell him I want to speak to him
about-well, Indo-China. Go ahead. Get a move on,
old-timer. I am getting cold out here in the snow.”
Shortly afterward the servant returned, opened the
gate, and led him through the garden and into the
house.
The old man opened a door on the second floor.
“Will monsieur have the goodness to wait? The
master will be here immediately," he said.
Tennant entered. He looked about him. The room
was in keeping with the outside of the house: simple,
massive, imposing, and expensive; with its empire fur-
niture of bronze-garlanded ebony, its wall hangings of
deep-brown cordova, and covering the floor a price-
less Anatolian silk rug in claret color shot through
with palest blue and tawny orange.
A fit milieu for a captain of finance, thought the
leur hameediately, hout him.


MARKED CARDS
143
Theave it a 5 he said,
I will not talk to you. You are trying to make a mock
of me. You are insulting me. I have no intention of
bearing with you to see how much further your inso-
lence will dare to go!"
“Did you say-insolence?"
“Precisely!" He moistened his lips with his tongue.
His hands clenched truculently. "You-you tell me
that it pays to be an Internationalist, as if —"
“As if-poppycock!" Tennant interrupted calmly.
“There's no damned 'if' as far as I can see. It does
pay!" He swept a hand around the room. “Doesn't
it?”
The Alsatian took his mustache in both his hands
and gave it a swashbuckler twist upward.
"Monsieur,” he said, “my seconds will wait upon you
at your apartment.”
Tennant broke into frank American laughter.
“Oh, stow it !” he replied. “Lay low with that me-
dieval bunk! You are supposed to be a Frenchman-
even if you do come from Alsace—and are therefore
supposed to have a thimbleful of logic. And I ask
you; how can you, an Internationalist, an antimilitarist,
an apostle of mind over brute matter, propose a duel
to me? Silly of you, isn't it? On the other hand, I
am an American. I do not go about with a cute little
roasting spit tied to my middle, trying to pink other
fellows in the gullet. I fight with my fists.
“Well, and what would be the use of that? I'd give
you a swipe behind the ears or over the kidneys. You,
being a Frenchman—from Alsace,” he added with a
maddening grin, “would retaliate by kicking me in the
chin, and then I would get real mad and bite you in
the chest, and then we would both lose face. No use


MARKED CARDS
145
Steynard examined it minutely.
“So you are the man who has the map-now?” he
asked.
“Yes; got it right with me,” and he showed Steynard
a tantalizing corner of Ducastel's forgery.
“Still willing to sell?”
“You bet.”
“All right.” He pressed a button, and almost imme-
diately the old servant appeared on the threshold.
Tennant laughed. He took the map from his pocket
and held it in both his hands.
“No gun-play, if you please,” he said. “I know that
precious butler-gardener-groom of yours is heeled.
But—" He made a gesture as if to tear the map
through.
"Nobody is going to attack you,” replied Raoul
Steynard, rising. "I am going to get you that five
hundred thousand dollars. But in the meantime, while
I am gone, I want you to bridle your detective instincts.
Sit tight. Smoke. Talk. Sing. Do what you please
—but don't leave your chair,” and, whispering a string
of instructions to his servant, he walked out of the
room.
During the next ten minutes Tennant amused him-
self by trying to draw the old servant into conversation.
Quite without success. The man sat like a stone idol,
but alert, tense, and the American knew by instinct that
the man's right hand, deep in his trousers-pocket, was
gripping the ugly automatic.
Thank God you are back!” he said when Steynard.
came into the room at the end of the ten minutes. “I
am afraid your servant couldn't have held his fire a
second longer."
IN


146
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
Steynard smiled, sent the domestic out of the room,
and drew a package from his pocket.
"Here's the money,” he said. “Five hundred thou-
sand dollars. But let me look at your map first. I
am not going to double-cross you."
“All right. Look all you please;" and Tennant drew
out the map.
The other examined it minutely. Finally, with a
deep sigh of relief, he declared himself satisfied.
“Here you are, monsieur,” he said, opening the
package which he had brought and counting the con-
tents on the table; five hundred thousand dollars in
bills of large denomination.
He accompanied his visitor to the door.
"Au revoir, monsieur."
“Au revoir," replied Tennant, slapping his pocket
and smiling; a smile which the other returned in kind.
Half an hour later the American was sitting across
from his chief in the latter's private office.
He slammed the huge wad of money on the table.
“Here's what I got!” he exclaimed triumphantly.
“Five hundred thousand dollars for a forged map!"
Henri Ducastel picked up the money. He looked at
it. Suddenly he burst into loud laughter.
“Oh, là, là !” he cried. “But it is amusing for the
onlooker when Greek meets Greek. Five hundred thou-
sand dollars for your forged map, you said?”
“Yes. What about it?”
“Just this, mon petit Tennant. The money, too-
the greenbacks—the five hundred thousand dollars—is
forged! Forged—by the ten thousand curly-tailed
guinea pigs !"


CHAPTER X
THUNDER
THERE is little doubt that, in after years, even when
viewed through the rose-colored spectacles of school
text-book historians or the distorting, microscopic
lenses of memoir-writers, the events which happened on
the afternoon of James Tennant's interview with M.
Steynard will be included among the most epoch-mak-
ing in the history of France.
A sensation? Yes. Both a sensation and a mys-
tery. But not the sort which convulses the boulevards
for a sennight, causes the. foreign newspaper corre-
spondents to swell their expense columns of long-winded
messages to their home offices, perhaps even tumble a
none too steady ministry.
Rather a vision, to Tennant at least, of a brooding,
leering thing, born under the red glare of Mars, rising
beyond the eastern marches, with open maw and lolling
tongue, reaching with slimy, crooked, yellow fingers
into the throbbing heart of France, and all the world,
France herself included, looking on, stupid and purblind
and unable, unwilling, afraid to grasp facts.
It started early in the afternoon during the secret
session of the Chamber of Deputies—that body which
is the soul of French politics; a strange soul, alternat-
ing its moods of frenzied agitation over small, con-
147


148
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
temptible details of administration with moods of friv-
olous nonchalance during moments of gravest national
significance.
It was so that afternoon, late in January, 1914.
The minister of war, General the Marquis de Picard-
Falliget, a short, stout man with white mustache and
imperial, a splendid soldier who had acquitted himself
well during the débâcle of 1870 and afterwards in the
colonies, had been speaking for half an hour. He had
let himself go, for the reporters' benches were empty.
This was a secret discussion.
Mordant and abrupt, fiery and romantic, yet sen-
sible, truthful, having his facts at his fingers' ends and
marshaling his arguments as he would drill a squadron
of cavalry, he had been trying to explain to the depu-
ties, the chosen of the nation, that something had to be
done to stem the avalanche on the eastern frontier be-
fore it swept over the fair fields of France.
“It is simply a question of mathematics !” he kept re-
peating, agitating his short, muscular arms. “They
are twice our number; they are steadily growing; they
are ruthless and merciless—and famished for blood
and boodle! They believe in the right of might, the
right of the mailed fist, the right of the bigger cannon,
the more murderous explosive!
“Theirs is an armed land of modern civilization,
strong in the possession of knowledge, of scientific ap-
pliances, of an army organized till it will move on any
enemy at the word of command like an intelligent ma-
chine. They see that we are rich and not as strong as
they. We French do not want war. We do not even
want revenge for Alsace-Lorraine. We want only
peace.
ces, of an possession of knopf modern civili


150
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
enfrockeople
broke 109 Europe charac heads hers.
Then a babel of voices, an ocean of sound, rising
and falling, with now and then a word stabbing free,
giving the general tenor of the remarks:
“Jarvet ”
“Murderers”
“Dirty animals"
"Spy"
“Traitor-»
“Jew ”
“Unfrocked priestº
“Freemason”
—and the cyclone broke loose.
The most logical people in Europe they whom their
caustic countryman, Voltaire, has characterized as
"half tiger and half monkey”-lost their heads and
their self-respect, not to mention the respect for others.
Every face was pale or flushed, convulsed with excite-
ment or distorted with passion and hatred.
Voices were raised in shrieks and shouts and savage
bellows. Deputies hammered their desks and shook
furious fists in each other's faces. A dozen duels were
arranged on the spur of the moment. Sarcasms and
insults flew back and forth. Fierce invectives were
hurled from the right to the left benches, and vice versa;
and M. Brouin, the Internationalist deputy for the De-
partment of the Marne, had been on his feet several
minutes, gesticulating, perspiring, purple-faced, trying
to slash through the avalanche of sounds, before the
speaker of the chamber finally succeeded in restoring
comparative quiet.
"Gentlemen! Gentlemen! I implore you !” Down
came the gavel. Then, with biting irony: “This is
supposed to be a secret session, gentlemen; and I am


THUNDER
151
sure your arguments can be heard as far as the German
embassy!"
A ripple of laughter-good humor once more su-
preme silence-expectant craning of necks--and
Brouin bowed to the speaker, then turned to the min-
ister for foreign affairs who had sat down by the side
of the minister of war and was whispering earnestly to
the latter.
Brouin was a tall, lean man, clean shaven and with
leonine locks. He was a marvelous wielder of words
and phrases who could scale the whole gamut of elo-
quence, passion, sarcasm, and invective, but to-day his
voice was simple and low.
“Mr. Speaker and gentlemen,” he said, “I wish to
interpellate the government in regard to an article
which appeared to-day in the Etoile, an article written
by M. Steynard.”
“The government has nothing to do with newspa-
pers,” came the minister's supple, sagacious reply; to
be picked up at once by Brouin who shouted amidst a
storm of applause from the Internationalist benches :
“What about the capitalistic, militaristic sheets
which the government subsidizes with money stolen
from the pockets of the poor?”
“Order! Order !” boomed the speaker; but the min-
ister was noways ruffled. He smiled into his handsome,
square-cut, black beard, and he had good reason for
smiling.
For, half an hour ago, he had been closeted with Lan-
taigne, and the latter had told him Tennant's observa-
tions and deductions with regard to the article in the
Etoile.
“The American is right," Lantaigne had concluded.
which the about them the Interno shouted amid; to


152
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
“The Internationalists are trying to stage a gigantic
bluff. Steynard has no dangerous knowledge which
can be harmful to the government. You'll be able to
handle the gentry.”
“Yes,” the minister had replied, “I'll handle them all
right.”
And now he turned straight to Brouin, wagging his
black beard at him mockingly.
“What exactly is the question of monsieur the deputy
for the department of the Marne?” he asked.
“This! What have you to reply to M. Steynard's
accusation?” and he pulled the newspaper from his
pocket and read aloud:
“Let us hope that the bloodhounds of the government will not
consider it necessary to murder me as they murdered Jarvet.
Jarvet had dangerous knowledge. So have I.”
"Your answer, monsieur!” continued Brouin. “What
is your answer? The answer of your capitalistic gov-
ernment? Your government assassinated Anatole Jar-
vet, the friend of the common people; it stole his pa-
pers; it—"
.
“Order! Order!" thundered the speaker, livid with
rage, and thudded the desk with his gavel.
But Brouin went on unheeding, shouting his defiance
against all “capitalistic, autocratic authority," agitat-
ing his long, lean arms and shaking his leonine locks.
“Yes! They murdered Jarvet! They rifled his safe
and stole his papers; and now”—he waved the copy of
the Etoile~“will they murder Steynard, too, the man
who has dangerous knowledge? Will they rifle Stey-
nard's safe and steal his papers? I demand an answer,
monsieur!”


THUNDER
155
As he passed it he saw the great carved bronze doors
opening as under pressure from within. A mob of ex-
cited legislators precipitated itself into the street, run-
ning hither and thither like a flock of sheep dispersed
by a thunderbolt, their dignified republican frock-coats
waving in the low breeze like cavalry flags, high hats
clapped on at perilous angles, shoulders heaving, hands
gesticulating.
They balled themselves into knots and talked, rau-
cously, agitatedly. “As at the eve of war,” the dull,
hateful thought struck Tennant as he shot the car
southeast, to boom a minute later across the bridge.
Straight up the Faubourg Poissonière he steered his
steely, smoking car, bumping over the sharp cobbles of
the Montmartre streets, giving no heed to the vicious
musketry-pop of a punctured tire, shooting along on a
flat wheel, and jerking down the brake in front of Raoul
Steynard's house. It lay peaceful, as if holy, in the
deep, purple-blotched shadow of the Sacré Cour.
Very quiet it lay. Just a soft zumming of voices
from an upper window. Police officials, doubtless. No
crowds here of cursing, threatening apaches as there
had been that other time in the Rue Férou, when Jarvet
had been murdered. Just a few bearded, velvet-hatted
artists drawn from their hill studios to find out the
cause of the platoon of gendarmes who had tramped up
at the first news of the murder, given by a young Figaro
reporter who had called on the editor to interview him
about international politics.
The reporter was there now, not far from the garden
gate, talking earnestly to Police Captain Xavier Roux,
undoubtedly telling his tale for the tenth time and em-
broidering fresh details with each telling.
Steynard, and jer puncturiving ne the share ste


156
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
“Yes, yes,” said the captain, bored but polite, since
he knew that, with the first murder as yet unsolved, it
would not do to antagonize the power which is mightier
than the sword-at times.
Then he saw Tennant.
“Thank God!” he cried, and ran to meet him. He
shook the American's hand effusively. His words
gushed.
“Thank God!” he repeated, and then again: “Thank
God you came, monsieur!”
This was not the overbearing, jealous official who
had tried to match his wits against Tennant's at the
time of the Jarvet investigation. Changed he was-
for the better, thought Tennant; less cocksure, less like
a brass-buttoned, blue-coated police divinity on wheels.
The American smiled when he heard the other's implor-
ing, unnerved whisper:
“We need you, M. Tennant! Bon sang, but we need
you !"
vicious with another in jaitbout Muleht, smili
"You bet you need me,” came Tennant's dry reply,
and he added as an afterthought, smiling grimly:
“Well, my friend, what about Mlle. Angele Lantaigne?
Did you clap her in jail again? Did you credit her
score with another murder? Did she again bring that
vicious hatpin of hers into play?”
“Please, please, M. Tennant !” exclaimed Captain
Roux, embarrassed, contrite; and at once the Amer-
ican, who was good-natured at bottom and hated to
hurt people's feelings, was sorry that he had given
way to the temptation of trying to "rub it in."
“Never mind, old man,” he said, “just my wretched
sense of humor,” and he took the other by the arm and
hurried by his side across the garden.


THUNDER
157
He had nearly reached the house when a cry, rather
a shrill, venomous hiss as of a cornered snake ready
to strike, brought him up standing.
“Ah!" There was a vibrating, sibilant, guttural gur-
gle at the tail end of it, followed by a string of rapid
French words—halting, choked, broken, as if uttered
by a lacerated throat, but supremely clear in their
meaning; viciously clear:
“You”—here an unmentionable epithet—"you fixed
it! You”-a few more epithets, winding up with: “You
dirty agent provocateur!”—this being French for a
sort of political stool-pigeon who joins a group of crim-
inals as one of their number, incites them to commit
crime, and then arrests them for that very same crime.
“You are at the bottom of this !”
It was Raoul Steynard's servant speaking.
He had come from behind a little out-house, and he
stood square in the path of the two men, his ancient,
leathery features convulsed into a Medusalike grimace
of hatred, his bleary eyes shooting fire, his withered
hands clawing the air, as if eager to stretch out and
grip Tennant's throat and cling to it, squeezing, hurt-
ing, killing.
“Come along! Don't mind the old fool! His mas-
ter's death loosened a screw in his skull,” said Xavier
Roux, brushing the man to one side with a back-sweep
of his brawny fist.
But Tennant'stood still. He looked at the quivering
bundle of nerves. He felt rather sorry.
“What is biting you?” he inquired. “You don't
mean to say that it was I who murdered M. Steynard?”
And then, instinctively, involuntarily, he jumped a
step back. For the other's reply, squirted out through


158
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
half-closed lips, struck him with an almost physical
shock.
“Yes! You did; you so-and-so. You—you arranged
it! You were the last to see the master, to speak to
him! You persuaded him into something! I know!
He went out to get the money! Blood-money, you
Judas! You—you—I did not trust you at the time! I
did not want to let you in; you, with your talk about
maps of Indo-China—"
“Sst! Sst! Don't lose your head!" a third voice
chimed in.
The speaker had come from somewhere in the garden.
Tennant had neither heard nor seen him approach. He
was short, fair, blue-eyed, rosy-faced, rather pompous.
Whispering, entreating, he pulled the old man away,
while Tennant, shrugging his shoulders, followed the
police captain into the house,
There he stopped for a moment, undecided. He won-
dered who the stranger was? Seemed to be familiar
with the house; perhaps a relative of the old seryant.
But his voice, his accent?
He had never seen the man before. Yet he was sure
that he remembered the voice. Quite sure. There was
a certain quality to it.
He shook his head, puzzled.
Then he dismissed the thought. No use bothering
about it just now. It was up to him to concentrate
all his mental faculties on the Steynard murder.
Roux led him up-stairs into the room which he had
seen before, with its splendid furniture, its priceless
collection of curios. The dead man was huddled in a
chair, not far from the window which gave on the basil-
ica of the Sacré Coeur, with a certain dreadful dra-


160
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
“When was that, do you think?"
Tennant turned to Xavier Roux.
“When did that young Figaro cub discover the
body?”
“At six.”
"All right. Let's see.” He puzzled. “Oh, yes, 1
have it. Raoul Steynard was a very busy man, away
up in politics. He must have used the telephone à
whole lot.”
He took the receiver from the hook and talked to
central. A minute later he told the others the result.
“The Etoile office called up Steynard at half past
five and talked to him. Called up again ten minutes
later. They kept on ringing for over ten minutes, but
got no answer.”
“Yes," interrupted Roux, “the old servant was gone
nearly the whole afternoon. Steynard was alone in
the house.”
“All right, Doumay," Tennant continued, "you ask
around the neighborhood if they saw anybody enter
the house between twenty minutes of six and nearly
six.”
“Couldn't tell me what the man who entered looked
like?” asked Doumay, half-maliciously; and he was
amazed and correspondingly chastened when Tennant
said in a matter-of-fact way:
“Sure-thin; emaciated; very pale complexion;
limped; dressed in loose overcoat, very loose around the
hips; and a floppy sort of felt hat.”
“But,” cut in Xavier Roux, disturbed, “the loose
coat and the floppy felt hat! Why, it is like the sil-
houette which Anne Houlbrecque saw through the win-


THUNDER
161
dow of the Jarvet library when she came through the
garden the afternoon of the murder! It is like"
“You're on, old fellow," replied Tennant, with a dry
chuckle. “Just like Mlle. Angele Lantaigne. Only,”
he laughed, “the party I'm asking Doumay to look for
I is wearing trousers.”
He continued while Doumay left the room:
“I warn you, Roux, Mlle. Lantaigne has as good
an alibi for to-day as she had for that other day.
Perhaps even better. For this afternoon she was at
rehearsal. The whole company of the Théâtre Alex-
andre will swear to that. I wouldn't arrest her if I
were you,” he wound up with a wink.
“M. Tennant! Please, please" Captain Roux
stammered and blushed.
Then he gave a ready excuse that he would have to
go down-stairs to look after things.
“The reporters will be all over the house like rats,"
he said. “They will interfere with your so brilliant
work, monsieur!”
The truth was that it made him feel embarrassed
and self-conscious to be in the same room with James
Tennant for any length of time. The latter had called
him a fool at the time of the Jarvet investigation, and
the police captain, seeing the extraordinary similarity
between the Jarvet and the Steynard murders, convinced
that both had been committed by the same agency,
convinced furthermore that since Angele Lantaigne was
evidently innocent of the second murder she must by
plain logical deduction be innocent of the first, was
beginning to suspect that the American might have
been justified in calling him names.


162 THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
“Yes," he said from the door, “I shall go down-
stairs, unless you mind.”
• “Sure,” Tennant replied. “Hop along. I have got
to sniff about a bit here, and I would prefer to be
alone. You know,” he added with a grin, “a chap
like myself who doesn't go in for the regular blood-
hound police clews but prefers to work through psy-
chology—”
Roux did not wait to hear the rest of the sentence.
Pink to his very ears, he was out of the door and closed
it behind him, while Tennant turned to the safe.
It gaped wide open, rifled.
“Robbery!" was Tennant's instinctive mental com-
ment as he saw a torn hundred-franc banknote sticking
to one of the wire drawers. He was confirmed in his
thought when he noticed that a little box in the back
of the safe marked “Family heirlooms belonging to
Raoul Steynard” in the late editor's cramped, pedantic
handwriting, had been forced open and emptied.
But was robbery the motive for the murder, or only
the cloak-the stall?
Tennant shook his head as he bent over a heap of
papers which, pulled from the safe in evident hurry,
was in front of it.
He picked them up and examined them one by one.
They were curious and interesting and dangerous.
Dangerous to the republic, the established authority of
France, so long as they had been in the safe of such
a one as Raoul Steynard. Dangerous to the latter's
confederates and henchmen with the safe gaping open
and Tennant's hands rustling the sheets, Tennant's
eyes scanning the contents—Tennant, who loved France
next to his native land.


THUNDER
163
The murderer had undoubtedly looked them over.
For there were pages belonging to one document mixed
up with those of another. Too, a few of them were
marked and torn with that same telltale semicircular
pattern of cuts or scratches which the American had
seen on Anatole Jarvet's safe and library-table and
hands, and on the column which supported the mantel-
piece in this very room.
But-
Tennant shook his head and pondered.
He asked himself why the deuce the assassin had not
taken these papers along since evidently he had thought
it worth while to look through them; had wasted pre-
cious minutes in doing what an ordinary murderer,
bent on loot and a quick getaway, would hardly have
done.
On the other hand, the murderer would most certainly
have pocketed the documents if he had been connected
with the French government, if by any chance the In-
ternationalist press and deputies had guessed right and
Anatole Jarvet-and therefore Raoul Steynard-had
really been killed by orders of the chief of the
secret political police and for the weal of the common-
wealth.
For some of the documents were priceless, politically
speaking.
There was, for instance, a list of the subscribers to
the general fund of the Internationalist Party, another
was a list of the patriotic and red-blooded gentry who
supported the Peace-at-All-Costs League, and papers
dealing with similar associations. Nor were the latter
all French. Nearly every country in the world was
represented: England, Italy, Holland, Switzerland,


164
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
even the United States of America. Only Germany was
absent.
Peace at all costs !
A bully, thoroughly human slogan-on the face of
it. But, James Tennant thought, why, being so human
and noble and entirely worth while, did it have to hide
its head, as if ashamed, in the safe of a venal Alsatian
politician? Why had the movement been supported
by Jarvet, the man who blackmailed women profes-
sionally, by the other man who lay there crumpled up in
his chair, dead, his glassy eyes staring at the magnifi-
cent, carved, stuccoed ceiling; the ceiling paid for with
whose money?
Peace at all costs!
But what costs? And who would foot the bill for
those self-same costs? A weak nation, or a strong?
Tennant slipped the documents in his pocket for
future use. Perhaps, he thought, Lantaigne might be
glad to get them.
Suddenly he chuckled grimly.
For the very last paper of the lot was the forged
map of Indo-China which he had given to Steynard
in exchange for five hundred thousand dollars—coun-
terfeit, as they turned out to be. A tragic fate seemed
to be connected with this map: the murder of Jarvet,
the attempt against his own life and subsequent death
of Bibi le Farceur, the arrest of Angele Lantaigne;
now the murder of Raoul Steynard. Somehow, it was
all interwoven with this map whose original, with the
legend: “Verlag von Velhagen & Klasing, Bielefeld
und Leipzig," was tucked away in his own safe.
He looked at the forged map with a speculative eye
at the tiny red crosses marking a town here and there,
at the cooked at as tucke elhagen


THUNDER
165
at the thin red lines accentuating rivers and val-
leys, at the whole meaningless maze of black and
red.
Meaningless to himself! But, perhaps, fraught with
meaning, portentous, gigantic, disastrous, dark-smol-
dering—to whom?
He remembered the strange message which the late
M. Jarvet had given to Angele Lantaigne: “I will give
you back your letters if you persuade Lord Menzies-
Kerr to help me with Indo-China !"
He remembered that Lord Menzies-Kerr had been in
the interior of that same colony not so long ago, and
that he had returned thence a changed man, pale, limp-
ing, taciturn, grim, and a slave to the juice of the
poppy.
He remembered, too, that this map of Indo-China
though it was—seemed to have a different meaning, a
different significance.
He remembered the butcher, Guillaume Nordeg, he
who did not have to sell sausages and tripe for a living,
whose voice, slightly guttural, had risen above the tu-
mult in the cry: "Down with the army!”—whom An-
gele Lantaigne had seen bending over this very map
together with Anatole Jarvet.
He weighed the map in his hand. It seemed heavy,
with a .leaden, untold, intolerable secret; and he was
about to slip it in his pocket with the other papers when
a voice startled him:
“M. Tennant! Give me that map!”
He turned.
The speaker was the man who, twenty minutes earlier,
had come from behind the little out-house in the garden
and had pulled Steynard's old servant away.


166
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
There he stood in the open doorway, rosy-skinned,
plump, clean, a little pompous.
He closed the door and advanced toward the Amer-
ican with outstretched hand.
“Please, monsieur!” he repeated, and there was that
in his voice-steely, inexorable, slightly sarcastic-
which gave the lie to his civil “please.”


CHAPTER XI
GUILLAUME NORDEG
THE man was magnificently at his ease. He was com-
placent; he was even phlegmatic.
A smile twinkled in his round, china-blue eyes and
was reflected on his full, cherry lips. The small, well-
kept, honey-colored mustache seemed to continue it in
the direction of his cheeks, which were firm and red
like winter apples. His sack suit of serviceable, pin-
stripe worsted and his overcoat were of the most simple
cut. Only the stick-pin in his navy-blue tie seemed out
of place to Tennant. A garish imitation would have
gone with the unassuming costume; also, given the fact
that Frenchmen of the lower middle classes often invest
their savings thus, in a fair-sized diamond. But the
American's sharp eyes saw that the stick-pin was a
cameo, a coral cameo shading from deep rose to the
most delicate blushing pink and marvelously cut and
chiseled; the sort of thing which is handed down as an
heirloom in families old enough to appreciate the really
beautiful.
To the glance of a casual observer the man seemed
to exude good-nature and a certain stolid, hearty, en-
tire likable harmlessness.
All except his chin; and Tennant, who during his
college years had done his share of sparring and foot-
work in the squared circle, observed this chin with the
their savings thus the lower middle class given the fact
chiscio delicate 2 cameo sisay that I diamondoften investe
167


168
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
same, instantaneous rapidly-registering interest with
which he had looked at the stick-pin. It was the chin
of a fighter; not a fighter who fights for the zest and
sport of it, carefully observing the rules and etiquette
of the game; but of a ruthless fighter who fights to win,
so as to grip and hold what he might get through win-
ning. It was the chin of a man who does things for the
sole reason that he himself considers they should be
done, regardless of other people's rights and interests
and feelings. It was an interesting face, and a danger-
ous one.
Tennant saw all this in much less time than it takes
to tell it, and with Machiavellian precision he decided
on his conduct. He felt sure that the other man had
come here ready and armed to handle truculence or
violence or plain bluff.
So it was up to him to play the embarrassed, the dis-
turbed, the slightly frightened. He caused his hands
to tremble, his eyelids to flutter, and his voice to sharpen
into a high, querulous key as he faced the intruder and
asked him how he had got in here, what the deuce he
wanted, and, with a seemingly deliberate effort to con-
trol his nervousness and fear, to clear out of here un-
less he wanted to be kicked out.
The stratagem succeeded completely. For the other,
who after his first sardonically civil words had seemed
ready to reiterate his demand rather more brusquely,
rapidly winked his round, china-blue eyes in a manner
curiously blending relief, surprise, and a certain meas-
ure of contempt, which was justified enough consider-
ing the way in which Tennant stood facing him: gawk-
ish and nervous, but, had the stranger known it, in-
bently watching and waiting.


GUILLAUME NORDEG
169
“Don't get nervous, M. Tennant,” he said patroniz-
ingly, advancing a few steps farther into the room
until he was by the American's side. “Just do what
you are told to. Hand over that map like a little man,
and no harm will come to you;" and when Tennant,
thinking it unwise to overplay his hand, changed his
timid manner into something approaching bluff manli-
ness, saying he'd be damned if he would do any such
thing, but saying it with a skilfully manipulated quaver,
the stranger raised his voice slightly and advised him
not to make a silly fool of himself.
“I saw the map as I came in-no, no!" putting a
pudgy hand on Tennant, who made believe that he was
about to slip the map into his pocket. "Lucky, too, I
call it! They told me down-stairs I was wanted up
here; but I had no idea I would play in such luck.”
Tennant wondered who the “they” might be who had
sent up the stranger, finally deciding it must have been
Captain Xavier Roux.
“But>" he began.
“Don't say a word,” the other cut in. “I know when
I have a man where I want him. You are nervous now
-and I'll make you more nervous before I am through
with you, you confounded, meddlesome Yankee !" He
had said the last words in English, with hardly a trace
of a foreign accent, but continued in French, suave once
more: “Hand over that map and save your skin!”
Again Tennant decided that it was his cue to play
the coyly, timid.
“Hand over the map?” he stammered. “S-sa-save
my skin? Whatever do you mean?”
The other showed a flash of big, white teeth in a
mirthless smile.
O: "Hand cent, but continglish, with Yankee ! Tough
ther shower do you meaninméred. “S-sa.


170
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
"Just this, monsieur. I have got your number. You
were willing to sell out for five hundred thousand dol-
lars. Now you are trying to double-cross_»
“Whom?” asked Tennant with beautiful innocence;
but the man did not fall into the trap.
“U!!” he said. “The power beyond; the man higher
up, to use an old adage. And I repeat: first you took
the graft, and now you are trying to steal the map back
again. It isn't honest, and”—he stuck his square chin
forward so that the neck muscles bunched and tautened
under the strain—“it isn't safe, my boy!”
“Why isn't it safe?"
The other did not reply to the direct question by a
direct answer. He murmured something about ingenu-
ous fools and asked: “Going to hand over that map
peacefully, without fuss or fight?”
“No! I am not! Why in Hades should I?” ex-
claimed Tennant, blending petulance and fear.
“All right. Then you'll pay!”
“How ?”
“By going to jail as—"
“What?"
The other waved a triumphant hand.
“As the murderer of M. Raoul Steynard !” he pro-
claimed, and, seeing the expression of bewilderment on
Tennant's face-honest bewilderment this time he ex-
plained: “You still have that five hundred thousand
dollars, haven't you? All right,” as Tennant inclined
his head, “I don't mind telling you those greenbacks
were marked!"
“Forged, too,” commented Tennant to himself, while
the man went on: “They can be traced straight back


GUILLAUME NORDEG
171
k and pocketed the door, whes and the ad-
from you to M. Raoul Steynard's safe. Don't you
see?”
“Yes. I see. You'll try and prove that I murdered
him, robbed him ”
"Exactly, monsieur—unless you give up that map!"
Tennant squeezed out a deeply pathetic sigh of
weary, dispirited surrender to the inevitable—which he
had a hard time to keep from degenerating into a
healthy American laugh.
“Here you are,” he said, handing over the map, which
the other took and pocketed with alacrity.
The man walked rapidly to the door, where he turned.
with a final ironic “Thank you, monsieur!” and the ad-
vice: “I know five hundred thousand dollars is a whole
lot of money. But take my tip—destroy it—it's
marked!" And he left the room.
Tennant smiled. He admired astuteness in friend
and foe, and he said to himself that the other had played
his cards very well indeed. Chiefly that last bit of ad-
vice about destroying the money! For the man, while
believing that Tennant had not yet discovered that it
was counterfeit, must have known that this would be
discovered by the first bank to which it would be ten-
dered, and had thus, under the guise of good-natured
advice, destroyed badly incriminating evidence against
his confederates, the people he worked for, and him-
self.
Yes. A clever man, this rosy-skinned stranger with
the truculent chin and the beautiful cameo stick-pin
and-yes—the voice like
Like what?
Tennant sat down and cupped his chin in his hands.


172
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
He pondered. Where had he heard that voice? Finally
he rose, walked to the door and opened it.
“Doumay !” he called. “Oh, Doumay !"
“Yes, M. Tennant?” came the subagent's voice from
below stairs.
“Ask Captain Xavier Roux if he sent up the man
who was here a while ago; and why he sent him!”
“Eh-pardon, monsieur?”
Tennant repeated his question, and the subagent
gave an exclamation of surprise and amazement.
“Wait, monsieur!” he cried. “Wait!” He rushed
up the stairs two steps at a time and confronted his
superior. “Monsieur,” he said, "it was I who sent
him!”
“You?”
“Assuredly! You asked me to, yourself!”
“What? I did? Say, am I crazy, or are you?”
“But, monsieur, monsieur! Don't you remember?
You told me to work carefully! You told me not to
have him catch on, suspect! Eh bien, I see him in the
garden, together with Steynard's decrepit servant. By
stratagem of the most skillful I succeed in whisking the
old servant away. Five minutes later I approach the
other. I tell him that the servant is up-stairs in the
library and wants to speak to him. He goes up-ah!”
-with a triumphant, dramatic flourish—“he finds you,
monsieur!”
“But who the devil is he?"
“The man you were so anxious to find! The butcher
of the Rue Férou! Guillaume Nordeg!”
“Oh, my sainted grand-aunt Euphrosyne !” ex-
claimed Tennant, giving his left leg a vicious kick with
u were so aume Nordes phrosyne!" with
a Guichand-aft leg a
claimers my Saint Guillaume ws to find ! ,


GUILLAUME NORDEG
173
Sarden, and jumhe door, down artre at suicidas speed-
his right. “Of all the fools! I myself-gad! I recog-
nized the man's voice, and I didn't have enough gray
matter tom”
He rushed to the window.
“There he goes-our Alsatian butcher!” he cried,
pointing at a low, rakish motor-car which was speed-
ing down the slopes of Montmartre at suicidal speed;
and he ran to the door, down the stairs, through the
garden, and jumped into his own car.
He whirred away in pursuit.
The roadster gripped the pavement. Momentarily
it seemed to pause, to quiver, as if taking in a great
lungful of breath, and a deep, expectant whine rose
from its steely intestines. Then it plunged forward en-
thusiastically, like a sentient being, making nought of
the grimy, sticky, slushy snow-puddles; and James Ten-
nant, who belonged to that new generation which is as
keen to the individuality, personality, and idiosyncrasies
of machinery as the older generation had been to horse-
flesh, rode the steering-wheel as he had never done be-
fore.
Up in front, like an evil, mocking sprite, jumped
and slid and bounced Guillaume Nordeg's car: a low,
rakish, torpedo-shaped affair, as typically French as a
Paquin gown, elegant in every line, and as speedy as a
racer. It was dove-gray with a coquettish crimson
stripe.
He increased the speed of his own car, sucking every
ounce of strength and energy from gasoline and forged
steel and rubber. He followed, straight, right, left,
doubling, doubling again; caught here in a crush of
lumbering trucks; stopped there, fuming, swearing, im-


GUILLAUME NORDEG
175
car along the pavement by sheer strength of muscle
and tendon; speeding again as the other pushed into a
broad thoroughfare that ran to the north.
But, try as he might, Tennant could not gain a yard.
He imagined that there was a jeering, sardonic note in
the tooting of the other man's Klaxton.
But he would not give up. He kept the car on the
road, following Nordeg's machine which turned east,
then north, then east again through a stony, packed
wilderness of tenement-houses, their roof-tops melting
into the snow-mist that was drifting down with gray
veils.
Pursued and pursuer cut through the ring of outer
boulevards which tops the old fortifications and de-
scended into the lean valley where suburbia begins with
chicken-coops and home-made garages and scraggly,
miserable vegetable-gardens now buried in snow; past
a pan-handle wedge of fields waiting for land specula-
tor and surveyor and contractor; past more vegetable-
gardens under their winter coating of straw and
spotted, odorous manure out into the open country,
while the starless night dropped down with a sable
cloak.
Still on, the ruby tail-lights of Nordeg's car glim-
mering ahead like a guerdon which he must reach; flash-
ing along at undiminished speed with both motor-horns
tooting continuously.
Then, very suddenly, the chase came to an end.
It was just as Nordeg, followed the next minute by
Tennant, had swung around a corner at a terrific pace,
that a great, gaunt stone house jutted into the focus,
directly out of the night, like a ship on the banks boom-
ing from the fog astride the path of another ship.


176
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
bank åt right anglmanaged to across the g-wheel as it
There was no time to pull up. Too, around the corner,
the road had narrowed to a deep, banked cleft, too nar-
row to allow a keen, free curve.
Tennant had a fleeting impression of the car ahead
trembling momentarily, like an animal in fright, and
of a human figure catapulting from the car, shooting
through the air, landing, and
The very next instant his own headlight flashed yel-
low across the gray, threatening wall of the house.
“My God!"
He gasped. He bent over the steering-wheel as if
trying to lift the car bodily across the stony obstacle
and, somehow, he managed to swing the curve, at more
than a right angle, it seemed-and flew up the steep
bank at the side of the narrow road.
First he had the sensation of passing over it, flying
over it, rather, on creaking, protesting wings of steel,
when, within an inch of the top of the embankment, the
car came to a stop. It seemed to hang, to swing in
mid air—for an eternity.
Then it fell, turning sideways. Tennant jumped at
the same moment, and even as he lost consciousness, he
saw his car describe a fantastic somersault, smash back
on the road, bounce, then smash again up-side down;
he heard the crunching of tortured steel, of twisted
wheels, of maimed, crushed tubes, the wicked hiss and
pop of flames-
Something black crashed into his brain, melting
at once into a flood of red color with broad, inter-
lacing veins that seemed to jeer and wink at him mali-
ciously.
He felt a sickening jar—a tremendous, intolerable
pain-then oblivion. For how long he did not know.


GUILLAUME NORDEG
1717
Meaningless dreams enveloped him, whirled through
him.
It seemed centuries later that he felt something touch-
ing his forehead. Still in a daze, he reached up and
touched a hand, cool, soft, soothing.
Then a low, throbbing voice startled him into full
consciousness:
“Thank God! He is coming to !" It was a throaty
sound, suspiciously like a woman's sob.
Tennant sat up and saw Angele Lantaigne bending
over him, her left arm slipped around his shoulder, sup-
porting him.
His head ached terribly, but he seemed to have no
serious injuries, just a scratch and a bruise here and
there. But his thoughts were still in a whirl.
Something had happened to his motor-car. He re-
membered that much. But there it stood
No! That wasn't his car. He recognized it. It
was Lord Menzies-Kerr's heavy Rolls-Royce, and the
next moment he became aware of the Scotchman stand-
ing just behind the girl, and heard his rough, kindly
voice:
“That's all right, old chap. Don't worry. You'll
be as right as rain as soon as I get you back to Paris
and shoot about three fingers of smoky heather-dew
into your system.”
“But how ” stammered Tennant, and the other con-
tinued, telling him he had persuaded Mlle. Angele to
come for a spin with him after rehearsal, as there was
not going to be an evening performance that night.
“And we found you," he continued. “Very nearly
bumped into your wreckage. Did break your roadster
into kindling, didn't you?” and he pointed where, in
fingers opet you barry. Yo


178
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
the light of the moon which was just breaking through
the drifting snow clouds, the light American car lay on
its back, two of its wheels smashed into junk, the other
two waving helplessly in the air.
“But the other car?” asked Tennant, suddenly re-
membering everything.
“I looked it over while Mlle. Angele played the good
Samaritan. It crashed straight into the empty house.”
“But Nordeg; the man who drove it?"
“Disappeared into thin air.”
“Perhaps he is underneath the car."
“No. I looked.”
“Wait; I must convince myself.” Tennant stag-
gered to his feet in spite of Angele's protest and walked
over to the twisted, broken mass which had once been
the Alsatian's coquettish car. But there was no sign
of Nordeg in or below it. Just a few footsteps, marked
with blood, disappearing in the direction of a neigh-
boring field. He followed them for about a hundred
yards, to a crossroad.
There they came abruptly to a stop, by the side of
a deep-sunk groove made evidently by the wheels of a
motor-car.
“Wounded. But got away!" commented Tennant.
“Must have met an automobile, stopped it, and got a
ride back to town.”
He returned to the scene of the disaster.
“All right. Let's go back," he said, every nerve in
his body aching. Menzies-Kerr helped him into the
tonneau, where Angele had already taken her seat, while
he himself slouched behind the driver's wheel and turned
the big machine back on the Paris road.
James Oliver Tennant was a typical American. Thus
the himself schine backant was a t


GUILLAUME NORDEG
179
he believed in success. He believed in the principle of
success, the very decency of success as a cause in itself.
Idealistic, with that odd, constructive idealism of the
new world, he saw in success something closely akin to
spiritual beauty, and so, when failure came to him, as
at times it does to every man, he accepted it standing,
hard and grim, determined to try again, nor to leave
off trying until he had succeeded; and he stared straight
ahead, at the Scotchman's fur-clad back, gritting his
teeth, clenching his fists, silent.
"M. Tennant?” a soft voice called him from his
reverie.
“Yes-oh-mademoiselle! I beg your pardon." He
sat up, looking at the lithe figure beside him.
“You are" she commenced. But her voice quav-
ered, and she continued timidly: “You are unhappy,
monsieur?”
“Unhappy? I? What makes you think so?”
“You are so silent.”
Tennant gave a low laugh.
“No, Mlle. Angele," he replied, “I am not unhappy.
I am happy! I am buoyant! And I'll tell you why.”
He was going to tell her his reasons, as he had seen
them a moment before: that he had failed-yes—but
that he had determined to try again and again and
again; that he had made up his mind to succeed against
all odds. But, curiously, the words refused to come.
Curiously, the very thought of them faded. Afterwards
he could never explain how and why he did it. He just
knew he had to do it because something very big and
sweet and glorious was driving him. Suddenly he
turned to her and took her hand.
“Mlle. Angele! Angele!” His words came with a
agele, took his drivi


180
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
surging, breathless rush. “I am happy because you
are next to me! Because I can look into your dear eyes!
Because-"
She put her free hand on his arm.
“Please! Please, M. Tennant; you mustn't–»
"Mustn't? Mustn't? Why”—with boyish zest_“I
don't know the word 'mustn't! On the contrary, I
must! I must tell you that 14"
“Don't say it !" came the girl's voice, very firm and
very sweet. After a short pause she added: “Don't
say it-yet!”
“Yet!” Tennant's mind snatched at the word as a
drowning man snatches at a straw.
“All right!” he replied. “I won't say it-yet! But
tell me. When may I say it?”
She answered without hesitating:
“When this terrible affair is cleared up. The Jar-
vet murder, and the Steynard murder. Not before.
Promise me.”
Tennant shook his head.
“No. I never give a promise which I know I won't
be able to keep. But I'll keep quiet as long as I can.
Still, what has our--my love—to do with Jarvet, with
Steynard, with the whole miserable affair?"
“Everything—as you'll find out," and she burst into
low sobs which cut straight to Tennant's heart.
He drew her to him, trying to.soothe her after the
clumsy manner of men.
“Don't you fret, darling,” he murmured. “Don't
say a word if you don't want to.”
"I can't,” she said between sobs. “I promised my
father.”
There was a long, hushed silence, accentuated by the


GUILLAUME NORDEG
181
angry chug and snort of the motor; and they had
nearly arrived at the outer boulevards when Angele
suddenly looked up and asked, womanlike, a smile break-
ing through her tears:
“When did you first find out that you loved me?”
Manlike, Tennant replied:
“There was never a time when I didn't, dear.”


CHAPTER XII
“WHEN I HAVE DISCOVERED-
woolly old heaclared at ever Europe isn't
SHAKEN up worse than he had imagined at first, it
was several days before Tennant could return to the
office to pick up the thread of the double mystery and
weave it into a pattern which all the world might read
and understand.
Lord Menzies-Kerr, having satisfied himself that his
friend was not seriously injured, had again disappeared
into the void, leaving no message. And so Tennant lay
on his couch, overlooking the Place Fontenoy, alter-
nately bullied and coddled by George W. Brown, who
shook his woolly old head when he brought his master's
meals on a tray and declared at every opportune and
inopportune moment that “this heah Europe isn't no
fit country fo’ South Cʻlina quality to live in—no, suh!"
And that he, for one, would die a happy negro if he
could only see once more the “Ol' Ha'd-Shell Baptist
Chu'ch jist behin' the Sea Boa'd Air Line's depot a
ways!" At times he would break into distinctly grue-
some African prophecies.
But Tennant did not pay much attention to him
beyond telling him to put a little less mint and a little
more julep into the mint-juleps. He did not mind his
enforced rest. For it gave him time and leisure to write
letters—foolish, tender letters, addressed to Angele
182


“WHEN I HAVE DISCOVERED—"
183
myself once. Ah likes de homen, do you, Geo
Lantaigne, which he dispatched, together with gorgeous
baskets of roses and orchids, by the plum-colored paws
of his servant.
The latter delivered them, protesting. And, protest-
ing, he brought back little, square, faintly scented en-
velopes.
For George W. Brown was a narrow-minded Amer-
ican jingo of the know-nothing school. He made the
eagle scream in and out of season.
“This heah lady,” he said icily, giving Tennant
a letter, “is a foreign lady, a Frenchwoman, Ah
reckon—"
Tennant laughed.
“Don't approve of Frenchwomen, do you, George?”
“No, suh! Ah likes de home-grown produc'! Ah
myself once had what yo' might call a little love wrastle
with a high yaller niggro wench from Jamaica, one of
dem foreigners, an?”
“All right. I am going to profit by your experience.
I'll see to it that this lady becomes an American-at
least by marriage--before the year is much older,"
smiled Tennant. “And now, hop along, George!” The
servant out of the room, he opened the letter, and read
and reread the contents.
Thus Tennant was not a very unhappy patient. Too,
he was cheered by the fact that the Paris newspapers,
with the exception of the Etoile and the rest of the In-
ternationalist group, declared unanimously that, given
the similarity of the clews in both the Jarvet and the
Steynard murders, they were convinced of Angele Lan-
taigne's innocence. The consequence was that when
the girl had appeared on the stage of the Théâtre Alex-
andre the evening following the second murder, the pub-


“WHEN I HAVE DISCOVERED”
185
But he liked the man, and would have been glad of at
least his moral support. More so than before. For
formerly the affair had simply been part of his job, his
chosen career. An interesting affair to be sure, but
part of his everyday detective work.
Now, since Angele Lantaigne had told him that she
would listen to his love declaration only after he had
cleared up the two murder mysteries, his interest had
become personal, vitally, overwhelmingly personal.
“How, then, do you explain the fact,” he asked
finally; "the absolute, iron-cast, steel-ribbed, nickel-
enforced fact that in both cases the clews were identical
-down to the very pattern of scratches?”
Ducastel shook his head.
“It is not my business to explain. It is your busi-
ness to find out who did commit the murders, at least
the Jarvet murder, since you are championing Mlle.
Lantaigne's innocence so enthusiastically—not to men-
tion the small detail that I pay you a phenomenal sal-
ary for just such work!” He continued, more gently:
"Listen to me, my boy. I know France better than
you do; France and French politics. I have lived
through more than one political scandal. Do you re-
member when M. Lantaigne did us the honor of calling
on us; when he asked us straight out to squash the Jar-
vet investigation, because it was for the good of the re-
public?”
“Yes. What about it?”
“Lantaigne himself owned up to it that the affair
was political, didn't he?"
"Political in its consequences, M. Ducastel. He did
not say that the cause, the murder itself, was political.”
The older man smiled. Here was a fine point in logic


186
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
3° And when Tenay that Lantaiad carefully
which delighted his Latin heart. But he was convinced
that he was right, and he wanted to convince the other.
Tennant,” he said, giving his words the emphasis of
a suddenly lowered voice, “what do you think were M.
Lantaigne's real reasons in coming to us?”
"He gave us his real reasons.”
Again Ducastel smiled.
“Babe in the woods!” he exclaimed. “Big, bouncing
Yankee babe in the mazes of a French, political wood!
Why, Lantaigne came to us to prepare us for the news
of the second murder: the murder of Steynard! Do
you understand now?”
And when Tennant only shook his head stubbornly,
he went on to say that Lantaigne, with the gigantic
secret powers at his command, had carefully and pur-
posely duplicated all the clews of the first murder in
the execution of the second, so as not only to obey the
orders given him by the government, but, by the same
token, to clear his daughter from whatever suspicion
there remained as to her connection with the Jarvet af-
fair.
“Why can't you see it?" he wound up petulantly.
“Because the real murderer might have reasoned ex-
actly the same way! He killed Jarvet for reasons of
his own, perhaps robbery, perhaps something entirely
different. I am not quite sure yet, chief. Get that
quite'? All right. He reads the papers, listens to
the gossip of the boulevards, follows the debate in the
Chamber of Deputies. He sees that all the world be-
lieves that Jarvet has been assassinated by orders of
the government.
“Then comes the article in the Etoile in which Stey-
nard throws a lot of bull about the dangerous docu-


“WHEN I HAVE DISCOVERED—"
187
ments in his possession and practically dares the gov-
ernment to have him assassinated. Very well. The
murderer—again for reasons of his own of which I
haven't the faintest idea-wants to get Steynard out of
the way. So he kills him out of hand, quite serene in
his belief that the press and the public will again accuse
the government—and the chief of the secret political
police of having caused the second murder, as they
did the first."
“Very neat, my boy. But what about the letter on
Jarvet's blotter in which Jarvet threatened the “gen-
tleman with the limp’?”
Tennant leaned forward in his chair.
“Chief,” he said, “I could produce the gentleman with
the limp-well, not exactly to-day nor to-morrow, but
within a reasonable time.”
“To be sure. Your friend, Lord Menzies-Kerr has a
limp."
“Wrong guess. It isn't Menzies-Kerr."
“Who is it?”
“I'll tell you when the time comes."
“When will that be, Tennant?”
“When I have discovered what secret sorrow there
is in M. Lantaigne's past life. When I have discov-
ered what cause there is for Menzies-Kerr's limp.
When I have discovered by what name the butcher Nor-
deg is known in his own country. When I have dis-
covered what help Jarvet expected from Menzies-Kerr
in the matter of Indo-China. When I have discovered
why the map of Indo-China was printed in Germany.
When I have discovered”—he lowered his voice—“what
relation there is between Indo-China and"
“The Internationalist Party?”


188
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
“No, monsieur! The fortifications of Paris !"
And regardless of Ducastel's sardonic comments that
all this was very interesting, very picturesque, very
mystifying; in fact, exactly like the words of a regular
detective of fiction, "at three francs a volume, mon petit,
bound in yellow paper, fifteen editions sold before
issue,” Tennant walked to the door.
“I am going to prove to you that I am right. And
you are going to thank me before the year is out! You,
monsieur, and "
“Who?"
“Your country! Your government! France !” and
he swung out of the office.
“Has Lord Menzies-Kerr come back?" Tennant asked
his servant when he had returned to his apartment over-
looking the Place Fontenoy.
“No, suh. But there was a gen'leman to see you,
suh.”
“Leave his name?”
“No, suh. Jist sed he reckoned as you was an all-
fi’ed rattlin' good detective and would you take up a
private case? I sed sure, if he came through with
enough spondoolix, and he sed it was a most impo’tant
case, and he'd have to confide some papers to your care,
and he asked had you a safe, a sure-enough safe, where
you could hide them heah impo’tant papers.”
Tennant smiled.
“Črude work!” he commented. “And I guess he
asked to have a look at the safe?”
A deep, crafty twinkle shone in George W. Brown's
eyes.
“Yes, suh! But”—he broke into junglelike cachin-


190
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
did
estigates Durin Ille iting the
heah ol-fashioned straight-edge blades! Fo’ social
pu'poses only! I reckon you knows the so’t!”
Tennant pondered for a while after the negro had
left the room. There was no shadow of doubt in his
mind that the mysterious visitor had made an attempt
to locate the safe for future information. The at-
tempt had been clumsy, thus proving that the man was
not a regular burglar. On the other hand, the very
fact that the man had come here especially to dis-
cover in what room the safe was, proved that he was
an energetic man who believed in quick work and did
not intend to waste even a minute in finding the steel
contraption when he returned to rifle it.
But who was the man? During the last few weeks,
Tennant had investigated and solved more than one
crime and mystery case. There was more than one
telltale document in his safe; and he could guess at
several people who would not be above an attempt to
rifle it.
Or-he shook his head-could it be Nordeg? Or one
of Nordeg's confederates? Perhaps they, whoever they
were, had already discovered that the map of Indo-
China which he had surrendered was a clever forgery
and were now after the genuine one.
It would be best to guard against all emergencies,
and so he opened his safe and took out the map. What
should he do with it?
Tear it up? Burn it?
No! Since it was valuable to Nordeg and Nordeg's
confederates, since it had been a prized possession of
Anatole Jarvet, and since by word of mouth and
printed word the late Raoul Steynard had owned up
shook his bates? Per that the


“WHEN I HAVE DISCOVERED”
191
that to him, too, it was most valuable-since, thus,
it was of vital importance to the enemies of the French
Republic, it must be just as vitally important to the
republic itself.
He loved Paris. And he loved France. To-morrow
morning early he would put the map into the right
hands. It was too late to-night.
But what should he do with it in the meantime?
The others, Nordeg's crowd, were in a hurry. They
might come almost any minute in force; might stop
at nothing, not even murder. Once before they had
tried to kill him because of this very map when they
had lured him to the dive in the Rue des Innocents,
where Bibi Le Farceur had saved his life with his own.
All right. He smiled. There was a way, the best,
most simple way in the world, the one sure way to fool
moiminals.e, bent over envelhecimeIt
He rose, bent over his waste-paper basket, and picked
up a large, yellow envelope which bore the printed
legend, “Au Bon Marché.” It had brought him an
advertisement from that famous department-store that
very morning. He slipped the map inside, gummed the
envelope loosely and threw it on his library-table-in
plain view.
It would be quite safe there.
Then he undressed and went to bed, weary and worn-
out with the excitement of the last few days.
But he was not destined to sleep well. He was trou-
bled by dreams, in which he saw himself hanging to
the very tip of the Eiffel Tower with one hand, the
map of Indo-China clutched in the other, while Guil-
laume Nordeg was trying to send him crashing to the


192
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
pavement far below, and above him a gigantic black
eagle was screaming, tearing at his head with iron
claws and beak.
And straight through his dreams there appeared
always to fit the lithe figure of Angele Lantaigne, and
always she seemed to say: "If I could only tell you,
dear! If I had not promised father! Oh, if I could
only tell you !"
At last he dreamed that she was coming straight
to him, that she was crying out she would tell him,
regardless of the promise given her father, that she
was taking him by the arm, shaking him; and Ten-
nant sat up in bed in the darkness, struggling with
some one very real, who was gripping him.
His first thought was: “Nordeg! His confederates!
They'll get me!” and he gave a great shout, rolled
sideways from the bed, and tried to disengage himself
from the stout arms which were holding him.
The next moment he recognized his aggressor's voice,
and laughed with glad relief:
“Good Heavens, George! You gave me a fright!
What is the matter?”
George swallowed hard, finally gasping out:
“The burglar, suh.”
“What? Already? Did you get him? What did
you do with him? Where is he?"
The questions tumbled from Tennant's lips; but the
negro shook his head sadly.
“He got away, suh!”
“You idiot! How did that happen?”
The negro related that he had heard a noise at
the front door just a minute or two earlier, like the
scraping of a wire key. At once he had hid himself


“WHEN I HAVE DISCOVERED”
193
bure with all set him wihim by the suh," Georges
in a dark corner of the front hall, his trusty razor
ready. The door had opened. Somebody had slunk
in and made directly for the dining-room, where the
fake safe was standing just beside the buffet.
George had gone after the man as softly as he could,
but in the dark he had stumbled against à chair. The
burglar had heard, turned, and run back to the front
door with all speed. In passing George, the latter had
made a pass at him with his razor, had heard him cry
out, had even caught him by the collar.
"But he tore out of my grip, suh,” George wound
up. “He sure was a mighty powerful man!”
The servant switched on the electric light and held
out his razor for inspection. There was a streak of
darkening blood on it.
"I got him, suh!” he announced with cold, trium-
phant savagery. “I sure did maʼk his little phiz!"
“What's that in your other hand?” asked Tennant.
George produced a ragged square inch of worsted.
“His collar tore when he got away from me, suh,”
he replied, and was about to throw the trophy in the
waste-paper basket when Tennant told him to hand it
over.
He looked at it. It was a printed silk label such
as tailors sew in the coat-lining, just below the ribbon-
hanger.
Then he whistled.
“Franz Hoffman & Söhne,” he read. “K. K. Hoflie-
feraten. Unter Den Linden 45. Berlin, W.”
He turned to his servant.
“George,” he said, “our French burglar has a Ger-
man tailor-and a mighty expensive tailor, too!”
w


CHAPTER XIII
THE ADVERTISEMENT
“DOUMAY,” asked Tennant, early the next morning,
of the dapper little subagent, “do you know what we
do back home in America when we are in doubt?”
The other's features wreathed in a smile of immediate
and wholehearted understanding.
“You do-ah-the bluff !” he announced.
"Wellant laughed.he bluff!"
“Well, I guess we do, at times. But at other times
we try a different medicine.”
“What, monsieur?”
“We advertise.” He bent over his desk and was
busy writing for a minute or two. Finally he looked
up.
“Doumay,” he said, “for all I know there may be
something in that bluff proposition of yours after all.
I shall combine it with the advertising. But I am
going to chalk it well and serve it with a little re-
verse English”; and he tore up what he had been writ-
ing and commenced another sheet.
Doumay threw up his hands in despair. He could
not understand the American's keen, picturesque
phraseology, although he envied it, and loved to quote
it, quite casually, in his conversations with his friends
of either sex.
194


THE ADVERTISEMENT
195
“What do you mean, monsieur?” he asked.
"Here's the answer !” Tennant blotted the paper
and gave it to the other. “Have this in the morning
and evening editions of every newspaper in Paris. Big
type ad. Front page if possible. Does not matter
how much they charge.”
“Oh, doesn't it?" piped an elderly voice from the
door.
It was M. Ducastel. He took the paper out of
Doumay's hands, and read it, first to himself, puzzled,
then with loud voice:
“If a certain butcher who patronizes expensive Berlin tailors
and sports a cameo heirloom as a stick-pin would like to find
that for which he is looking so assiduously, let him search the
safe of the chief of the secret political police.”
seconded what do yêu confounded and call this? What
Ducastel slammed down the paper and gave a vicious
pull to his white imperial.
“What do you mean by this, M. Tennant? What-
nom d'un nom d'un nom!-do you call this? A joke?
A Yankee hoax? A confounded Mississippi bubble?"
“And what do you mean by-ah-reverse English?"
seconded the irrepressible Doumay.
Tennant laughed.
“Doumay,” he said, “a bluff is a successful and
indirect lie, which the other party accepts as gospel
truth. A bluff with reverse English means an in-
direct lie, too, but one which the other party, while
not exactly believing, is afraid to call.” He turned
to Ducastel. “And as to your question, monsieur”-
he put his hand on the old man's shoulder, and his
face lit up with a boyish appeal—“please trust me,
won't you?”


196
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
as fof course ith nor doubting America
Ducastel smiled. He was fond of this purposeful,
clean-bred, straight-limbed young American, and there
was neither wrath nor doubt in his reply.
“Of course I trust you, my boy. Implicitly. Go
as far as you like. Spend all the money you like ad-
vertising. I guess the Agence Ducastel can afford
it yet awhile," and he gave Tennant's hand a hearty
shake.
Evening of the same day saw Tennant closeted with
M. Lantaigne, the chief of the secret political police,
in the library of the latter's house.
M. Lantaigne was looking up from an early edition
of the Gaulois, which was already carrying on its
front page the American's strange, unsigned advertise-
ment.
“You said you wished to speak to me in regard to
this?” asked Lantaigne, looking up.
The sudden question startled Tennant from his rev-
erie. He had been listening to a faint voice, Angele's
voice, speaking to her maid in another room of the
apartment.
“Yes, monsieur,” he replied.
“Why? What have I to do with this silly hoax?
Do you imagine I put it in?”
"No, sir!" drawled Tennant. “I did!”
“Eh bien, what does it signify? What are you driv-
ing at? What do you want me to do ?”
"I want you to do what the advertisement says.”
The American pulled a sealed envelope containing the
map of Indo-China from his breast-pocket and laid
it on the table. “Put this in your official safe.”
The other rose, impatient, indignant, a very per-
sonification of outraged bourgeois respectability.


THE ADVERTISEMENT
197
‘M. Tennant,” he said icily, “I am a busy man and,
I trust, an important man. I have neither the time
nor the desire to listen to your slapstick trans-
atlantic jests. I am sure you will pardon me if I bid
you a very good evening,” and he walked to the
door.
“M. Lantaigne, you must listen to me!"
“Must?” Lantaigne turned.
“Yes!” Tennant spoke with a certain hushed, in-
tense solemnity which caused the other to stand quite
still. “You will believe me when I tell you that I love
your country-France?”
Lantaigne's answer was sublimely French.
“To be sure. All the world loves France.”
“All the world," echoed Tennant, “except—"
He did not finish the sentence. Instead, he pointed
through the window, due east, where a froth of yel-
low stars was flung over the crest of the night.
“Yes!” he began again. “All the world loves France,
except-”
“Don't say it!" cut in the other's quivering pro-
test. “Don't say the word. You must not pronounce
it! You must not even think it, dream it! I told you
so that time when I came to your office and asked you
to quash the Jarvet murder investigation—for the
good of France."
Tennant did not reply for several seconds. He stood
there, looking out of the window. In the eastern sky
a fantastic crimson flush was suddenly spiking up,
blotting out the twinkling golden constellations. The
next moment a cloud bank rolled up, from behind the
horizon; then, quite suddenly, a ragged shimmer of
lightning, followed by a thunderclap-like a porten-


15
THE TRAIL OP THE BEAST
toos hammer of fate crashing down, thought Tennant,
from beyond the German frontier.
Involuntarily he shivered.
Then he turned to the other.
“Yes," he said, "gou asked me to quash the Jarvet
murder investigation for the good of France. But
it was too late. The Etorte had already printed the
whole story; and directly afterward Raoul Steynard
was assassinated”
“But, monsieur-monsieur_»
Tennant went on unheeding:
“There is a widespread belief that both men were
killed by orders of the government-by your own or-
ders, in other words!”
“It's a lie” cried Lantaigne. “A dirty, slanderous,
despicable lie!”
“You bet it is. I know it is. But people think so
just the same, and they will continue to think so un-
less you come out into the open and clear up the whole
damned mystery. Well, you say you do not want to
try, for grave political reasons. All right. I, on
the other hand, can get to the bottom of this affair.”
“I do not want you to! I forbid you to! I told you
so before!"
“I know. You think, honestly, sincerely, that it will
be bad for France to have the murders cleared up.”
“Worse than bad! Dangerous! Most dangerous !"
“All right. Call it dangerous if you prefer. I, on
the contrary, hold to the opposite view. I think it
will be for the best—the most vital interests of the
republic to find out who assassinated Jarvet and
Steynard, and why.”
“But-"


THE ADVERTISEMENT
199
“Wait, let me have my little say. Suppose I go
ahead and investigate. The moment I have finished,
the moment I have succeeded and forged the last link
in my chain, I promise that I shall come to you with
the results—the proof. Then, if you still hold to your
original opinion, you can destroy the proof. But if you
should change your mind, if you should think that I
am right, you can use the proof as you think fit, you
and the government. Is that fair, monsieur?”
It was several minutes before Lantaigne replied,
There was that in his face, his eyes, the very way in
which he clenched his fists, which showed that his soul
was in turmoil; that he was passing through a severe
emotional struggle; as if, thought Tennant, who was
closely watching him, the man's ingrained tradition
of duty were battling with a lower, more elemental, and
more personal passion.
Finally he inclined his head.
“Yes,” he said. “I agree to what you propose,
monsieur. It is fair.”
“For quite personal reasons, I believe," said Ten-
nant, "you do not wish to reply to certain questions
which I would like to ask you. Nor do you want your
daughter to reply to the same. But I do need some
help. And so I ask you again: take this sealed envelope
and lock it in your official safe.”
“For how long?”
“How long?” Tennant mused, hesitated, and went
on: “If within the year something of the gravest
political importance should happen, send for me. I
shall then open the envelope and try to interpret the
contents. If in the meantime I should die, here”—he
took another, smaller envelope from his breast-pocket,


200
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
and gave it to Lantaigne-"you open this. It may
give you the key. If nothing should happen within,
let us say, thirty years, see to it that both packages.
are burned, unread.”
“Why burn them?”
“Dangerous explosives,” replied the American, and,
rising and going to the door: “Monsieur, I hope, for
strictly personal reasons, that I shall succeed in clear-
ing up both mysteries.”
“Personal reasons?” asked the other, slightly mys-
tified. “What do you mean?”
“Because if I do succeed—you'll have an American
son-in-law!" replied Tennant as he bowed his adieu to
the amazed Frenchman.
In discussing certain points of the case with Doumay
the following evening, Tennant astonished the subagent
by insisting that the latter should continue his search
for Guillaume Nordeg, the butcher; and to Doumay's
vociferous protest that Nordeg was no fool and doubt-
less by this time had left Paris for a more congenial
atmosphere, the American replied that it was just be-
cause of this that he had put the anonymous adver-
tisement in all the Paris newspapers.
“He won't dare to skip the city now," he wound up.
“But why? Name of a stuffed onion, why? Nor-
deg knows that you are after him. He realizes that
it is dangerous for him to stay here!”
“You bet your life he does,” came Tennant's reply.
“On the other hand, I have a hunch that he is even
more scared of the people who employ him; the people
who want him to get the map. And, to use an old
slang phrase, he won't be happy till he gets it, my dear
Doumay. He will try everything."


THE ADVERTISEMENT
201
“Do you think he will try to crack M. Lantaigne's
safe?”
“Hardly. He is too slippery a proposition to be
caught in such a shallow trap. I don't think he even
believes that the map is there. You see, Nordeg is a
man who has all sorts of information at his finger-tips.
He is sure to be familiar with the fact that the gov-
ernment wants the whole affair hushed up and that the
Agence Ducastel and the political police are pulling in
different directions. No! Nordeg does not believe
that the map is in M. Lantaigne's safe. But he'll
worry a whole lot about where it might be; and the
people who are employing him will be deviling his plump
little soul until he finds out where it is—and gets it.”
“Then, M. Tennant”—Doumay's voice held a faint
tremble"you think Nordeg will attack you? Perhaps
kill you?"
“Don't be a sentimental ass,” laughed Tennant.
“Too, don't be an illogical ass. Nordeg is convinced
that I have the map; at least, that I know where it
is and can put my hands on it. Why then should he
kill me? It's a hard enough thing to force a live
American to talk when he does not want to, but when
it comes to making a dead American talk—Heavens!
Even the ultraefficient race to which Guillaume Nordeg
belongs cannot accomplish that particular little miracle.
So don't you worry. I am all right. Skip right along
and see if you cannot corral the gentleman.”
There was no doubt that Paris was mystified and
amused by Tennant's anonymous advertisement. The
boulevards conjectured variedly and fantastically as to
its exact meaning and significance.
Some sort of catch, was the consensus printed and
it.comthe ultraefficiemplish that particu Skip right a


202
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
spoken opinion, meant to amaze, to sharpen the curios-
ity of the reading public, to whet the appetite for other
advertisements yet to come, and these latter would
either sing a dithyrambic song of triumph in honor of
the latest perfume, the latest restaurant, or the latest
department-store, or perhaps mark the beginning of
a sensational publicity campaign for a new revue.
Nobody guessed an inkling of the truth, except the
man for whom it was meant. For, late that same
evening, as Tennant was opening the last edition of
the Journal du Soir which George had brought up, he
saw another advertisement, in English, right next to his
Own.
Yankees Should Not Meddle With Buzz Saws!
Tennant laughed.
“George,” he said to the negro who was busying
himself about the room, “there is exactly one point
in favor of our burglar.”
“Yes, suh?”
“Yes. The man has spent some time in America.
He is familiar with our glorious slang—and our sense
of humor!”
Tennant laughed and turned to the political contents
of the paper.
A few minutes later there was a ring at the bell, and
Doumay entered.
“Monsieur!” he cried. “I have seen Nordeg!"
“Bully! Where? How? Let's hear!"
And, excitedly, Doumay related how, forty minutes
earlier, covering the district of Saint-Sulpice together
with his colleague, Jacques Esternaux, to see if by any
chance Nordeg might have taken it into his head to


204
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
say that he and his colleague had followed Nordeg
down the Rue du Bac, straight into the heart of the
aristocratic Faubourg Saint-Germain. “Imagine that,
if you please! This dealer in tripe and stuffed sausage-
skins in the Faubourg, the most swagger part of Paris !"
“Go on!” ordered the American impatiently. “Cut
out the side remarks. Where exactly did the chase
end?”
Doumay leaned forward. He was pleasantly con-
scious of a dramatic thrill.
"Monsieur,” he asked, "you knew the house where
the German Embassy has taken up temporary quarters
while their palace is being done over?"
“Yes. You mean that old house they leased in the
sort of blind alley called the Impasse Oudinot—belongs
to the Duke de Tourcoing-Belleville, I believe? Sure.
But you don't mean to say that Nordeg was enough
of a congenital idiot to go into the German Embassy,
do you?"
"No. But just across from the temporary embassy,'
facing the Impasse Oudinot on the south, there is a
ramshackle dwelling that has seen better days. To
the right is a twenty-foot wall with an alley running
between it and the house and leading to a small back
yard into which opens the tradesmen's entrance. To
the left it is built smack up against the old palace of
the Prince de Rohan-Chabot.
“There was no light in the house no sign of life,
all the shutters closed tight. All right. Nordeg takes
out a key, and slips inside like a plump shadow. I
send Esternaux through the narrow alley into the back
yard where he can watch both the alley and the trades-
men's entrance while I myself, after waiting perhaps


THE ADVERTISEMENT
205
ke a long stort, though I. sn for a rind
three minutes, open the front door with my wire key
and go inside.
“And, to make a long story short, though I search
the house from cellar to garret, though I sniff in every
nook and cranny like a starved rat hunting for a rind
of cheese, I find no trace of our friend the butcher.
No! Not the particle of a shadow of a smell of a
trace! He has disappeared, disembodied himself, dis-
solved into ether! Nor has Esternaux seen a soul come
out of the back entrance.”
“Must have made his getaway through the left wall.”
“Impossible, monsieur. The left wall, as I told you,
is straight up against the Rohan-Chabot palace. I
examined it thoroughly. It is of solid masonry such
as they made a hundred and fifty years ago, with no
traps, no tapestry doors, not even so much as a niche
or an alcove. Just plain, solid masonry.”
'“Well, what do you make of it, Doumay?”
The subagent shrugged his shoulders.
“I don't know. That's why I came to you as soon
as I could. I left Jacques Esternaux on watch in the
back yard, hailed a passing gendarme who luckily was
blessed with more horse sense than that specimen of
an animal of the Rue Férou, and pressed him into
service to watch the front door. And here I am.” He
rose. “I have a taxi waiting down-stairs."
“All right, Doumay. You did what you could. I
am with you.” Tennant hurried into his overcoat and
a few seconds later he and the other were whizzing
away through the softly thudding snow toward the
Faubourg Saint-Germain, that memory of pre-revolu-
tionary France that is as dainty and melancholy as a
bit of old lace or a package of love-letters, yellow and
toire ?


206
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
dusty with age, which was once the mirror of the polite
society of the most polite nation in the world, but
which to-day, with department-stores and dairies and
curio-shops and police-kiosks and loft buildings and
cheap bouillon restaurants crowding in from all sides,
is slowly and inevitably being reduced to a mere his-
torical memory.
The Impasse Oudinot was one of the few parts of
the Faubourg which modernity had not yet desecrated
and which, to quote the words of Doumay, who at
times was a hater of everything connected with the
fleur-de-lis, “smacked of the odious emblems of blood-
stained feudality.”
“Here we are, monsieur,” he said as the taxicab
pulled up in front of the old ramshackle dwelling, which
Tennant found to be exactly as the other had described
it.
It was as lonely and deserted as the ancient blind
alley, the Impasse Oudinot, which was bottled up to
the east by the back garden wall belonging to a house
which faced the street around the corner.
There were just three buildings facing the Impasse
Oudinot: the temporary German Embassy on one side,
on the other the old dwelling-house into which Nordeg
had gone, without coming out again, flanked by the
gray, squatting palace of the Prince de Rohan-Chabot.
While Doumay went to the back of the house to re-
ceive the report of his colleague--and it turned out
to be negative; nobody had tried to leave the house
through the tradesmen's entrance-Tennant, after re-
ceiving a similar reply from the gendarme who had
played sentry, near the front door, took a good look
at the facade. At once he dismissed the idea that


208
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
ms on thesive wine. There
So, playing their comedy for all it was worth, they
walked from room to room. There was a kitchen, a
laundry, and extensive wine cellars below the pavement,
four rooms on the ground floor, and five each on the
first and second. The garret, peaked and narrowed
through the Gothic roof, was meant for the servants'
quarters.
The rooms were completely empty. There was not
a stick of furniture.
“But there is no dust,” Tennant whispered. “Not
a speck of it! Did you notice that, Doumay?"
“Yes,” replied the subagent. “It is as if somebody
were anxious to leave no tell-tale footprints.”
"Exactly.”
“And yet," continued the American after a few min-
utes during which he examined the light fixtures, “no-
body lives here. The gas is shut off. So is the elec-
tric light.”
From room to room they went, examining every inch
of the walls and floors. Inch for inch they tapped the
left wall which connected with the Rohan-Chabot pal-
ace. It was as Doumay had said: solid masonry, with
no trap-door, no niche, no alcove-no place to hide
or through which to make a getaway. They felt sat-
isfied, at the end of three hours' gruelling, back-strain-
ing work, that Nordeg was not on the premises.
“But I saw him go in!” exclaimed the exasperated
Doumay.
“Sure. I don't doubt it. And the house is swept
clean. Somebody uses this house, but that's all we
can do for the night.”.
Arrived once more on the ground floor, he told the


CHAPTER XIV
THE CONVICT
THE violet haze of dying night was melting the top-
most twigs of the elm trees, and a little dun-plumaged
bird, first messenger of coming spring, was gurgling
its throaty morning song; but still James Tennant was
bent over his writing-desk in the library of his apart-
ment, a pot of inky coffee at his elbow, the stump of
a black Havana cigar, relit innumerable times, between
his teeth and half-chewed through, his forehead tor-
tured into deep lines, his eyes smarting and burning,
his fingers nervous and shaky, but grimly determined to
finish his work.
For three hours now he had been at it, trying to put
into a comprehensive, intelligible whole the puzzle-pic-
ture of the torn and charred paper fragments which
he had found in the grate of the deserted house of the
Impasse Oudinot, across from the German embassy's
temporary quarters.
Every half-hour or so his faithful negro servant
would come into the room with a pot of freshly-made
coffee, again with a plate of sandwiches which he bullied
his master into eating, and croaking hoary bits of ad-
vice such as, “Yo' cain't affo'd to burn the candle at
both ends, suh,” or, “Ah reckon yo' better quit fo’ a
spell, suh; you’se gwine git nervous procrastination as
sure's yo' bawn!” It was nearly eight o'clock when
210


THE CONVICT
211
:
Tennant looked up, a glitter of victory in his tired
eyes.
“Ring up M. Ducastel at his home, George,” he called
to his servant. “Tell him to come straight over here.
It's important. Make my apologies for my not going
over to his house. Tell him I've been working all
night and haven't had time to dress or shave.”
While George was busy telephoning, Tennant took
a stout bit of cardboard, a pot of glue, and pasted the
result of his work together carefully.
He read it over and over again. Very few words
were missing, after all, and these few he was able to
'reconstruct without any trouble.
The document spoke for itself.
The church-bell had not yet tolled the half-hour when
Ducastel rushed into the room, excited, gesticulating,
the light of battle in his shrewd old eyes.
“What do you mean by calling me from my home
at this hour of the morning?" was his greeting. "What
do you mean by it, impudent young animal of a good-
for-nothing Yankee? I have not even had time to
curl my mustache, nor to eat my breakfast—ah,
scrognieugnieu!”
"All right, monsieur,” laughed Tennant, “I'll have
George fix you a regular breakfast; none of your
café-au-lait, but a real, square American breakfast !"
And Ducastel, who before this had had occasion to par-
take of the younger man's matutinal hospitality,
cheered up considerably at the thought of that strange
transatlantic dish called griddle-cakes, as he looked
at the result of Tennant's night vigil which the latter
gave to him without any explanation, except as to
where he had found it.
George, Minit, but a before this ha matutin of that strooked


THE CONVICT
213
looked up, and he pointed ať the bottom of the paper,
where it said:
CONFIDENTIAL:
James Smith is not believed to be the real name of the pris-
oner. No papers of any sort were found upon his person or
among his belongings. The resident assistant deputy commis-
sioner considers it important to discover, if possible, the real
name and antecedents of the prisoner. I therefore give, here
below, a description of the prisoner:
Height, five foot eight and a half inches; complexion, sallow,
but clear. Eyes, grayish-blue; hair, dark, thick, curly; hands
and feet, narrow, strong, aristocratic. Special remarks-speaks
perfect French with a Swiss intonation, and English with a
slight Scotch accent.
The two men looked at each other, tense, grave, sus-
picious of each other's thoughts, yet convinced that
their thoughts were identical, and then, exactly at the
same time, both spoke the name they were afraid to
voice:
“Lord Menzies-Kerr!”
“What about Lord Menzies-Kerr?” came a voice from
the door.
They turned. There, pale, hostile, slightly trem-
bling, stood the Scotchman, painfully dragging his
right foot as he walked into the room.
“What about Lord Menzies-Kerr?” he repeated with
a sharp, challenging voice; and neither Ducastel nor
Tennant knew what to say. Whatever else they might
have thought or intended subconsciously, they had not
wanted the man himself to know, to guess, to suspect.
His coming into the room and hearing his name spoken
in that dramatic manner was like one of those ill-
omened and unforeseen accidents that come secretly and
from underneath, like sudden leaks in a rotten old
vessel.
have thot knew winging voicenzies-Keroom:


214
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
“Well?” demanded the Scotchman; and again there
was no answer. Only silence, tense and hushed with
waiting for something.
It was George W. Brown who saved the situation.
For just then he came into the room.
“The griddle cakes am smokin' on the table, gen'le-
men," he announced in his most pompous manner.
Then he saw the Scotchman.
“Lawdy, Lawdy!” he exclaimed. “I's sure glad to
see yo', suh. We-all sure thought yo' was dead. Hain't
seen yo’ fo’—why, Ah reckon yo' haven't been home
since Mistah Tennant had this heah outomobile acci-
dent. Come right into the dining-room, suh!” he added
hospitably. “I's gwine toss off a few mo' griddle-cakes
right away!”
And so, temporarily at least, across George's break-
fast, the three men said no word of what was resting on
their minds like dull crushing weights.
“Well, what about myself?”
Lord Menzies-Kerr's question came as before-hos-
tile, chilly, suspicious, with a vibrating dramatic un-
dercurrent.
M. Ducastel raised a deprecating hand and curled
his lips after the manner of one about to weave lies.
Why had he and M. Tennant pronounced milord's
name in unison like a Greek tragedy chorus?
It was very easy to answer. Yes, there was a reason
--a perfectly good and natural reason. He com-
menced to give it, then to elaborate it, carried away by
the swing of his own words until, embarrassed and un-
comfortable under Menzies-Kerr's staring, sardonic
eyes, he began to contradict himself, causing the other
to give a cracked, throaty laugh and to make a re-


THE CONVICT
215
mark-intensely Scotch in its merciless and rough-
hewn logicality-about the “utterly foredoomed futility
of trying to prevaricate in two different directions at
the same time.” After which he turned to James Ten-
nant with the identical question.
The American's cool, constructive mind had been busy
the last ten minutes.
Mentally he had reviewed the whole mysterious af-
fair, beginning with the afternoon, early in January,
when he had seen his friend and Angele Lantaigne walk-
ing side by side about the fetid old streets of Saint-
Sulpice, to the moment, this very morning, when he
had pieced together and deciphered the torn, charred
criminal record dealing with Convict James Smith.
Clear in one respect, the case was steadily becoming
more involved, more shadowy, more contradictory in
another. Rather, by the plainest deductive reasoning
based on the denial of accidental coincidence, he had
proved that Angele was neither directly nor indirectly
connected with the two murders. Too, he had a shrewd
belief that he had solved that part of the mystery
which dealt with the butcher, Guillaume Nordeg, from
the moment when he had heard that lonely, shrill,
slightly guttural cry: “Down with the army!” to the
advertisement in the newspapers warning Yankees not
to monkey with buzz saws.
What bothered him was not exactly the connection
of Menzies-Kerr and Lantaigne and the unknown
apache, friend of the former, who walked with a limp
and wore the strangely loose overcoat, with the mur-
ders. That part he felt sure he would be able to ex-
plain somehow. What he had failed so far to riddle
out was the motive of both Menzies-Kerr and Lan-


216
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
could" on since he knee or fear. Lone of two de every
taigne in keeping the reason for this connection hidden
frorn him. Lantaigne's reason might be the political
one he had given, perhaps a more personal one.
But what about Menzies-Kerr-his close friend?
He looked at him and at once he became conscious
of the latent hostility in the Scotchman's eyes. The
man was not exactly a traitor, a man false to his vows
of friendship. But there seemed to be certain sharp,
dangerous, hidden reservations in his fidelity.
Caused by what?
Tennant, master of psychological deduction, an-
swered the question to himself. He knew that every-
thing in the world is caused by one of two elemental
driving powers: love or fear. Love was out of the
question since he knew that Angele, the only woman who
could possibly be concerned in the mystery, was not
in love with the Scotchman, nor the latter with her.
Remained fear. And he said to himself that Menzies-
Kerr had been sent to New Caledonia for assaulting a
French colonial official. Fear! Fear of prison !
He knew that Menzies-Kerr had always been violent,
even in his Geneva school-days. Naturally he would
be even more short-tempered in the steaming, miasmic,
fever-spotted climate of Indo-China.
With the word Tennant's mind shot off on a tangent.
Indo-China !
The word stood for two things: the colony where
Menzies-Kerr had made his last expedition, and where,
undoubtedly, under the alias of “James Smith” he had
been punished with three years' convict settlement; and
the map, printed in Germany, which had been stolen
and restolen, and which had nothing whatever to do
with the actual colony—the map covered with thin


THE CONVICT
217
red lines and tiny red crosses and which he had given
to the chief of the secret political police for safe-
keeping.
Yet there was à connection between the Indo-China
of Menzies-Kerr and that of the map. For had not
the late Anatole Jarvet been most anxious to get the
Scotchman's help-
“Persuade Lord Menzies-Kerr to help me with Indo-
China !" It was some such message which the Inter-
nationalist politician had given to Angele Lantaigne
just before he had been assassinated.
"Well? Why don't you answer? Have you lost
your voice?” The Scotchman's thick, angry query
jerked Tennant back to the considerations of the mo-
ment, and at once he decided on a course of action.
He would take the bull by the horns. He went to
the other room, picked up the glued criminal record,
and gave it to his friend without a word.
Tennant watched him closely. But if he expected
that the man would show the slightest trace of fear or
nervousness or apprehension, or even ordinary embar-
rassment, he was destined to be mistaken.
For Menzies-Kerr read through the record from the
first to the last word. He read calmly, slowly, with-
out as much as a quiver in his face. Finally he looked
up and asked:
“Well? What about it, James???
Tennant was taken aback-but only for a moment.
He said to himself that Menzies-Kerr, expecting these
last ten minutes that something unusual would happen,
had had plenty of time to control his nerves. At once
he returned to the charge and he made it brutally
direct.
up anvell? What ken abackes-Kerr, expould happena


218
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
“M. Ducastel and I have decided that you resemble
the convict, James Smith, very closely."
The Scotchman laughed.
“That's just what I thought you would try to spring
on me. And if I didn't have the testimony of the
daily press for the fact that you and M. Ducastel are
wonderful detectives I would be inclined to say that
both of you are silly, short-sighted asses!” He pointed
at the bottom of the record which gave a description
of James Smith. “See anything here about my habit
of smoking opium or about my limp?”
"No," replied the American. “Nor does it say a
word about the fact that James Smith was convicted
to three years' penal settlement, while you yourself
were gone only a little over two years all told.”
“Well, there you are, you modern Sherlock Holmes!”
sneered Menzies-Kerr.
Tennant lit a cigar.
“Sure!” he echoed. “There I am! Only~"
“Only what?”
“Only," drawled Tennant, “there happens to be the
possibility of a prisoner escaping from New Cale-
donia."
The last words cut through the air like a knotted
whiplash, and the Scotchman turned a ghastly yellow
when his friend went on ruthlessly:
“Also as to your limp. Naturally James Smith did
not have a limp before they sent him to New Caledonia.
He acquired that afterward.”
“How-how?" shouted Ducastel.
“By the iron ball and chain which the more violent
prisoners in New Caledonia are forced to wear around
their right ankles. And furthermore--this is just a
We Also da limp bt afterwa Duc


THE CONVICT
219
affect he rose, wacine against the opium, settlers of N.
But of it, old felis friend's she table, and poten: Sud-
Best of it, in his found the rotten babit the
slight, contributing procf-the convict settlers of New
Caledonia often contract the opium habit there. It
is the best medicine against the rotten climate.” Sud-
denly he rose, walked around the table, and put his hand
affectionately on his friend's shoulder. “Make a clean
breast of it, old fellow!” he said softly.
But Menzies-Kerr shook the American's hand off
impatiently.
“Devilishly neat!” he said, rising. “Only there hap-
pens to be one little link missing in your chain of de-
duction. For—tell me would an escaped prisoner be
such a fool as to hobnob with M. Lantaigne, the chief
of the secret political police?” And he swung out of
the room, leaving the two others looking at each other.
It was Ducastel who broke the silence that had fol-
lowed.
“Tennant !” he ejaculated. “In the name of all the
pale-blue silk umbrellas! But that last one was a facer.
Yes. Would an escaped New Caledonian prisoner hob-
nob with the honored head of the secret political po-
lice?”
“He might,” replied Tennant dryly.
“Why? How?”
“If by any chance it should be to the advantage of
that same chief, for, let's say, a personal reason. And
I am going to look for that reason, M. Ducastel.
“I am absolutely sure that James Smith and Menzies-
Kerr are one and the same man,” Tennant said a few
minutes later to M. Ducastel. They were standing in
front of the apartment-house, and the American had
just hailed a taxicab. “But, to make assurance doubly
sure, will you please send a cable to New Caledonia ?
The Agence has a representative there, I believe.”


220
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
the stairs, 1 the door and wait in the art
“The Agence has indeed, min petit, and drawing a
perfectly preposterous salary-like other agents I
could name. I'll send the cable something like_º
"Find out if prisoner James Smith, sent up for as-
sault from Indo-China, has escaped a few months back,
and ask our agent to add whatever details he can
supply.”
“Yes, and a chapter from the Bible and a few more
thousand words at five francs a piece," grumbled the
older man as he crossed the street to where a blue and
white sign proclaimed the presence of a post and tele-
graph office.
There was no concrete plan of action in Tennant's
brain as the taxicab whizzed the length of the few
blocks to the house of M. Lantaigne, nor as he mounted
the stairs, nor even when the police chief's elderly serv-
ant opened the door and said that his master was at
home. Would monsieur wait in the drawing-room?
Walking up and down, doubt as to why he had come
here and what he was going to ask and how he was
going to put it, assailed Tennant. Lantaigne would
not help him. On that point the chief of the secret
political police had made himself quite clear.
But-well, he was here now, having obeyed a sudden
impulse, and he would have to do something, say some-
thing.
But what and how?
Up and down he walked, his hands behind his back,
until at last he stopped in front of the silver-framed
photograph—the chief's son who had died in an Alpine
accident trying to save a comrade.
Tennant picked up the picture and studied it. There
was a strong family resemblance between the dead man
WalkiWould loor an the


THE CONVICT
221
and his sister Angele—the same low, broad forehead,
the same rounded chin, the same short, delicately curved
nose. Only the lips-truer mirror than the eyes—were
different.
For Angele’s were indicative of bravery, even of a
certain obstinacy, while her brother's were weak, soft,
sagging, slightly sensuous. Not that the face was
unsympathetic. It was rather kindly. He continued
studying the picture, and he had it still in his hand
when M. Lantaigne came into the room, dressed in his
usual fantastic costume of yellowish brown velveteens
with short, tight jacket and voluminous, zouave-like
trousers.
“Good morning, M. Tennant!” he said affably.
Then he saw the picture in the American's hands,
and at once there came a complete change in his man-
ner.
He crossed the room with a few quick steps. He
tore the picture violently away from Tennant. His
face became convulsed with a mad commingling of hate
and red, rank terror.
His utterance was thick, choked.
“What do you mean-by~"
He did not finish what he was going to say. With
a tremendous effort he jerked his quivering nerves back
into will-control. He bowed contritely, apologetically.
“You must forgive me, monsieur," he went on.
“There is, of course, no reason in the world why you
should not look at Marcel's photograph.” He re-
peated, with unreasonable emphasis, as Tennant
thought: “No. There is no reason why you should
not look at it. Of course not. Look at it all you
want to. He was my beloved son Marcel; and he died


222
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
like a gentleman-honest, brave, trying to save his
comrade's life!”
Tennant remembered that Lantaigne had used nearly
the same words that day, several weeks back, when he
had spoken about his son to Angele-as if he were
trying to use a powerful formula.
“It is I who should beg to be forgiven,” Tennant said
after a short pause. “I know that your son's picture
brings back sad memories.”
At once there was the same sudden change in Lan-
taigne's manner; the same instantaneous flash of pas-
sion, of fear and hatred and terror and suspicion in
his eyes, in his wooden, jerky gestures, his violently
working lips, his screechy, staccato voice:
"You know?” he asked. “What do you mean?
What do you know about my son? What do you know
about my memories, my—"
Tennant looked up, amazed, mystified. Subcon-
sciously he knew that he was on the verge of discover-
ing the reason for the police chief's secret sorrow.
Consciously he knew that this was not the time to
cajole or bully him into a confession. The man, vio-
lent, excited, was nevertheless his match in sudden
shiftings of front, in algebraic cunning, and rapid de-
ductions.
So Tennant replied with absolute truthfulness:
“Why, monsieur, you yourself told me that your son
died in an Alpine accident-bravely, a hero, trying to
save his comrade's life. Of course, I realize that such
a memory is saddening and bitter to a father's heart."
Lantaigne breathed a sigh of relief.
“Yes, yes, of course,” he stammered. “Again I must
beg of you to forgive me. Everything startles me so.


THE CONVICT
223
Nerves, monsieur. Nerves and the approach of old
age. And then the excitement of the last few weeks.
The murders! The scene in the Chamber of Deputies
--enfin, do not let us speak of Marcel, monsieur! The
thought hurts me-terribly."
Tennant bowed.
“Of course, M. Lantaigne.”
There was a short, hushed pause. Tennant, his
mind busy not only with the problem, the groping after
which had sent him here, but also with the problematical
cause for the police chief's strange bursts of temper,
did not know what to say; and it was Lantaigne who
broke the ice.
He had quite recovered his composure even his old
sardonic, ironic, supercilious manner. Whatever he
feared, he was sure it would not emanate from Ten-
nant.
He lit a cigarette with steady fingers.
“And now, monsieur,” he asked, “may I ask to what
fortunate cause I owe the honor of your visit?” and,
when the American still did not speak: “Can it per-
haps be in connection with that cryptic farewell of
yours when you were here last; when you mentioned,
if I remember right, your wish of becoming-ah-my
son-in-law?”
Tennant was quick to use the opening which the
other had meant sarcastically—to his own advantage.
He spoke with perfect frankness.
“Yes,” he said very calmly, “you have guessed it,
monsieur. That is the reason I called on you;" and,
thoroughly familiar with the French etiquette, French
logic, French considerations of the essentials of mar-
ried happiness which, contrary to the customs of sen-
was sure it woulis manner. Wiven his old


224
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
timental Anglo-Saxondom, place practical questions
above emotional, he launched into a detailed descrip-
tion of his fortune, his family, and his future pros-
pects, winding up with, “I have the honor of asking
you for the hand of your daughter, monsieur."
Lantaigne bowed ceremoniously. He said that he
appreciated the honor—which was all his.
M. Tennant's family? Of the most excellent. Of
course. And he was not so narrow-minded as to ob-
ject to international marriages.
M. Tennant's fortune? Not perhaps the wealth of
Golconda, the purse of Fortunatus, the gold of Crosus.
But his was a generous gesture:
“We must all begin small,” he said. “I myself can
hardly afford to buy up the national debt of France.”
Then very suddenly, sharply:
“But as to your future, monsieur—for it is the fu-
ture which counts. And I regret to be forced to say
that the future prospects of your chosen career are
not of exactly the most brilliant."
“Look here” cut in Tennant, touched in a sensi-
tive spot; but the other continued imperturbably:
“Your future is not safe, monsieur. It stands and
falls by your ability of discovering the assassin of Jar-
vet and Steynard. Already the newspapers are begin-
ning to question if Tennant, the famous American de-
tective, is not after all only a big bíuff—a failure
and Paris does not forgive failures!”
“I'll get the murderer all right,” said Tennant
through clenched teeth.
“And I believe the opposite. You will never be able
to bring him to heel, monsieur-never!"
“Why?” demanded Tennant and added furiously,


THE CONVICT
225
leading and kiss her in hisurprised"the
speaking without thought: “I'll tell you why. It's
because you yourself are going to put stumbling-blocks
in my way!"
“Exactly, monsieur,” came the dry reply.
“Well, you may have a lot of influence," thundered
the American. “You and your gentry of the secret
police; but, by ginger, you just watch my smoke!” he
wound up with a return to his old gay manner as he
left.
Down-stairs, as he was opening the hall door, he
came face to face with Angele, and he surprised the
girl as well as himself by taking her in his arms, with-
out a word of warning, and kissing her on the lips, in
full view of a surprised, amused, laughing audience con-
sisting of a vendor of fried potatoes, two soldiers, and
a little ragged urchin.
“James, you "
He pulled her inside, closed the door on the interested
onlookers, and repeated the performance.
“James, you mustn't; you promised—”
“I promised nothing !” he replied. “You wanted me
to promise, but I had sense enough not to. I know I
have no right to love you. I am not good enough for
you. I am only infinitesimal sand beneath your feet.
I know all that. But I love you just the same"
“You”-she struggled weakly in his arms—“you,
you mustn't—"
“Mustn't nothing! Mustn'ts are shadows, lies, fool-
ishnesses. Only love is real. Only love is truth.
Everything else is poppycock. And now, young lady,
are you going to marry me? Yes or no?”
“Yes, if_”
"If I clear up the two murder mysteries?” Sud-


226
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
denly Tennant became perfectly serious. “Angele,” he
said, “I know you promised your father not to answer
certain of my questions. That's all right. But why
do I have to wait for your answer until I have dis-
covered the assassin ?"
“Because I do not know. But I fear, I suspect_»
Tears .welled in her eyes and a deep sob rose in her
throat.
“All right. Don't say it, honey. I'll tell you what
you fear and suspect," and he whispered a few rapid
you. Js in her eato at him, efective,
She looked up at him, amazed, wide-eyed.
“Pretty good little detective, am I not?” laughed
Tennant, and he gave her a final kiss and hurried from
the house.
He found Doumay waiting for him in his private
office at the Agence Ducastel.
“What did you find out at police headquarters?” he
asked.
“Just this, monsieur," Doumay replied, handing his
superior a slip of official-looking paper.
Tennant read it. It said:
House No. 2b, Impasse Oudinot, Faubourg Saint-Germain.
Proprietor, M. Lantaigne, chief of the secret political police.
Lessee, Lord Allistair Menzies-Kerr,
Special remarks taken from bordereau No. 3721, A, 45-Former
janitor was dismissed by new lessee. New lessee installed one
Aristide Rod as janitor. Said Aristide Rod does not live on
premises, but at No. 45 Passage Moret. For further particulars
as to said Aristide Rod, consult special dossier of police suspects
No. 11,523.
Tennant looked up.
“Well," he said, "I guess we'll have to steal a peep


THE CONVICT
227
at special dossier No. 11,523. “Said Aristide Rod'
doesn't seem to have exactly an odor of sanctity about
his person.”
“Indeed not, monsieur,” laughed Doumay. “Con-
sider where he lives ; in the Passage Moret! The very
heart of the tanneries district!” and he laughed at his
own jest.


CHAPTER XV
FIRST HONORS
HEADS were raised, words were whispered from desk
to desk, beards were wagged, pens stopped scratching
and desk bells ringing as James Tennant, Doumay by
his side, crossed the long suite of offices which led to
the holiest of holies of the metropolitan police head-
quarters.
Tennant looked neither to right nor to left, just
saying mechanically, “Bon jour, messieurs!” as he
crossed threshold after threshold.
But it was different with the little, dapper subagent.
He was sharp of ear and eye and psychic perception.
Before this he had followed the American through these
rooms, and he had always been proud to play tail to
the other's comet. Then, too, the great, grinding po-
lice headquarters machinery had momentarily stopped
revolving its human wheels. Then, too, heads had been
raised and pens had stopped scratching.
But the words Doumay had then overheard had been
expressive of respect and admiration; while to-day-
Lantaigne was right: already the Paris papers, quick
to perceive and acclaim a new star in the firmament,
and as quick to pull it from the vaulted height when
it threatened to dim and shadow—had begun to ridicule
the American for his failure in the Jarvet-Steynard in-
228


FIRST HONORS
229
vestigation; already the camelots, running up and down
the boulevards on flopping slippers, were offering for
sale a decidedly comical and decidedly obscene mechan-
ical toy described as “Meester Jonathan Bluff, le célèbre
agent de police Yankee, fichant son p'tit truc”; already
M. Sergius, the fat Scala comedian, had interpolated
a topical number at the Revue during which he danced
on dressed as an American sleuth-high hat with Stars
and Stripes wound around it, goatee, smoked glasses,
leather chaps, red-flannel shirt, a brace of cavalry
Colts, and Mexican spurs--and sang a song winding
up with the refrain:
leathertripes woundmerican sleuthuring which terpolated
“Assassins right! Assassins left!
Zimm-boum-bah! I have them-NOT!
En avant-en avant, la musique!”
The headquarters detectives, who in the past two or
three decades had had many a tilt with M. Ducastel,
and in the past three or four months with his chief
criminal investigator, Tennant, gloated over the latter's
impending downfall like red-necked vultures over care
rion.
And so the whispers which ran from desk to desk.
were not expressive of admiration or respect or even
healthy, human envy. But they were charged with
malice, with mean, sarcastic amusement. This Ameri-
can, called all the way from that strange city of gold
and sky-scrapers named New York, employed by Du-
castel at a preposterous wage-bluff, bluff, bluff! They
would be well rid of him! For, deep in his own heart,
there was not a single police sergeant or plain-clothes
man in that immense warren of a building who did


FIRST HONORS
231
fied withes, still comments and f secret bota soul inander-
the pressure of a single button could flood it with
water at a moment's notice. Around the walls, reach-
ing from floor to ceiling, were filing cabinets, made
of steel, each provided with an ingenious lock; and,
bending over flat, low tables, half a dozen men, who
looked more like elderly, spectacled librarians than like
employees of police headquarters, were busy with cards
-red cards and yellow and blue and white and green
-writing, comparing, filing away.
This vault was the very heart of Paris—from a po-
litical and criminal point of view. France is not satis-
fied with detectives; it has detectives keeping tabs on
detectives, still other detectives watching the second
lot, and it supplements and controls the whole by this
system of special dossiers, of secret bordereaux, as the
cards are called. There lives hardly a soul in Paris,
from the president of the republic and the commander-
in-chief of the army down to the dirtiest, raggedest
street-urchin, who has not his card in one of these
filing cabinets. Everything is put down on them: from
a man's first attack of chicken-pox to his last attack of
delirium tremens. It mentions his marks at school; it
gives a concise résumé of the political opinions he ut-
tered during youth and manhood; it gives a report of
his behavior during his army years, his married life,
and an account of his mistresses.
It is like an immense spider's web, stretching every-
where. You are watched—and you never know who
watches you; whether it is the waiter who serves your
glass of absinthe, the laundress who ruins your best
dress shirt, the cab driver who takes you to theater
or station. It is complete, monstrous. By compari-
son, the Polizei Presidium of Berlin is a study in in-
cards are special dossis and controwatching the tabs on
glass of you; whethertched and web,


FIRST HONORS
233
gave it ten velope which he key, and finca
men: “M. Gaulier, will you be so kind as to give me
dossier No. 11,523, name of Aristide Rod?”
“Yes, captain.”
The little man shuffled to a far corner of the vault;
looked up and down the stretch of cabinets; found
the right one, produced a key, and finally came back
with an envelope which bore the number 11,523. He
gave it to Xavier Roux, and the latter handed it to
Tennant.
The American opened it. Then he gave a curse.
“Damn it!" he cried. “There's nothing in this en-
velope! The fool thing is empty!"
“Empty? Impossible! Let me look !" Roux ex-
amined the envelope, saw that Tennant was right, and
turned on the little librarian-policeman like an aveng-
ing whirl-wind.
“What does this signify?” he shouted. “What in
the name of God does this signify, you—you"
The other seemed perfectly undisturbed.
“Captain,” he said, “this department makes no mis-
takes. If the envelope is empty, there is doubtless a
reason. Pardon me while I look it up.”
He went over to á desk, searched for a few seconds
in a box which looked like a loose-leaf card-index, and
returned with a bit of stiff blue pasteboard.
“Captain," he said to Roux, "I was right.” And he
gave him the pasteboard.
Roux read, with Tennant looking over his shoulder:
ing what does Indoes this soundistu
In matters of dossier No. 11,523, Aristide Rod, janitor of
house No. 2b, Impasse Oudinot. This dossier has been turned
over to M. Lartaigne, chief of the secret political police, by orders
of the government.


234
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
“When was this given to M. Lantaigne?” asked Ten-
nant of the little man.
The latter pointed at a corner of the pasteboard.
“To-day, monsieur! Half an hour ago!"
“Yes,” chimed in Doumay, "date and time are there."
Roux accompanied his visitors back to his office.
“I am very sorry, M. Tennant,” he said. “Very,
very sorry.”
Tennant laughed good-humoredly.
“That's all right, old man.” He assumed a fencer's
attitude. “Touché! First honors to M. Lantaigne!
He has drawn blood—but, by ginger, I'll darned well
skewer him in the second round!”
He turned to Doumay.
“Call a taxi! We are off to the Passage Moret to
see if we can't have a look at that mysterious janitor
seerson in the files the Latin quarago, bumped Gobelins,
They crossed the Latin quarter, swung away from
it through the Boulevard Arago, bumped over the
crude, clumsy cobblestones of the Rue des Gobelins,
and dismissed their taxicab at the end of the street
where steep, rickety, wooden steps led down to that
anomaly of a river called the Bièvre.
It was Doumay who had advised making the rest of
the way on foot.
"I was born in these stinking slums," he said. "I
know the neighborhood and the provincial prejudices
of the neighborhood, and I assure you that taxicabs
are not popular here. They are less popular than a.
drummer of safety razors at a barbers' convention!
They are looked upon with suspicion, ridicule, and hate.
They are often the target for extremely ancient eggs
and tomatoes that have seen better days."


FIRST HONORS
235
“All right,” laughed Tennant, “we'll hoof it. Where
is the Passage Moret?”
“Down the street, monsieur."
They followed the Bièvre. That river bloated rather
than rolled along; for it was semiliquid, of a dark
chocolate color, with popping balls of evil gas gliding
over its slimy surface and here and there iridescent
rainbow splotches where a mass of oil or putrid grease
had gathered. Onward it crawled-nasty, turgid, in-
tolerable-most fitly emptying its nauseous waters into
the immense central sewer, together with the other
theerablemoir onwarde a mass of and there as glidings
refuse of epose centra, emptying itled-nasty
They walked along, growing more silent and de-
pressed with every step. There was no spontaneous
Latin gayety in this part of town, no desire to make
the best of existing conditions. Paris here had for-
gotten her ancient Latin heritage-the joie de vivre.
Underfoot the snow had transformed itself into a
sticky, drab smear that sucked at the soles of their
shoes. Overhead a continuous rain of fine white pow-
der, of hairs, and bits of fur, and scrapings, spoke
eloquently of the tanneries that stretched in all direc-
tions. The odor was overpowering. Through the
windows of the houses, fly-specked, broken, gray, came
the sounds of machinery, the voices of men and women
perspiring over their work; but few people were on
the street.
Leisure was not known here. Once, from a postern,
a man appeared, ragged, incredibly dirty, his face a
sickly greenish yellow, his cheeks hollow, his chest sunk
and over-tender, his eyes red-rimmed, about him an aura
of gases and acids and fur-scrapings a worker in a
tannery: old at thirty, dead at forty. He looked at


236
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
the two out of white, indifferent eyes, spat, made a
remark in metallic slang about “obese beasts of bour-
geois," and disappeared into his lair.
Another time a wee girl-child came from a low-ceil-
inged wine-shop, carrying a large pewter vessel filled
with some fusel oil abomination. She seemed to share
the opinion of the neighborhood as to bourgeois. She
looked the two men over. Then she gave judgment:
“You"
Tennant turned pale. He was used to the slums of
New York, to certain slums of Paris. But this—
Doumay laughed.
“The Bièvre, monsieur!” he said laconically. “And
the language of the Bièvre! It would not do in the
salon of the Duchess de Polignac-hein?”
And he led on, finally announcing:
“Passage Moret!" as they turned a corner.
Tennant looked. They had entered a sort of im-
mense court, jerking off rectangularly to the right, and
lined with houses—to judge from the roofs. For of
the façades hardly a foot was visible; they were covered
with hides hanging from rain-pipes and balconies and
windows, crossing from doors that were ajar-hides
shriveled and moist, hides dried and bloated, fantastic,
obscene, grimaeing like hideous faces—hides in all
stages of putrefaction. And again the fine powder
came raining down, entering their mouths and nostrils,
clinging to their hair and clothing.
Tennant coughed.
The odor was becoming worse. It filled his lungs.
It weighed upon him like a physical burden. It stabbed
his eyes like a neuralgic pain.


FIRST HONORS
237
Here more people were in the street. Men, dressed
from head to foot in stout leather, hurried about, carry-
ing immense loads that seemed gluey and hairy. A
white, broken-down mare pulled a barrel of tannic acid
across the lumpy cobbles. A concertina squealed.
Machinery puffed and stamped and roared.
“Where is No. 45?” asked Doumay of one of the
leather-clad workmen, since the number-plates of the
houses were coated thickly with dirt and verdigris.
The other's reply was the opposite of polite. He
looked at Doumay's neat overcoat and hat with intense
hostility. What did the bourgeois want in this neigh-
borhood, he inquired? Was he perhaps a rhinoceros
of a landlord trying to serve a warrant for non-pay-
ment of rent on an honest workman? Or perhaps a
so-and-so capitalist? Or, worse yet, an investigator
sent by one of the charitable societies? Or-
But Doumay turned away the man's wrath with a few
rapid words which Tennant did not understand.
“What are you saying to him?” he whispered.
“I am giving him the high sign," came Doumay's an-
swering whisper. “I am talking to him in the slang
of the neighborhood which only the native born can
understand. Brother speaking to brother!"
And so, indeed, it seemed.
For the man touched his cap, expressed his hope
that he had said nothing to offend the citizens, and he
became positively effusive when the subagent, staring
at him long and searchingly, suddenly asked him if his
name was not Jean Ballu.
“To be sure! How do you know? And yourself?”
“Doumay's my name !"


238
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
"Doumay? Doumay? Surely not the son of old
Marc Doumay who used to rot out our guts with his
vile wine at his tavern-No. 23near the corner?”
“The same !" laughed the subagent.
“Ah! That is good! Name of a soused mackerel!
-- mais c'est bath, mon p'tit! Why, we went to school
together; we played ship-and-skipper in the same gut-
ters! Enfin, do you remember when—" and the two
exchanged childhood reminiscences with great enthu-
siasm until finally Doumay, warned by Tennant that
they had come here on a practical, not a sentimental
errand, repeated his first question:
“Where is No. 45?”
“Just across the street. There!” Jean Ballu
pointed a grimy forefinger. “Don't you remember?
They croaked old Mother Gonfleur in that house and
buried her in the cellar, that deep cellar which stretches
clear across the middle of the street, and "
Again they were about to launch into childhood
reminiscences, when Tennant spoke to Doumay in a
low voice.
The subagent fluttered an eyelid, which told plainly
that he understood.
“By the way, little old Jean," he said to his for-
mer chum. “Suppose—well”—he coughed discreetly-
“suppose I and monsieur here should need your help?”
The other screwed his mouth into a toothy, wicked
grimace.
“Tiens!” he said. “You two are” he made a ges-
ture which explained his thoughts more clearly than
words. “Enemies of society-hein?-disciples of
Father Guérin, who garroted the rooster and said it
was only meant as training for bigger game"


FIRST HONORS
239
“Never mind what we are. But suppose we need
your help?”
Jean Ballu smiled.
“The old whistle!” he said. “Remember it? The
whistle of our gang! Just you whistle and I shall
come running; I and perhaps a few more old friends.
The Bièvre does not forget, mon bougre,” he added with
all the pride of a crusader swearing fealty to the
oriflamme. And, as he turned to go: “Not much pick-
ing in the old place, though, comrade! The man who
lived there decamped this morning.”
"Decamped?” asked Tennant, a little excited.
“Yes. In a devil of a hurry. Said he didn't like
the smell of the neighborhood.” Jean Ballu laughed.
“But he left his things behind him. Said he's going to
send for them during the day,” and he walked away.
“What will we do?” asked Doumay.
“We'll take a look through his things.”
No. 45, Passage Moret, turned out to be twin-brother
to all the other buildings of the passage. Only it was
comparatively free of hides and furs; or at least those
which stretched across its façade did not belong to the
house itself, but were encroachments from neighboring
buildings.
It was a one-storied affair, flush with the sidewalk.
The outer door was ajar. They walked in.
They found themselves in a small, low room, the
walls green and crumbly with moisture, the floor in-
credibly dirty. There was no furniture except a rush-
bottom chair and an unpainted deal table upon which
was a tin plate with remnants of food over which two
dusty, guilty-looking alley cats were having a vicious
argument.


FIRST HONORS
241
and of slight build, while the man in there was short
and squat. Too, this man was no apache; did not
belong to the hunted classes. On the contrary there
was about him an indefinable something, a certain
pompous, important heaviness for all his agile fingers,
as if he did, whatever he was doing, with official sanc-
tion at his back. Yes! There was no doubt of it!
This man was a policeman.
Of course! Lantaigne had sent him here. To look
for what? To bring back what?
He would know in a moment.
He turned and signaled to Doumay, pursing his lips
as if about to whistle, and the subagent flashed back
a slow wink which told that he understood. Rapidly
and silently.he hurried through the room, out of the
front door, and at once Tennant heard a shrill, kitelike
whistle-two high notes, followed by a throaty, low
one-tremble through the air; and, a moment later, he
heard running footsteps.
Through the half-open door he saw Jean Ballu, ac-
companied by two other men, tanners clad in leather,
one carrying a bag. They were grinning expectantly.
“What is it?" asked Ballu.
Tennant joined them outside. He gave them rapid,
low-voiced instructions, and Ballu and the other two
laughed.
“Bon sang! You know your business, citizen, for
all your fine clothes !” said the one who carried the bag,
and he emptied the contents, a mass of hide scrapings,
on the floor.
“Ropes !” commanded Tennant, and Jean Ballu ran
off and returned with a coil a minute later.
“All right!"


242
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
Tennant gave the signal and, with the rush of a whirl-
wind, the three tanners, led by Doumay, were across
the room and pushed open the inner door. The man
inside turned, but he did not even have time to see
who his aggressors were. For the bag descended over
his head with lightning quickness. He was roped se-
curely, hand and foot, and the next moment, in obe-
dience to Tennant's command, he was pulled down the
cellar steps unceremoniously and deposited in a farther
corner.
“Nobody'll hear him there !” laughed Ballu. “Old
Mother Gonfleur's ghost will keep him company. And
now, citizen-what?”
Tennant tried his best to talk and act like a case-
hardened criminal.
“Doumay and I will turn the rest of the trick. You'll
get your share of the swag afterward.”
“We play fair!” chimed in the subagent, but when
the others had walked away, laughing, satisfied, he
turned to the American with a complete change of
manner:
"Monsieur!” he asked, plainly amazed, “what did you
mean by their share of the swag?"
"Speaking psychologically and not at all personally,
I'd call you a darned little slow-poke!” laughed Ten-
nant. “Why, man alive! can't you see beyond the end
of your snub nose? I don't want Lantaigne to rec-
ognize my. fine Italian hand in this little criminal in-
termezzo. The man down there in the cellar was doubt-
less sent by Lantaigne, and I want the chief of the
political police to believe that his representative was
attacked and robbed by local talent. So we are going
to frisk him, annex his watch and money and whatever
I'd call why, man at I don't in this li
less mezzo. The Italian I don't you see me laugheson


FIRST HONORS
243
other valuables he may have about his person, and
turn the lot over to Jean Ballu and your other old
college mates.”
“Good !" laughed Doumay, delighted. “Shall I go
down the cellar and attend to the gentleman?”
“Yes. Do that. Meanwhile I shall take a look
and see if I can't discover what he was searching for;
what Lantaigne, and perhaps Aristide Rod, sent him
up to get.”
He went to the back room and did his work with the
greatest care. Here, too, he did not want Lantaigne
to suspect that he had been mixed up with the affair,
so he took article after article from the trunk, replacing
them exactly as he had found them. Only one he kept,
slipping it into his pocket after a short struggle with
himself.
Ten minutes later Doumay returned. He produced
a fine gold watch, a seal ring, a stick-pin with diamond
splinters, and a purse well filled with money.
“For our friends of the Bièvre!” he said. Then,
taking a tiny object from his pocket: “Look at this,
monsieur. You were right. He is an agent of the
secret political police.”
Tennant looked at the little thing which Doumay
gave him. It was an oxidized silver button, the size
of a penny, with a running greyhound engraved on it.
The man had worn it on the inside of his coat lapel.
“Sure proof !” repeated Doumay. “And what did
you find, monsieur?”
“Three things,” the American replied, lifting the
top tray out of the trunk. “There! Look at them!”
and Doumay, bending, saw a very loose, drab-colored
overcoat of rough material, a broad belt studded with


244
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
Rod to hide th® It is an id of a ne upon is hands het go intime
vicious, pointed brass spikes, and a package of letters.
"Enough evidence to send Aristide Rod to the guil-
lotine !" Tennant said tersely. “Do you remember
Anne Houlbrecque's description of the figure she saw
silhouetted in her master's library just before the mur-
der? She spoke of an overcoat very loose about the
hips. There it is! And do you know why Aristide
Rod wears such a loose overcoat?”
“To hide the girdle; the spiked belt!"
"Exactly! It is a bully thing to wear around your
waist if you are afraid of a run-in with the bluecoats.
Let a policeman put his hands upon the wearer, try to
get body to body, and he'll tear his hands to pieces
against these hellish brass spikes. He'll let go in-
stinctively-for a moment-and our friend makes his
getaway!”
He went on explaining to Doumay that the cuts
on Jarvet's palms and on the library table and the
safe, and on the wooden column which supported the
mantelpiece in the room where Raoul Steynard had
been murdered had been made by these same spikes.
“He leaned over the table when he killed Jarvet, and
up against the mantelpiece column when he killed Stey-
nard, don't you see? And see here-additional proof!"
He opened his pocketbook and took out the bits of
rough, fibrous cloth he had picked from the cuts in
Jarvet's library table. “Compare them with the over-
coat.”
“They are the same.”
“Exactly!”
“And the letters, M. Tennant, what are they? Are
they-ah—the love letters which Mlle. Angele Lan-
taigne had written to that pig of a Jarvet?”


FIRST HONORS
245
1. Tell thallu and the did not finish the
Tennant inclined his head.
“Yes,” he said in a low voice.
“But why—why? What has this apache to do with
mademoiselle?”
Tennant did not reply for several seconds. He
stared straight ahead.
“Mon ami,” he said finally. “I think I know the
reason and I am afraid to-" He did not finish the
sentence. “Find Jean Ballu and the other two. Give
them the spoil. Tell them to keep mum. Ask them
to release the prisoner late to-night. They'll be able
to do it without drawing suspicion on themselves.”
“Trust the lads of the Bièvre for that!” laughed
Doumay as he left the room.
A few minutes later Tennant and the subagent were
back on their way to the Place Fontenoy.
Tennant said good-by to the other at the door of his
apartment house.
“See you later in the office,” he said. “I have some-
thing important to do upstairs.”
And it seemed very important indeed, judging from
the fact that he locked himself in his room. But all
he did was to look at the thing which he had taken from
Aristide Rod's trunk.
It was a small photograph; the picture of a little
three-year-old girl in a dress of two decades earlier.
He studied the picture intensely.
Then he kissed it.


CHAPTER XVI
MARCEL LANTAIGNE
A FEW days later the agent of the Agence Ducastel
in New Caledonia replied to the cable regarding Con-
vict James Smith. M. Ducastel was the first to read
the message, and he shouted from his desk--the door
between the two offices was ajar-to Tennant to come
there at once.
• “What is it?" asked the American from the threshold.
“A cable! A reply to ours! And—what do you
think-James Smith was—"
"James Smith was not alone. He escaped together
with another convict; a man a little over medium
height, of slight build, with a limp caused like James
Smith's by wearing an iron ball and chain. Have I
guessed right, monsieur?”
Ducastel collapsed into the nearest chair.
“It's uncanny!” he protested. “It's uncannyin
the name of all the little truffled sausages! During
the days of the Inquisition they would have parboiled
you as being in league with the devil-and they would
have been justified. You are right.” And he gave to
Tennant the cablegram, which, after a description of
the two penal settlers, added that, as far as known to
the Ducastel agent, the colonial government had been
asked by the British ambassador to Paris as a special
favor to stop the search after James Smith.
height; by wearimsieur?" the nearest this uncanduring
Suessed with collapse the proterutled could have been wou
246


MARCEL LANTAIGNE
247
"To be sure !” interpolated Tennant, “since Menzies-
Kerr's father, the old duke, is prime minister!"
He read on:
The other escaped convict went under the name of Charles
Huard. He was traced as far as Paris. There all signs of him
were lost. This seems strange to the New Caledonian authori-
ties. If the man had been an apache, he would easily enough
have found help and asylum with other apaches. But he did
not seem to belong to the apaches. He was evidently a man
of culture, education, family, and refinement. The settlement
wardens say that he took a great interest in international politics.
Tennant rose to go, but M. Ducastel laid a restrain-
ing hand on his arm.
“My friend,” he said, “prove that you have been
brought up in decent surroundings..Drop your cow-
boy manners. Show some respect for my snowy locks
and my hoary hair. In other words, come through!
Tell me, how did you know that James Smith was ac-
companied by this Charles Huard person?”
Tennant laughed.
“Chief,” he replied, “I'll tell you the whole truth."
“Good; very good, indeed! Have a cigar; a special
honored visitors' cigar.” And the older man unlocked
a drawer in his desk, took out a box, and offered it to
the American.
The latter helped himself to a Havana and lit it.
“Here goes,” he said. “You see, it's my plain duty
to know all about Charles Huard.”
“But why? Why, tonnerre de Dieu ”
“Because I am engaged to his sister!" replied Ten-
nant as he left, which reply only mystified M. Ducastel
still more and caused him to make some decidedly un-
complimentary remarks about the whole brood of “in-


248
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
fernal Yankee ne'er-do-wells,” and one James Oliver
Tennant in particular.
But the latter had spoken the truth as he saw it.
He was convinced that Aristide Rod, alias Charles
Huard, was none other than Marcel Lantaigne, brother
to Angele, the boy who was supposed to have died a
heroic death in the Alps, trying to save a comrade's
life.
He had suspected something of the sort before, at
the time when Lantaigne, seeing him studying Marcel's
photograph, had burst into such a strange fit of temper
and had demanded so passionately what the American
knew about his son, about his own sad, bitter memories.
He had whispered his suspicions in Angele's ear. She
shared them. And that was the reason why she would
not listen to his love words until he had cleared up
both murders. For she was afraid that her brother
was alive, that he was the assassin, that her father
was shielding him. She feared discovery of the whole
terrible affair, exposure; her brother sent up for life;
her father broken and disgraced.
“Dear, brave, bully little girl!” soliloquized Tennant,
and he walked up and down the length of the room,
thinking, smoking.
Certain elements of the Jarvet-Steynard mystery he
had solved, either by psychology or by direct deduction.
At others he had guessed, with the odds in his favor.
But there were still others which baffled him. It was
like a problem in higher mathematics. So he set to
work separating each element into the particular class
where it belonged and trying to see if, by dovetailing
those of the first with those of the second class, he


MARCEL LANTAIGNE
249
might not be able to arrive at a solution of the elements
belonging to the third category.
It needed thinking—hard, straight, logical thinking.
There was, first of all, the fact, proved by the dis-
covery of the loose, drab overcoat, the brass-spiked
belt, and Angele Lantaigne's love-letters stolen from
Jarvet's safe, that Aristide Rod-as he called himself
—was the assassin.
There was, furthermore, the fact that M. Lantaigne
was trying to shield him; this proving in itself that
· Aristide Rod was identical with Charles Huard, who
was identical with Marcel Lantaigne. This was nat-
ural. A father's love is even more strangely unrea-
soning than a mother's. A mother will suffer and
slave and weep for her son, but a father will commit
a crime for him; and Lantaigne, hard, bitter, sardonic,
was the very man to throw duty into the discard in a
moment of primitive, gripping, choking passion; the
passion of love for his own flesh and blood.
Too-though this belonged, properly speaking, in
the second category, that of elements guessed at, not
exactly solved-old Lantaigne had evidently been in
fear of some sort of exposure, as demonstrated by the
writing on the blotter, in spite of his assertion that he
had never received such a letter.
He had spoken the truth there. But was the letter
which he had not received the first which Jarvet had
written? Or was it not rather one of many? Black-
mailers the world over do not rely on a single threat;
they cumulate, steadily increase the pressure. Yes !
Lantaigne had every reason to protect his son against
all odds, at all costs.


250
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
There was, thirdly, the fact, plainly proved since
he had employed Aristide Rod as janitor of the house
in the Impasse Oudinot, which he had leased from the
chief of the secret political police, that Lord Menzies-
Kerr, too, was trying to shield the assassin. And
this, again, could be explained, since not only was he
grateful to old Lantaigne for his help in hushing up
the news of his escape, following his father's, the duke's,
wire-pulling with the French government, but because
he and Marcel had escaped together from the miasmatic
jungles of New Caledonia, and since the dark, eccentric,
taciturn Scot was not the sort to betray a chum.
As to the elements at which Tennant had guessed,
there was principally the part which the butcher, Guil-
laume Nordeg, had played in the double tragedy, and
the part of the map of Indo-China. The latter had
once been a map of that colony, printed in Germany.
But it had changed its character and significance. The
thin, superadded net of red crosses and lines had meta-
morphosed the bit of innocent paper into something
dangerously resembling a strategic chart of Paris-
pointing out the weak spots, the southern approach,
the approach through Switzerland—to whom?
To Germany, of course. France had no other enemy
in the world, and it was certain that Lantaigne, speak-
ing for the government, was aware of this. Had he
not told him, that day in the office when he had asked
him to quash the murder investigation, that France
was afraid to learn the truth; that France did not
want its hand forced into war?
Which brought Tennant's thoughts back to the
plump figure of Guillaume Nordeg. The man was
doubtless a German, as demonstrated by his slightly
in the wr the brothat day de investimet T


MARCEL LANTAIGNE
251
guttural accent and the Berlin tailor's label in his
coat; doubtless a gentleman, as proved by his facial
characteristics, his manner that day in the Steynard
library, and the exquisite cameo stick-pin which he
wore; and, just as doubtless, an important figure in his
sinister profession. For he had traveled considerably.
He was even familiar with American slang and Ameri-
can humor.
Steynard, too, had certainly been a German. He
had professed to be an Alsatian. But Tennant knew
that this was an ordinary subterfuge of German spies,
since the German, though quick at languages, never
really loses his accent, and since this accent is the
same as that of the Alsatian and the Swiss. Nordeg
had been a close intimate of Steynard and of Jarvet.
Angele had seen the butcher and Jarvet leaning over
what she had thought to be an automobile map, and
which had been in reality the map of Indo-China. The
reason for this was clear: the Internationalist Party,
the peace-at-all-costs party, was in the pay of Ger-
many. As were the peace parties of Holland, of Eng-
land, of America, and the rest of the world, with few
exceptions.
But what about the third category of elements, the
ones which puzzled him?
What were they?
First of all, what had been the motive of the double
murder?
· Had it been the crime of an enraged patriot? That
seemed to be borne out by the agent's cabled state-
ment that Charles Huard, alias Aristide Rod, alias
Marcel Lantaigne, had been interested in foreign poli-
tics, and by the fact that both Jarvet and Steynard


MARCEL LANTAIGNE
253
story of the escape, as evidenced by the discovery of
the criminal records. Why, then, did not the latter
use this knowledge? And how could he use it? Nor-
deg's motive was not revenge. It was something much
bigger, from his bigoted, national, German point of
view. Nordeg wanted the map.
What, then, was the answer?
Tennant pondered. He pondered for hours, walking
up and down, smoking.
Finally he made up his mind.
He looked again at the little picture which he had
found in Marcel's trunk. The name of the photog-
rapher was not on it. Should he call on Angele and
ask her if she knew when the picture had been taken-
for this was the first thing he must know.
He couldn't do that. He did not want to worry
the girl whom he loved with all his heart. There was
a better way of finding out. Just around the corner
was a small millinery-shop, and nearly every day the
stout, good-natured proprietress and he exchanged
greetings, remarks about the weather, and occasional
light jests.
He left the office and called on her.
“Bon jour, madame.”
“Bon jour, monsieur.”
He showed her the little picture.
“The picture of monsieur's sweetheart?”
“Yes," came the truthful, unblushing reply; and
then: “Madame, you are familiar with styles?”
She threw up her hands.
“To be sure! It is my life; my ambition. This
shop is small-jarnibleu!—but I am an artist. I know
styles as a cat knows mice.”
Wadetter way of findeed with all his "ht want to work


MARCEL LANTAIGNE
255
out what crime Marcel committed; what disgraceful
thing he has been guilty of; and you'll have the answer
to the whole damned mystery, my little Doumay!"
“A lady to see yo', suh!” announced George, very
late in the evening a day or two later.
“A lady? This time of night?” Tennant consulted
his watch. It was close to eleven. “Who?"
George sniffed; a sniff expressive of contempt, sus-
picion, and hostility.
“That heah French lady yo' am sending all them
flowahs to, suh!"
“Good Lord! Show her in at once!” and when, a
moment later, Angele Lantaigne came into the room,
charming in dove-colored corduroy, an immense blue fox
scarf and a tiny toque of the same material, Tennant
scolded her.
Didn't she know that if any one saw her enter or
leave the house, every cackling old hen of a woman and
every cackling old rooster of a man around the Place
Fontenoy would be talking scandal to-morrow? Didn't
she know that the papers had been attacking him for
his alleged failure in the Jarvet-Steynard affair and
that doubtless some of the yellow sheets were having
him watched?
“Why, child, can't you see? You were accused of
murder, and I was the detective mainly responsible for
clearing you of suspicion! If the Internationalist press
hears that you visited me this time of night they'll —
I don't care about myself, girl," he added. “It's your
reputation. They'll unearth the whole wretched affair!
They'll cover you with slime! You must go straight
away from here. There's a back entrance through a
neighboring garden. George'll escort you."


254
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
“Bully! Then tell me, when was this picture taken?
I am sure you can tell by the child's frock.”
The woman laughed.
“Is monsieur trying to see if mademoiselle, his sweet-
heart, has told him feminine untruths as to her age?”
She studied the picture. “Eh bien, monsieur needn't to
worry. This picture was taken about seventeen years
ago, when mademoiselle was three. Mademoiselle is
still quite young.”
Tennant thanked her and returned to the office.
Here was the beginning. Marcel had doubtless taken
the little picture with him as a souvenir from home
when he had been sentenced to New Caledonia.
“Send Doumay to me,” he said over the desk tele-
phone.
The subagent came in a moment later.
The American wrote a few words on a scrap of paper:
“Doumay, here's a job for you. Look up the old
criminal records of those sent up to New Caledonia
seventeen or eighteen years ago. Here's the name of
the man I wish to find out about," and he gave him
the scrap of paper.
Doumay looked up, utterly amazed.
“Marcel-Marcel Lantaigne?”
"Exactly. Marcel is Aristide Rod's real name. I
know that the escaped convict was there under the
name of Charles Huard. But I doubt if he has always
been under that name. There's a possibility of a man
tampering with criminal records; particularly a man
in old Lantaigne's position. But seventeen years ago
Lantaigne was not the powerful figure he is to-day.
Seventeen years ago he did not have influence enough
to change a convict settler's name and record. Find


MARCEL LANTAIGNE
255
out what crime Marcel committed; what disgraceful
thing he has been guilty of; and you'll have the answer
to the whole damned mystery, my little Doumay!"
"A lady to see yo', suh!” announced George, very
late in the evening a day or two later.
“A lady? This time of night?” Tennant consulted
his watch. It was close to eleven. “Who?”
George sniffed; a sniff expressive of contempt, sus-
picion, and hostility.
“That heah French lady yo' am sending all them
flowahs to, suh!”
“Good Lord! Show her in at once!” and when, a
moment later, Angele Lantaigne came into the room,
charming in dove-colored corduroy, an immense blue fox
scarf and a tiny toque of the same material, Tennant
scolded her.
Didn't she know that if any one saw her enter or
leave the house, every cackling old hen of a woman and
every cackling old rooster of a man around the Place
Fontenoy would be talking scandal to-morrow? Didn't
she know that the papers had been attacking him for
his alleged failure in the Jarvet-Steynard affair and
that doubtless some of the yellow sheets were having
him watched?
“Why, child, can't you see? You were accused of
murder, and I was the detective mainly responsible for
clearing you of suspicion! If the Internationalist press
hears that you visited me this time of night they'll
I don't care about myself, girl," he added. “It's your
reputation. They'll unearth the whole wretched affair!
They'll cover you with slime! You must go straight
away from here. There's a back entrance through a
neighboring garden. George'll escort you.”


MARCEL LANTAIGNE
259
my family; will disgrace our name. How can I marry
the man who— dear, you must understand!”
"I do.”
Tennant had turned deathly pale. A terrible strug-
gle was in his heart. He was a detective, sworn to
do his duty. He had always played the game fair and
square and clean. It was his religion, his hope, his
faith, his pride—and his cross. He stared straight
ahead, the strain on his soul growing every minute
greater. The girl was right. Of course.
To marry him—why, she couldn't do it! She would
always think of him as the instrument of her brother's
fate, her father's disgrace and ruin. No love could
overcome the eternal, bitter thought. But—he looked
at her, at her curling, golden hair, the brave, clear
eyes, the little rounded face. He saw her there before
him—dear, most dear-more precious to him than the
dwelling of kings.
He could not give her up.
Duty? Sworn duty? To the devil with it! He
would throw up his job to-morrow!
“Dearest,” he said, “I will—”
“Do not say it.” Her voice came, low and calm.
“Your honor is yourself! I would not want you to
sully it because of our love. I couldn't love you, dear,
if you did.”
She walked to the door.
Then, suddenly, a thought came to Tennant.
“Angele,” he asked, “suppose I live up to my oath.
Suppose I prove that your brother was the murderer
and give the proof to the world. Suppose I do all that
--without bringing unhappiness on your brother and
your father?”


260
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
“If you did that I shall love you even more than I
do now, dear,” she smiled through a veil of tears. “But
you can't do the impossible !"
“Oh, can't I though!" was Tennant's stubborn re-
ply.


CHAPTER XVII
THE OLD GUILT
whitevaret political polithe possibility theNot for a
It was Lantaigne's remark to his daughter that,
though he had abused his power by shielding his son,
he had acted in the best interests of France, which
gave Tennant a clew, if an indirect one. Not for a
moment did he consider the possibility that the chief of
the secret political police might have been trying to
whitewash his honor in his daughter's estimation, to
“save his face.” Men of the chief's temperament, hard,
bitter, sardonic, supercilious, do not usually resort to
that sort of self-involving, emotional-or is it mental?
—stratagem. The man had assuredly spoken the truth
as he saw it, had really meant to fulfill his sworn duty
even in the moment when he had been false to it.
But how?
It could not be because he considered the death of
the two men, Anatole Jarvet and Raoul Steynard, In-
ternationalists, pacifists through the clinking persua-
sion of money, thus traitors, beneficial to the weal of
the republic. This would have noways interfered with
his doing his duty by giving the assassin, Marcel, up to
the authorities.
No! It was in shielding his son that he was trying
to do his duty by France, as if Marcel were a fate-
forged weapon to be unsheathed and used in the de-
261


262
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
fense of the motherland whenever the need arose as a
sort of patriotic assassin.
Lantaigne was a typical Frenchman, therefore a
man not opposed to the principle of political murder
if the destiny of his native land was at stake. Robes-
pierre had been a patriot; so had Marat, and Danton.
On the other hand, he was typically French in this, too,
that his motives were chivalrous, often even quixotic,
and that in consequence he would be averse to the use
of a weapon which was tainted and polluted even for so
primitive a thing as murder.
And his son was polluted. He was an escaped New
Caledonian convict.
How then harmonize these two contradictory facts?
There was only one solution: namely that by the as-
sassination of Jarvet and Steynard, Marcel must have
tried to expiate the very crime for which he had been
sentenced in the first place. And this brought Ten-
nant's thoughts back to the part of the cablegram from
New Caledonia which spoke about Marcel having taken
a great interest in international politics. ·
Yes! The boy was expiating a crime in his own
manner. His father was consecrating him—a most
bloody weapon. A few days later, Tennant was des-
tined to hear this opinion corroborated.
Ever since the night when he had found the torn,
charred criminal record of James Smith in the grate of
the old house in the Impasse Oudinot, Tennant had had
the house watched. He doubted that the Lantaignes
or Menzies-Kerr, being warned, would use it.
But there was Nordeg. The latter, too, had used
the house. He had a secret mode of egress; and, be-
charred since the opinion cons


THE OLD GUILT
263
1
.
sides, it was just across from the temporary quarters
of the German Embassy, the people in whose pay he
doubtless was.
So the American was not surprised when early one
afternoon Doumay telephoned, saying that somebody
was in the house. He didn't know who. Esternaux had
watched the place all morning, and he had gone there
to relieve him. He had arrived a little late, and Ester-
naux, who had another important bit of work to do,
had gone to meet him at the corner of the Rue du Bac.
In consequence the house had not been watched for
about five minutes, and during that time somebody had
entered it.
“How do you know?” asked Tennant.
“I saw shadows at the window.”
“Is anybody watching the house while you are tele-
phoning?”
“Yes; a bluecoat."
“All right. I'll be straight over.”
Spring had come overnight, with a sweet smell of
birches and peeping early flowers and an Eastern sky
which was tight stretched, serene, and cloudless; and
Tennant walked rapidly.
Doumay met him at the corner of the Impasse Oudi-
not and pointed at the first upper-story window of
the old house.
Tennant looked.
Yes. Two shadows were moving about, quite clearly
silhouetted against the window pane.
“I'd like to know who they are.”
“We can wait. They are bound to come out again.”
Tennant laughed.


THE OLD GUILT
265
four yea dragoons ie had beenestors deseown “for military
sons," the his," his gare daughter forefinger
fluttering of a soul-a great soul. For Paris, monsieur,
is a woman, too, in this that she is grateful. And now,
to what fortunate circumstance do I owe the honor of
your visit?"
Tennant came straight to the point.
“I would like your permission to go up on the roof
of your house. There is something I want to do there.
Something"
He hesitated, and the prince raised a deprecating
hand, saying he understood. Monsieur was a detec-
tive; he had to be discreet. And then, a flame eddying
up in his piercing old eyes, his voice rising—for, forty-
four years earlier, the prince had been a major of
French dragoons, he had fought against the Prussian
invader, his castle had been looted “for military rea-
sons,” the graves of his ancestors desecrated "for mili-
tary reasons,” his garden trees cut down “for military
reasons," his youngest daughter assaulted "for military
reasons”-he pointed a shaky forefinger at the tem-
porary quarters of the German Embassy.
“Tell me just one thing, monsieur. Just one thing.
That-thing-over there! The black-white-and-red
flag—the black of cruelty, the white of hypocrisy, the
red of innocent blood spilled for the sport of it! I
hate them! They have no business in this quiet old
street; in the retreat of an old man who wants to be
alone with his memories and his sorrows."
He was silent for a while, collecting his scattering
thoughts.
“I follow the newspapers,” he went on, "and my son
is in the Chamber of Deputies. I know that many
people believe that Jarvet and Steynard were murdered
for political reasons-and, whenever our political water


THE CREUZOT STEEL SPRING
273
“Pipe-dreams, my boy. That youngster died in an
Alpine accident. All the world knows that.”
Tennant shook his head.
“He did not. He is alive. His name is Aristide Rod
at present, and in New Caledonia he was known as
Charles Huard."
Ducastel rose, excited, gesticulating.
“That's what you meant when you said you were
engaged to the escaped convict's sister! Name of a
mouse! But how do you know? How did you figure
it out?” And when Tennant had told him everything,
he went on: “But it is terrible—tragic-intolerable!
You are engaged to Mlle. Lantaigne and—”
“Not engaged—yet !" commented the American rue-
fully.
Ducastel was walking up and down the length of the
room. He stopped and looked at the other.
"You are right, my friend," he said. “It must have
been the terrible disgrace of her son which caused Mme.
Lantaigne to kill herself just a few days after the trial.
The papers were full of it at the time. Of course no-
body knew the real reason, as I know it now. She was
a very beautiful woman, and a very gay woman. Not,
enfin, bad. But vivacious, flirtatious, eager to play
with fire "
Tennant was staring straight ahead.
“I wonder,” he mused, “why the government kept the
whole affair so secret, even kept it out of the newspa-
pers and the criminal records.”
"I told you, mon petit. The government did not
want to enrage the populace. They were afraid of
war.”
But Tennant shook his head stubbornly. He was


THE CREUZOT STEEL SPRING
275
the Ge Marceou and you to
his imagination: "Marcel's mother and Jarvet have
an affair. Jarvet tries to blackmail her. She does not
know to whom to turn. Finally confides in her son.
He gets the money—somehow, somewhere. Clear so
far?"
“Go on! Go on!”
“Meanwhile Jarvet gets an offer from the agents of
the German government for the formula. Rifles the
safe. Marcel catches him. Jarvet tells him: 'One
word from you and your mother is dishonored! Mar-
cel keeps his mouth shut. The money which he raised
to pay Jarvet is found in his possession, used as evi-
dence against him, and he is sent to New Caledonia for
life. His mother, in utter despair and remorse, kills
herself. Why, it's clear!"
“It's gorgeously romantic, dramatic, beautiful! But
it is not clear, my boy. By no means."
“I shall prove it.”
"How?"
“By finding Marcel. I shall put it up to him
straight. Don't you see, man? He is trying to prove
to his father that he is for France all for France
that he will not even stop at murder for the sake of
France.”
“Not so fast. If Marcel killed Jarvet, and if your
little emotional fairy-story should happen to be true,
he killed him for the sake of revenge."
"Perhaps. And he saw Angele's letters in the safe,
read them, and took them along on the spur of the
moment. But what about Steynard? Steynard, who
threatened the government with terrible exposures, with
a catastrophe? No! I heard the two Lantaignes,
father and son, talk, and the boy imagines himself a


CHAPTER XIX
HOME
“DR-RR-RRR!” The telephone bell cut through the
air with a jarring, steely twang.
Half reluctantly, Tennant turned from his task. He
had been busy these last fifteen minutes in his apartment
on the Place Fontenoy, throwing shirts and collars and
neckties and other necessaries into his bag. He took
down the receiver.
“Hello!”
“Hello! Hello!” came the answering challenge from
the other end of the wire. “Is that you, Tennant?"
It was Menzies-Kerr speaking. The Scotchman had
left the apartment in a huff on the night when Tennant
had confronted him with the criminal record of James
Smith, New Caledonian convict, and had noť been seen
'nor heard from since. Tennant had been hurt at the
man's lack of confidence. But he was not the sort to
bear a grudge very long and so he was glad to hear the
familiar voice.
“Yes, Allistair?"
“Jamie! Jamie Tennant !” even along the copper
wires the words seemed to throb with entreaty, despair,
fear. “Jamie"
A sharp, nervous wait. Crossed wires, was it?' Or
central butting in?
278


HOME
279
“Get off the wire !" Tennant rasped out. “Give me
a clear connection, central.”
Another short wait-a metallic rattle and once
more Menzies-Kerr's voice:
“Help! Help! For God's sake-Nord—”
Then a whir, a noise in Tennant's ear as the roar-
ing of a gigantic sea-shell-utter silence!
He cried into the receiver:
“Allistair! Allistair! Where are you? What has
happened?"
No answer. Only a far-off click, and central's lazy
drawl:
“Number, please?”
Tennant was in a cold perspiration. The other had
asked for help. “Nord—” had been the last word he
had said. Half a word, rather. “Nord” meaning
Nordeg. Of course. But what had happened? And
where, and how?
“Number, please?" repeated central, acidulent re-
proach in the rising voice, and Tennant sang back
frantically: “You cut me off! I was talking. Give
me back the number.”
“What number?"
“Don't know. Somebody was calling. Find out
who—and reconnect. Hurry!”
A minute later, central's reply:
“Private wire was calling."
“All right. Let's have it. Give me the number, or
the name !"
“Against the regulations,” drawled central, evidently
enjoying the wire-distanced scene, and the American
cursed under his breath.
“Give me the manager. Yes, the manager-at once !"


HOME
281
sive bronze doors. But he dismissed the mad idea almost
immediately. For what chance was there in it? The
people of the embassy would make a flat denial. Too,
he could not use force, since foreign embassies were for-
eign territory, sacrosanct, inviolable. They were be-
yond even the reach of the country's law.
What then should he do?
What could he do?
To whom might he turn?
Lantaigne! Lantaigne, familiar with the muddier
side of international diplomacy, familiar, too, with the
private scandals and vices of individual diplomats, was
the one man with influence enough. But he and the
American had been at cross purposes straight through;
and even suppose the chief of the secret political police
were willing to forget his antagonism against Tennant
for the sake of his friendship for Lord Menzies-Kerr,
there still remained the fact that he was unwilling to
do anything which might cause friction between France
dond GernLantai ime an
No. Lantaigne was out of the question. It would
be a waste of time and a lack of discretion to approach
him.
Whatever danger Menzies-Kerr was in, it appeared
• that his best friend's hands were tied.
But were they?
Suddenly Tennant smiled, and very calmly he re-
turned to his task.
“I am going to keep straight on hunting for Mar-
cel,” he soliloquized. “Since Nordeg found it worth
his while to kidnap Menzies-Kerr, he is sure to try the
same trick on Marcel. From a political point of view
as an instrument against the government—those two


282
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
are a unit. They escaped together. Yes! I am going
to keep on Marcel's trail and, since Nordeg is sure to
be on the same trail, I shall find our 'butcher' auto-
matically! And he finished his packing.
But it seemed that Tennant changed his opinion over-
night. For early the next morning, when a reporter of
the Figaro called on him and begged him to either cor-
roborate or deny a statement given out by M. Ducastel
the evening before a statement which, shorn of M.
Ducastel's Gallic vituperations, said that the chief of
the Agence, dissatisfied with the American's failure in
the investigation of the Jarvet-Steynard affair, had
dismissed him from his employ—Tennant admitted the
truth of it rather mournfully.
He launched into an attack against the ingratitude
of Paris, of all France, of the entire Latin world.
“I did my level best, monsieur," he said to the re-
porter. "I tried and tried and tried. I failed so far.
But I had another string to my bow. Last night I
spoke of it to M. Ducastel. I hit on a sure way of
catching the murderer. But the old curmudgeon
wouldn't kick in with the dough. Told me I was ex-
travagant. Told me I was overpaid. Told me to pack
up my duds and go home to America. Well, I am
going, and damned glad that I am going. You people
here” and he told the reporter again what he thought
of the French.
“When are you going?” asked the reporter, rapidly
scribbling in his yellow paper note-book.
“To catch the Calais boat express this very moment.
Gad, I'll be tickled to get home!”
“Cab's waitin' outside, suh!” came George's soft


CHAPTER XX
-
--
M. ERNEST LAFARGE
---
The office of the Etoile, though within the radius of
the deafening rattle of the Bastille-Wagram omnibus,
faced the sleepy old square called the Place des Vosges,
and was typical of that backwater of forgotten life.
James Tennant, in his reincarnation of Ernest Lafarge,
seemed to breathe there the full flavor of the Seven-
teenth Century-dreamy, neglected, decaying, dejected.
And it was dejection, too, which characterized the
editorial office of the Etoile. The death of Raoul Stey-
nard had nearly done for the Internationalist newspa-
per. Not from a financial point of view. For the same
foreign money kept on trickling into its coffers. But
the tremendous, driving, human element was missing.
All this was as nothing in the Père Lachaise, in the
coffin of Raoul Steynard. He had been the whole
newspaper. Many were there ready to step into his
shoes, but there was not one who combined the mur-
dered editor's really great gifts: quick constructive-
ness; tremendous vitality; ability to fool himself as well
as others, rather to fool himself so as to successfully
fool others; the art of vituperation; and the knack
not to let your right hand know what your left is doing
-or taking.
Steynard was dead! Steynard could not be replaced!
284


M. ERNEST LAFARGE
285
And so the editorial office was steeped in gloom and
hatred.
To revenge Steynard's death-this was the wish of
the Etoile staff, from the temporary editor down to
the raggedest copy-boy.
The former, a M. Toussaint Perquel, was sitting be-
hind the late M. Steynard's desk, unsuccessfully trying
to write a scathing, pithy editorial in the late M. Stey-
nard's vitriolic manner, when a card was brought to
him, with the engraved legend:
“M. ERNEST LAFARGE.
New Orleans-Paris."
and written on the reverse side:
“To see you about the Steynard affair.”
“Show the gentleman in,” said M. Perquel, and a few
minutes later Ernest Lafarge came into the room.
He was a decidedly breezy individual, with close-
curling reddish-brown hair, a. carrotty mustache. He
described himself with his first words, spoken with a
broad American accent, as an American of French par-
entage from New Orleans.
"French by blood and name. American by birth and
general persuasion. As quick as the first, and as sharp
as the second.” This was his modest announcement
of himself. “I've come here to talk business,” he wound
up as he plumped into the most comfortable chair in
the office, stretched out his legs, and lit a vilely smell-
ing cigar.
The editor turned over the visitor's card.
“You say here,” he let fall tentatively, “that you
want to see memah-about the Steynard affair.”
“That's right. Sort of bothered about the old gent's
sudden demise, aren't you?”
ingerie editor here, he let u the St


286
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
M. Perquel clutched his ruddy beard and gave it a
violent and very painful pull.
“Bothered? Bothered? M. Lafarge, I am desolate!
I am " He hunted for a sufficiently dramatic simile,
found two, and shot them forth: “like a lioness bereft
of 'her tawny cubs, like Hecuba after the death of
Priam!”
“Fine and dandy!" came the heartless reply; and
then, explanatory: “And so I guess you wouldn't mind
getting square with the assassin if he could be dis-
covered and”-after a rapid survey of the editor's fea-
tures "if it didn't cost you a cent?”
A chance of revenge without having to pay spot cash
for it! The blending appealed to M. Perquel's in-
stincts.
"Monsieur,” he said, “I would be pleased, delighted.
Enfin, what are you? What do you wish?”
“I am a detective,” replied the other.
“Another American detective like that Tennant?"
smiled the editor.
“You're on. But not altogether. Look here, this
is confidential, isn't it?”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“Good. You see it's just because of that yellow dog
of a Tennant that I've taken the trouble of calling on
you. He and I ain't friends, see? We used to be in
New York, both of us working for rival agencies, and
he has bilked me twice! Yes, sir, that there Tennant
bilked me-Lafarge! Now I'm going to get even with
him. I am after his scalp, see?” And he bit his cigar
viciously.
“But why come to me?"


M. ERNEST LAFARGE
287
And you, baigne was the patinto kingdom antic visitor's
“Aren't you on yet? Good Lord, you'll never breast
the tape at the three-quarter. He is working at the
Jarvet-Steynard case, isn't he?”
“He was. He's gone back to America."
“I know, I know. But his career over there depends
on what he did over here. And what did he do? Noth-
ing; ab-so-lute-ly nothing. Not a damned thing. Be-
yond helping to get Mlle. Lantaigne out of the jug.
And you know, and I know, and all the world knows,
that Lantaigne was the party who caused both Jarvet
and Steynard to be kicked into kingdom come, eh?”
M. Perquel shuddered at his transatlantic visitor's
choice of phraseology, but he agreed with him.
“Yes! Lantaigne did it! The government! They
are afraid of us—the Internationalists, the Anti-Mili-
tarists! Because we think that the rights of the masses,
the down-trodden proletariat,"
“Dry up!" came the unsympathetic rejoinder. “You
ain't on the stump. Do you want me to help you?
Yes or no."
“You said it would not cost me a cent?”
“Right. All I want you to do is to print a little
article in your paper. Front page smear. Write it
juicy and hefty! Say that I–M. Ernest Lafarge-
was deeply in the confidence of the two murdered men,
that I have in my possession a lot of compromising
papers, and that I expect to publish them soon-papers
comprising the government, Lantaigne, his daughter,
and Lord Menzies-Kerr. Get me?”
M. Perquel's brown eyes lit up.
“A trap?” he inquired softly. “A trap to catch the
murderer?”
papersising the goverr. Get me.


M. ERNEST LAFARGE
289
The latter read:
THE RED BONNET
A NEW SHOP FOR THE MASSES
Proprietor: M. ERNEST LAFARGE, late of New Orleans
For Sale-All the leading French and Foreign Internationalist,
Anti-Militarist Dailies, Weeklies, and Monthlies
Also Books and Pamphlets by leading Pacifists, Socialists, and
Anarchists: M. Cailloux, M. Jaurès, Herr Liebknecht, Mr. Phil
Snowden, Mr. Arthur Henderson, Herr August Bebel, Mr. George
Viereck, Mr. Max Eastman, and many others!
“I'll do it gladly,” said the editor. “It is for a good
cause.”
“You bet your sweet life it's for a good cause,”
echoed Lafarge as he left the room.
There was no doubt about Lafarge being a hustler,
Inside of twenty-four hours he had rented Nordeg's
old shop.
Two hundred francs, spent judiciously among the
open book-stalls which line the Seine beyond Notre
Dame, netted him a vast assortment of the kind of
literature which appealed to the social and political
taste of Saint-Sulpice; and the following day his shop
window displayed a splendid collection of anarchist,
socialist, internationalist, and peace-at-all-costs books,
papers, and pamphlets, surmounted by a placard which
proclaimed in large letters: “Long live the interna-
tionale! Down with the army!" while, final artistic
touch, a bright red banner fluttered above the door.
He also engaged a shop assistant, and it was good
for the peace of the neighborhood and the safety of
winde of Saint-Swappealed tossortment of eyond Notre


M. ERNEST LAFARGE
293
son, given us by Comrade Ernest Lafarge. Remember the Creuzot
spring! Let the guilty tremble and quail!
And nothing happened; until three days later,
when, using every precaution, M. Ducastel came into
the book-shop_there was nobody there at the time
except the proprietor and the assistant-and addressed
Lafarge, strange to say, as Tennant.
“Tennant,” said the older man, biting his words,
“that little girl came to me; she did not know your
address.”
“You-you mean—"
“Angele Lantaigne! Yes! She wants to see you to-
night! She says it's important, vital! Mon Dieu, the
poor little girl cried, cried! And I am an old man; I
cannot stand tears.” -
Tennant was at the door in two steps.
“Wait, wait, mon pauvre petit !” Ducastel entreated.
“She will come to my house late to-night, after the
show. I am having the place watched by my best men.
No!" as Tennant brushed him aside and made as if to
step across the threshold. “You must wait. You can-
not go to her in broad daylight; it's too risky. You
must wait until to-night.”
“All right," said Tennant dully. “I'll wait.” And
it was the longest, bitterest waiting he had ever done
in his life.
That night, a little after eleven, Tennant entered M.
Ducastel's apartment. Angele was already there.
Tears flooded her eyes, and she threw herself into her
lover's arms. Ducastel left the room, closing the door
softly behind him, while the American pressed the weep-
ing girl close to him, patting her cheeks, her shoulders,
her hands.
“She will comeving the plahim aside a


294
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
nite is that the utterly serich, dear?"
“There; there now.” He felt clumsy, awkward, un-
gainly, useless. A lump rose in his throat. “Don't
cry, honey. Don't cry-please!" with an almost pite-
ous emphasis on the last word. “Why, dear, you must
have confidence in me. I love you so !” And then, out
of his inarticulate passion and sorrow, he wound up
with the inconsistent, jarring bit of slang: “You just
bet your money on me, dear. I'll be there with all the
goods all right!"
The strictly male phraseology must have struck some
mysterious feminine chord in her. For she looked up,
grateful for his assurance, and dried her eyes.
“Yes,” she said slowly, “you are strong and master-
ful. You—you clear your way-resolutely—to a defi-
nite end. That's why I love you, James.”
“Is that the only reason?” he asked teasingly.
But she was utterly serious.
“Isn't that reason enough, dear?" she replied. “It is
your strength which has created a need of you within
my soul, my heart, my life. That is real love a wo-
man's love. James dear,” she continued after a short
pause, “I need you and your strength-now. For I
am frightened; frightened like a babe in the dark.”
"Frightened? You?” Tennant clenched his fists. A
deep red mantled his cheeks.
"James,” she went on in a hushed voice, “something
has happened to father and to my brother Marcel.
They have disappeared. Both of them," and then she
told him, in a few halting words.
Several days ago Marcel had come to the house, late
at night, and he and her father had locked themselves
in the library. They had talked together earnestly,


296
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
A few words were written on it:
To MLLE. ANGELE LANTAIGNE,
Théâtre Alexandre.
Danger. Warn Tennant. Do not tell police.
, dear,course. Isn't thaound it in
“Your father's handwriting?”
“Yes, James. It is unmistakable.”
“How did you get the message? By mail?”
“No. A newspaper boy found it fluttering in the
street. He picked it up. He saw my name, and brought
it to me.”
“Where did he find it? Wait! Wait!" He snapped
his fingers impatiently. “He found it in the Impasse
Oudinot. Of course. Isn't that so?”
“Yes, dear,” she said wonderingly.
Tennant walked up and down the length of the room,
puzzled, musing. He said to himself that Nordeg was
behind it. Nordeg, who had a key to the ramshackle
old dwelling in the Impasse Oudinot, and who had a
way of secret egress. But why, since Lantaigne had
managed to scribble the few lines and throw them
out of the window, had he not addressed them to the
police?
A moment later Tennant knew the answer to his
question. He said to himself that Lantaigne could not
afford to let the police into his secret since this would
mean the arrest and sending-up for life of his son, as
well as his own disgrace and ruin; and doubtless Guil-
laume Nordeg was aware of these facts.
For it was the latter who had had in his possession
the torn, charred criminal record of James Smith, New
Caledonian convict, while his friend, the late M. Ana-
tole Jarvet, had tried to blackmail Lantaigne with the


M. ERNEST LAFARGE
297
help of the same knowledge, as proved not only by the
traces on the blotting-paper of the letter giving warn-
ing about “the man with the limp,” which Lantaigne
had not received, but also by those of Jarvet's letters
which the chief of the secret political police must have
received.
For there was the one written by Lantaigne which
had fallen from the leaves of one of Menzies-Kerr's
books, and of which Tennant had read a few lines.
Finally there had been the offer of Jarvet to return to
Angele her compromising love-letters if she succeeded
in securing for him Lord Menzies-Kerr's help about
Indo-China.
That was the stake: the map of Indo-China, printed
in Germany! The map which had been stolen and re-
stolen, which had left a trail of drama and mystery
behind.
“James dear," came Angele's soft voice; but the
American shook his head.
“Wait a moment, darling,” he said. “I am trying
to get at the root of this ;” and grimly, silently he
buckled his task. It was the old tale all over again.
The fact of the crime—the fact that the three men
had been kidnaped—was clear, as it had been in the case
of the two murders.
Only—what had been Nordeg's motive?
Suddenly Tennant smiled. Of course. Nordeg must
have figured out that only four people could know
where the map was hidden at present: Lord Menzies-
Kerr, the two Lantaignes, and he, Tennant. Nordeg
had kidnaped the first three. Was his turn to come
next?
Well, he had been warned. Not only by Lantaigne's


298
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
message, but also by the Scotchman's frantic appeal
for help over the wire.
But-Tennant wrinkled his forehead—was there not
something strange about those telephone calls?
He turned the question over in his mind, stopping at
the window and looking out into the dark, which was
soft and still and odorous, like the benediction of spring
night on spring day, like a hush of folded flowers and
grasses.
“Let's see,” he mumbled under his breath.
What exactly had happened?
Menzies-Kerr had telephoned to him, a week ago Sat-
urday; had been interrupted; had then called up M.
Lantaigne. But why had Menzies-Kerr tried to talk
to the latter? Why, since the Scotchman knew that
he was at home, had he not tried to ring him up again
-to continue his message?
Was it because
“By Jingo, I have it !" Tennant spoke out loud in
his excitement. The first telephone call, to him, had
been the genuine thing. Menzies-Kerr had managed
to steal to the telephone, to send his heart-tearing, ter-
rible message: "Help! Help! For God's sake!”
But his jailers had caught him, had interrupted him,
and had rapidly twisted the situation to their own ad-
vantage by faking another telephone call: to Lan-
taigne. They had imitated the Scotchman's voice
and Lantaigne had swallowed the bait. Together with
Marcel he had rushed over to rescue Menzies-Kerr-
and both father and son had been caught.
"My turn now," thought Tennant. “They'll try to
get me sure !”
Of course he was now doubly warned. But the warn-
rible in his jailaly twistanother the


M. ERNEST LAFARGE
301
Suddenly she was quite serious. She picked up his
last words like a battle gauge.
"It is a woman's work when a woman loves as I love
father! And as I love you, dearest,” she added, kiss-
ing him; and Tennant surrendered to the feminine ar-
gument.
“All right,” he said. “We go together. Only~"
“What?"
“You must promise to do exactly as I tell you. I
am the skipper.”
She gave him her hand.
“I promise, dear. What are the orders ?”
“Go back to your apartment. I shall call.for you "
He consulted his watch. “It's now twenty minutes to
midnight. I have to return to the Rue Férou first and
have a talk with Doumay. Wait for me at your house.
I'll be there about one in the morning.”
“Yes, James dear.”
“And-one more order-kiss the skipper!"
But she was already across the threshold with the
laughing words:
"Mutiny, Mr. Skipper. Success first, and a kiss aft-
erward.”
They were gay, both of them. Somehow, they felt
that they were on the eve of the final solution of the
whole mystery.
, James dat one in the mor for me at


CHAPTER XXI
CORNERED
TENNANT was elated, yet grim.
He said to himself that to-night, God granting, he
would write the last word of this chapter of his life
that began with murder and wound up with the love
of woman.
He walked swiftly toward the Rue Férou, through
the soft spring night, moonless and starless, yet whose
darkness was but as folds of velvety gray wrapped
round the morning hours; through the streets and
alleys, silent, yet not dead silent, but as if alive with
the whisperings of the soul of Paris.
There were few lights in the Quarter of Saint-Sulpice,
and few sounds; only here and there a wedge of flicker-
ing, indifferent light breaking through rickety shutters,
a tired city baby's wail, a man's gruff oath, a woman's
shrill, nagging explanations; the night city.
As he turned the corner of the Rue Férou, the great
bronze bell of the church of Saint-Sulpice commei ced
tolling its midnight message of love and sacri ce
with a clear, sweet vibration. Instinctively, Tennant
thought of the faith which he had nearly forgotten in
the swing and stress of the years. He crossed himself.
His lips moved in silent prayer.
He had resolved to carry through, to win out. Yes'
But was the resolution an honest, genuine one? Was
302


CORNERED
303
it not rather only an instinctive soporific for his sub-
conscious doubt and nervousness and fear?
Fear does not grow in a moment. It approaches so
slowly, so imperceptibly, that often it takes full, para-
lyzing possession of a man's soul and faculties and en-
ergy before he has had either time or warning to rec-
ognize its insidious processes and make ready for re-
sistance; and, all at once, Tennant became aware of
the fact that he feared Guillaume Nordeg.
He did not fear Nordeg the man. He feared the
things he stood for: the envious, sinister, brooding land
beyond the Rhine which had sent Nordeg into this gay,
free, friendly land of France to steal, to forge, to cor-
rupt
Tennant said to himself that he had succeeded as
e a detective. He had not only discovered the murderer
and found sufficient evidence to have him sent up for
life, but he had even solved the intricate psychological
problems which dealt with the motives of the different
people who were mixed up with the Jarvet-Steynard
affair. But to-night's task was not one of solving de-
tective or psychological problems. To-night it was the
question of rescue; perhaps of fight. He would have
to pit his strength and his cunning against Nordeg
and the immeasurable, mysterious power and influence
at Nordeg's back, on a ground of his antagonist's own
pri choosing, in the old house of the Impasse Oudinot.
me And he was alone; all alone, but for a little blond
ô the 1970 the Je of sol was the
her.
cri
ten in irl.
self. Tennant gave an involuntary little shudder. He had
rrived at his shop; was about to cross the threshold,
Vesifting his right foot carefully, for directly in front
Waf the threshold was a slippery cellar grating, the cel-


304
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
lar itself communicating with the back room where he
and Doumay slept. He had rather expected Doumay
to sit up until he returned, but there was no sound of
the little subagent; not even a light shining from the
back room.
And then, quite suddenly, he had the sensation a
bird may feel when it runs straight into the jaws of the
snake which has fascinated it. For a voice came to
him out of the dark, from the postern of the next house
-a slightly guttural voice which he recognized at
once:
“M. Ernest Lafarge?” with a rising, questioning in-
flection; and Guillaume Nordeg stepped out of the
blotchy shadow into the flickering yellow light of the
lamp which hung over the front of the shop.
He was not the man, externally, with whom Tennant
was familiar. Gone was the serviceable pin-stripe
worsted suit and the plain overcoat. To-night the
man wore a tall silk hat with the correct eight reflec-
tions, and beneath his silk-lined Inverness was the black-
and-white panoply of full evening dress and, over the
left breast, a magnificent decoration: a conventionalized
Red Eagle on a starred gold shield surrounded by bril-
liants—the highest decoration of the German empire.
Tennant's first impulse was to strike out with
clenched fist with every ounce of bunched strength in
his body, blindly, brutally; to crush into pulp this
plump, rosy-skinned, pompous power for evil.
But the impulse vanished as quickly as it had risen.
For, quite suddenly, he became aware of the unmis-
takable sensation that somebody was staring at him
fixedly, as if trying to attract his attention, but not
daring to speak. A moment later he knew what it was
clem body, Sy-skinnee vanish becames was


306
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
here was ning to th Americaed, would case, one
In the former case-if he took him for Lafarge
there was no reason why he should not enter the shop
without calling to the men in the doorway to help him,
in which event the American, once he had Nordeg in
the shop and the door locked, would be able to attend
to him at his leisure. In the latter case, on the other
hand—that is, suppose Nordeg knew that he was mas-
querading—he would not dare enter; he would use force
immediately.
But the American was absolutely unprepared for the
man's next move.
For the “butcher," while still addressing him as La-
farge, calmly owned up to the presence of the three
men hidden in the shadow of the postern. And he did
it in a most prosaic, matter-of-fact way, neither ironic
nor threatening.
“I have a few friends with me,” he said. “You see,
I am bound to take certain reasonable precautions.
Messieurs!” he called, and the three men came forth and
followed him and Tennant across the threshold.
There Tennant stopped and turned. He made be-
lieve as if to close and lock the door. He dropped his
key. As he picked it up he bent close.
"Doumay!” he whispered down the cellar grating.
“Wait; don't budge, whatever happens. I'm going to
write a few lines. Hide them in your bed.”
“Hurry up with that door, monsieur,” came Nordeg's
impatient summons. “Our business demands speed.”
“Yes, monsieur."
Tennant turned and faced his visitors.
The three men whom Nordeg had taken along "for
the sake of reasonable precautions," while differing
from each other in such minor details as height and
iant stone Locke bent cl the ce in to


CORNERED
307
width, color of hair and beard and eyes, were as alike
as three peas, from a psychic, mental, and racial point
of view. They were not men of strong passions ; po-
tential murderers, potential fools, potential lovers, or
potential heroes. They were like machines, hard, erect,
crunching; stupid in so far that they could not con-
ceive a thought; could only develop it, though thor-
oughly, after somebody else had given them the germ,
the initiative.
They were Germans; and Tennant, looking at them,
thought that they were as stiff and unbending as if they
had swallowed the corporal's ramrod with which they
had been licked into patterned discipline. Too, they
were gentlemen—what the insufficient Anglo-Saxon
vocabulary calls gentlemen-for doubtless they knew
how to handle a tea-cup, a gold spoon, a bridle, and
possibly a polo mallet.
They had grouped themselves against the back wall,
their eyes on their chief, very much like a Greek tragedy
chorus that has been stricken dumb.
“I am Nordeg,” said their leader without any pre-
liminaries. “You have heard of me, I suppose?”
Tennant's senses were taut to breaking point. His
ear-drums were ready to register the faintest inflection,
the faintest shading of accent. But the question had
been quite simple. Nordeg had meant it. There was
neither trap nor sarcasm. Tennant bowed.
“Yes, monsieur. You are”-he forced hushed en-
thusiasm into his voice-"you are the great master
spy!”
“Silence, fool!" thundered the butcher, while his
three followers gave a rumbling chorus. “The word
is never used-by us !” he added significantly; and he


CORNERED
311
.tinued: “The chief back home, foreseeing just such a
contingency as the present, whispered a few words to
me. M. Nordeg,” the American looked the other
straight between the eyes, “the Paris meeting place of
our little--ah-association is an underground dungeon
of the Rohan-Chabot palace which is reached through
the cellar of the house next door, which is the property
of the chief of the secret political police and rented by
Lord Menzies-Kerr, neither of these two gentlemen be-
ing aware of the fact that you have a key to the house
and can leave through the cellar of the Rohan-Chabot
dungeon.
“Thus, if ever the French government should catch
on to your intrigues, the two men will be compromised,
and, to save their own skins, will be forced to help you
get away. I can even tell you why Lord Menzies-Kerr
rented the old house from M. Lantaigne. He did it
to provide a safe asylum for the man who, together
with him, escaped from the penal colony of New Cale-
donia: Marcel Lantaigne, the chief's son, sentenced to
the colonies because of that old affair of the Creuzot
pneumatic spring! Is that proof enough, monsieur?”
“Enough? A thousand times enough, monsieur,"
Nordeg cried enthusiastically; "you have proved abso-
lutely that you are one of us! You have also proved
that the American branch of our Imperial master's
secret service is in most competent hands. It is mar-
velous, marvelous! You know as much over there as
we do here!"
He stood up straight and saluted.
"Herr Kamerad!” he said stiffly; and the other three,
bowing from their hips, nut-cracker fashion, took up
the word in a guttural chorus:


314
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
sohen disapperst nervike the gol
What if Nordeg had been playing with him right
along? What if he knew that Ernest Lafarge was only
a nom de guerre for James Oliver Tennant, and this was
only a clever way of kidnapping him, without fuss or
fight, without attracting the attention of the neighbor-
hood?
All right. He would have to run the risk. And, as
soon as he had decided, the sense of terror diminished,
then disappeared completely. It had always been so
with him: first nervousness, then rapid decision, then
cold, hard courage, like the golden pellet on the bottom
of a blackened crucible.
Then he thought of Doumay, waiting and watching
beneath the cellar grating, and he drew pencil and an
old envelope from his pocket, wrote a few hurried lines
on it, slipped a small, hard object into the envelope,
and hid the lot in the subagent's bed.
Not a moment too soon; for Nordeg was calling
from the front room:
“Hurry up, monsieur! We must finish our little
work before the morning. Time presses.”
“Why the hurry?” asked Tennant quite casually.
“Our three friends down in the old dungeon won't es-
cape us yet awhile ;" and the next second he knew that
Nordeg was not playing with him, was really taking
him for one of the German emperor's most trusted con-
fidants in America.
"Monsieur,” said Nordeg rather solemnly, “I shall
tell you. You are one of us; highly placed, highly hon-
ored, and it is your right to know." He lowered his
voice: “We are on the eve of war."
“Yes, yes,” murmured Tennant, catching his breath.
“Der Tag! The day!" went on Nordeg. “It is near!


CORNERED
315
Beyond the Rhine everything is ready-ready to the
last cartridge, the last water canteen, the last supply
truck, the last pair of boots. Only one little thing is
missing—the map of Indo-China—the map of the south-
ern approach to the French fortifications! And Paris
is the heart of France—which we must pierce !"
His round, china-blue eyes lit up with a strange, hard
fanaticism.
“Of course there is another way. Through Belgium.
For this, too, we have prepared. But it is not a safe
way. The Belgians are stupid cattle-yes !—but they
are stubborn. They may fight and delay our advance
a day, a week, a month. And a little delay may spell
catastrophe to us, for speed is our greatest ally.
“So the southern way is the better way; through
Switzerland, up to Paris. It means immediate victory.
For half Switzerland will flock to our colors. Our
propaganda, our schools, and our gold have done mar-
vels there. Yes, through Switzerland, up to Paris !
And victory and world dominion will be ours before
these pigs of English and Americans have begun to rub
the sleep from their eyes. And so, we must not only
find the map, but we must force Menzies-Kerr to solve
Switzending Switzer school
vels tiganda, overland : It means
these pigs from their eyust force Men
thered the map, the key! vore shop and haiwhat he may
He led the way out of the shop and hailed a passing
taxicab, while Tennant was wondering what he may
have meant by his last words; that Menzies-Kerr had
the key to the map.
Quite suddenly, as the taxicab whirred away toward
the Impasse Oudinot, the thought of Angele came to
him.
Good Lord! He had promised to call for her.
Would she wait?


316
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
Would she become nervous, frightened? Would she
come to the Impasse Oudinot by herself?
What would she do? She was a headstrong, obsti-
nate girl.
He felt a tremor run over him. He clenched his
fists and bunched his muscles.
He was in for it.


CHAPTER XXII
MISCARRIED PLANS
THE Impasse Oudinot was deserted. A single ray
of light shone from a top window of the German em-
bassy's temporary headquarters, evilly piercing the
trailing black shadows of night. The Rohan-Chabot
palace, overtowering the ramshackle house next door,
bulked like a gray, ghostly shadow. It seemed lifeless,
discouraged, abandoned.
Somehow, it struck Tennant as peculiar.
“Looks deserted,” he said casually, and Nordeg
laughed.
"It is deserted. That old fire-eater of a prince could
not stand the close proximity of the German embassy
any longer, and so he left yesterday for his estates
in Normandy, lock, stock, and barrel. He didn't leave
as much as a cat behind. He said he would not return
until the German embassy had moved away.” Again
he laughed. “The embassy people will move away
sooner—and farther—than the prince imagines.”
“When the first ammunition caisson rumbles out of
Berlin?"
“Yes,” came the deep-voiced, solemn answer. “When
war is declared! In a way,” he went on, “I am glad
that the old prince and his silly, tottering old servants
flew the coop. It was all right to use the old dungeon.
on cajalce ima move away
317


318
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
Nobody in the prince's household knows of its existence.
But when I had to slip away in a hurry I had to go
through the palace itself and out of the front door-
and that was rather risky. Well, it's nearly over; I
am through playing rabbit and weasel. And, anyway,"
he smiled, "they plugged my hole.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that by moving away the prince made it im-
possible for me to make a quick getaway.”
possow Shere!
hace a
tsafarge? he wethern wa
“Look here!” Nordeg stepped up to the main en-
trance of the palace and lit a match. The door was
barred from top to bottom with an immense, massive
slab of steel-bound oak. "Same in back—and with the
windows,” continued Nordeg. “No way of getting out
from the inside. Well," he repeated, “it's nearly over.
To-night we make our last stab for the map and the
key of the map. And if we do not succeed-well, it
must be the northern way, via Belgium. But we must
succeed!” he wound up; “and it is your turn, M.
Lafarge! You must make those stubborn pigs
talk-down there," pointing in the direction of the
cellar.
“Yes, yes. I shall succeed all right!" the American
said automatically, while his thoughts flew off on a
tangent.
For again fear had rushed upon him, full-armed, and
he braced himself to meet the shock of it.
He looked at the barred gate, the shuttered windows.
Here was a contingency which he had not foreseen and
which spoiled all his plans. For the message which he
had hidden in Doumay's bed had told the subagent to
come to his rescue with a few picked men, Ducastel


MISCARRIED PLANS
319
himself, Jacques Esternaux, and one or two others of
the Agence who could be thoroughly relied upon for
pluck, quickness, and absolute discretion; and he had
slipped the key to the Rohan-Chabot palace which the
old prince had given him into the envelope.
And now? How were they to engineer the rescue?
How were they going to get in? They could batter
down the barred door, of course! But the time it would
take and the noise! His nerves tingled with appre-
hension.
By this time Nordeg had led the way to the ram-
shackle house and was inserting the key in the lock.
What was he to do? What could he do?
Square his shoulder, bunch his muscles, bend his neck,
and make a run for it, football tackle fashion?
Impossible. The odds were against him. Doubtless
the Germans were armed. And back there, in the bowels
of that ancient stone pile, were the father and brother
of the girl whom he loved and his best friend.
He would try one more bluff.
“Wait,” he said, as Nordeg turned the key. “We
have forgotten something."
“What?"
“Tennant! The American detective !"
“What about him?”
“Should we not try and get him, as you got the
others?”
“But why, Gott im Himmel?”
“Because,” said the American, “perhaps it is a waste
of time to cross-examine those men down there. Per-
haps they simply don't know. Perhaps Tennant is the
one who knows where the map is hidden.”
Nordeg shook his head.


MISCARRIED PLANS
321
bending, kissing her full in the mouth, “God bless you,
my own, brave, bully little sweetheart!"
“Coming? What's keeping you?” boomed Nordeg's
voice out of the dark.
“Yes, I'm coming!” and Tennant pushed the girl
across the threshold into the street and passed inside,
closing the door.
The touch of the cold steel, as he slipped the gun
into his pocket, was grateful. It reassured him. But
even more reassuring was the thought of Angele-the
little girl, brave, fearless, who was on watch outside,
holding his fate in her narrow, white hands. Somehow
he did not fear for his fate. He loved her, and now
he was sure that she loved him.
They crossed the back room, passed through the
kitchen and down a short flight of stone steps into the
cellar, Nordeg leading the way, while the others followed
Indian file, moving swiftly and silently. A broken, in-
different moon-ray shivered through the grated, wired
cellar window—and danced about the corners like a
subtle, mischievous sprite of night.
Arrived at the farther wall—it sloped wedge-shaped
away from the street-Nordeg raised a beckoning
hand. It shot out, a sudden, leprous white, as the
moon-ray struck it.
“Here! Von Bardeleben! Von Kirchweg! Careful
now. Police might see and suspect. Careful!"
He bent, a lump of black in the deep purple shadow
of the cellar, and while the two men he had called by
name leaned over him, holding their coat-tails spread
apart so as to screen him, he turned on his electric
pocket flash.
It disclosed a low wall, green and slippery with the


322
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
moisture blocks with his miers the whand Noroccslide
moisture of years, and composed of a dozen massive
granite blocks. Nordeg, holding the flash in his left
hand, pressed with his right against the last block of
the top row. Immediately the whole wall gave way.
It slid into a groove, noiselessly, and Nordeg passed
through. His three countrymen followed.
“Close it," called Nordeg to the American. “Slide
the wall back into place.”
Tennant's thoughts whirled with feverish speed.
“All right,” he replied, and slid the fake wall toward
the waiting groove. But, interposing his shoulder side-
wise, he stopped it within half a foot of shutting. Then,
still thinking swiftly, he dropped his initialed handker-
chief on the ground, half inside and half outside the
cellar.
For a moment he stood still and listened. The others
had gone ahead. They suspected nothing, had seen
and heard nothing. He breathed rapidly. It seemed
to him that he could hear the muted pulse of sleeping
Paris.
The Paris which he loved the heart of France!
All right! He clicked his teeth together. His hand
slipped into his side pocket and gripped the automatic.
He'd carry through, somehow. For Angele, for
Paris, for France, and—yes for America.
Increasing his pace, he joined the others. Nordeg
was waving his pocket flash to right and left, showing
that they were passing through a casemate lined with
solid masonry.
“Centuries old, this place," commented Nordeg
“The monks of Saint-Francis buried their dead here.
Later on, when the Princes de Rohan-Chabot bought
the estate, they found it convenient to dispose of un-


324
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
He opened the door, and Tennant jumped back as
if struck by a physical blow. For an overpowering
volume of nauseous, fetid air came from the inner room
with a foul rush.
He coughed and gasped for breath, while Nordeg
gave a mirthless laugh.
“Pretty bad, isn't it?” he asked.
“Terrible. You don't mean to say that your prison-
ers are”
“Yes; they are in there,” Nordeg replied. “We had
them first in another room-little room farther on,
which I use as an office, with a window which opens
into an old disused garden. But”-he shrugged his
shoulders—"our prisoners proved unruly, and so we
transferred them here.”
Tennant smiled grimly. He knew what the unruli-
ness had been; Menzies-Kerr's telephone call and Lan-
taigne's warning scribbled on the scrap of torn wall-
paper.
“All right,” he said. “Let's go inside. I am more
used to the air now.”
Nordeg turned to his three countrymen.
“Wait outside, gentlemen.” Then, to Tennant, as
he closed the door behind him: “Here you are!" He
turned his pocket-flash until it struck the wall at the
farther end.
Chained against it, bound hand and foot, the Amer-
ican saw three men: Lantaigne, his son, and Lord
Menzies-Kerr. They stared at him. Very evidently
they did not recognize him beneath his make-up. They
looked ill, suffering, haggard—and silent.
That was the first impression which Tennant felt:
their utter silence. Not a passive, but an active silence;


MISCARRIED PLANS
325
Cambe old-fashionot yield to me.***
as if the three had made a solemn compact not to say
a word, not to utter a complaint, not to answer a ques-
tion, whatever happened to them; and Tennant, admira-
tion swelling his heart, thought of the Inquisition, the
Moors and Jews, stubborn, brave, who had kept their
pride and their faith even at the burning stake. And
then, for a fleeting moment, he felt pity for this other
man—for Nordeg, the German, the man who believed
only in might and efficiency, who thought, like his coun-
trymen, that these two qualities meant world-mastery
-and who had left one element out of his calculations:
The old-fashioned, sentimental element of human na-
ture which will not yield to might nor to efficiency, nor
to any other man-made force.
Make these men talk, these haggard, ill, silent men?
Might as well make the great Chinese Wall tell the
tale of the Golden Horde, or the Sphinx whisper the
secret of the days when the world was young.
Nordeg had lit half a dozen candles which were stuck
in age-old iron brackets on the walls.
“I leave the gentlemen to your tender care, M. La-
farge,” he said. “Remember," he whispered, “two
things are essential. Lantaigne must sign a written
order to the assistant chief of the secret political police
to open the safe and give the map to a messenger whom
we shall choose. And Lord Menzies-Kerr must give up
the key to the map.”
Again the mysterious “key to the map," the mysteri-
ous connection between Lord Menzies-Kerr and the Jar-
vet-Steynard affair. At the time when Tennant had
given the map, including the little envelope, into. M.
Lantaigne's keeping, he had known-guessed, rather-
that the map, of Indo-China on the face, was really of


326
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
the Paris fortifications, the southern approaches, the
little thin red lines and crosses corresponding to weak
or important parts of the defense or location of bar-
racks and arsenals.
The little envelope contained the full story of how
he had come into its possession, whom he suspected,
the different internationalist and peace-at-all-cost so-
cieties which received their pay and their orders from
the Wilhelm Strasse, and similar details.
But there was evidently yet another meaning.
What was it?
Tennant took Nordeg by the arm and led him into
the opposite corner.
“Monsieur,” he said, “my system of making people
talk—the third degree—is a mental process, a way of
mental bullying. I fight with every ounce of my brain
against every ounce of the other man's. I must know
as well as possible what I am up against. The key
of the map is one of the things with which I am-ah-
not quite familiar. I know such a key exists. I know
that Lord Menzies-Kerr has it. But what is it-ex-
actly?”
Nordeg smiled.
“I thought you knew. You see, a few years ago
England and France were not the friends they are to-
day. During those years there was the danger of war
between the two countries, and they prepared for it.
Not as well, as thoroughly, as efficiently as we Ger-
mans. Of course not. But they did their best. Lord
Menzies-Kerr was then at the head of the British secret
service "
“I bet that's the reason why he traveled about so
much!” the American interrupted impulsively.


330 THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
“I must insist—" came old M. Lantaigne's voice
again.
“Can't you keep your mouth shut?” hissed the Amer-
ican. “There are others outside.” And the chief of
the political police subsided, while Tennant stood listen-
ing, his ear against the door. · There was no noise.
The men were evidently not yet suspecting anything.
Working feverishly, Tennant tore off belt and coat
and necktie, tied Nordeg hand and foot, and gagged
him securely with his handkerchief and his heavy leather
gloves.
“Do you good,” he soliloquized as he pried the un-
conscious man's teeth apart and crammed down the
gloves. “Healthy tannic acid taste-will cure your
choleric Teutonic nerves !"
Then he walked over to the wall where the three men
were chained and tied. He cut their bonds with his
pocket-knife, and after several attempts managed to
open the chains. with the help of his bunch of keys and
the strength of his fingers.
"S-h!” he whispered, as one after the other the three
began to stretch their cramped limbs. “Keep perfectly
quiet; we aren't out of the woods yet!”
Afterward Tennant was wont to explain that straight
through, from the moment when he had heard Doumay
whisper his message of warning from the cellar-grating
in front of the shop to the moment when he gagged
Nordeg, he had not acted on impulse, but had endeav-
ored to proceed in a rational way, had tried to carry
out a plan, dovetailing its small pieces as fast as they
arose--and as fast as they changed, due to the swing
of circumstances-sanely, exactly, and constructively.
Even when he had engaged the butcher in the lengthy


CHECKMATE
331
conversation about the key to the map, he had strung
it out on purpose so as to gain time for the others:
Doumay, Angele, perhaps Jacques Esternaux, and old
M. Ducastel.
His first intention, when Nordeg was about to step
out of the dungeon, had been to let him go, to cut the
bonds of the three prisoners, and to escape with them.
Just across from him was a door, the only other door
in the place, and thus doubtless leading toward the cel-
lars, properly speaking, of the Rohan-Chabot palace.
Most likely it would lead straight up against another
trick wall, but he had no doubt that the latter would
work on the same principles as that which connected
with the cellar of the ramshackle house next door.
At all events, once beyond this room, he and the
others would be able to get away safely and to break
through the barred outer door; and if Nordeg and his
men took it into their heads to follow them before they
had a chance to break down the street-door, they could
play hide-and-seek with them in the prince's palace a
huge, rambling old barrack of a place.
But he had dismissed the plan, obvious and clear
though it was, almost immediately.
It was right that he should rescue the men. Of
course. But there was a greater, finer, bigger duty:
His duty toward France; and, by the same token,
toward America!
He had gone originally into the Jarvet-Steynard af-
fair as a regular, though interesting and puzzling, part
of his every-day job as a detective. But the double
crime had grown and bloated into a maze of secret
diplomacy, into a gigantic chess-game where Jarvet
and Steynard had been but pawns, and whose directing
took it ce to bre with theke of a pho obvio


332
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
-
-
wy.
-
-
- -
-
energy was the national mind, diseased with mad am-
bition, of imperial Germany.
On this chess-board Nordeg played the part of the
knight, tortuous, slippery, jumping right and left and
across, as his fancy and shrewdness dictated, and it
was up to Tennant to get him. He must make him
harmless. He did not want to kill him, nor did he
want him to escape and carry on his intrigues. Alive,
and a prisoner, he would be a tremendously valuable
asset in the hands of the French government-chiefly
now, that war was near.
He looked down at the prostrate figure. There was
a trickle of blood reddening forehead and cheek where
the pistol-butt had crashed. But even so, and in its
unconscious repose, the face had all the characteristics
of the man: the unscrupulousness, the shrewdness, the
fighting spirit, the hard, unwavering devotion to an
ideal-mistaken though it was. Well, he had him where
he wanted him, tied, gagged, scotched—a snake with
its fangs drawn.
But what about the others: Baron von Bardeleben,
Herr von Kirchweg, and the third whose name he did
not know?
A dozen questions, a dozen doubts, a dozen name-
less fears leaped to Tennant's brain.
What could he do?
And how?
Those three outside were not as dangerous as Nor-
deg. But they, too, were picked men, fearless and
clever, or they would not be playing the game of secret
diplomacy. They were three, and doubtless they were
armed. He himself had the pistol which Angele had
slipped into his hands. That was all. Lantaigne,
-
-
- - -


CHECKMATE
333
father and son, and the Scotchman were worn out
with suffering. He looked at them, speculatively; their
haggard, sunken cheeks, their black-ringed eyes, their
lips slightly receding from their teeth.
Foul air, harsh treatment, terrible mental anguish
had not broken the spirit of these men who had kept
to their resolution of silence, but, physically, they were
wrecks. And unarmed. What chance had they against
the three well-fed, well-armed Germans ?”
He might open the door suddenly and fire.
He would hit somebody. He was pretty sure of his
aim.
And then what?
One of the remaining two would surely fire at the
flash of his gun even if he extinguished the candles
smoldering in the rusty old iron brackets. Or, worse
yet, one of them might dash over to the embassy for
help. It was just across the road.
He looked at his watch. It was close on two o'clock.
He had been here a much shorter time than he had
imagined.
Doumay would hurry. Of course. But Doumay had
his work cut out. He would have to run from pillar
to post, to get Ducastel, Esternaux, and a couple of
other men of the Agence. All that took time. He
could not expect them to get here before another fif-
teen minutes at the best.
Meanwhile, if he took too long, if Nordeg did not
come out, the three Germans outside might suspect
foul play. For they were clever men, keyed at sens-
ing the unusual, the dangerous, the threatening.
Or, if they did not suspect, if they waited until Dou-
may and Doumay's party came, they would hear them
The te looked a there a m


CHECKMATE
335
“Two more outside,” he whispered to the Scotch-
man.
“All right, Jamie !" and, while Lord Menzies-Kerr,
who seemed a changed man under the breath of action,
helped Lantaigne and Marcel off with their coats and
suspenders and twisted them into impromptu bonds
and gags, Tennant followed suit, first with Herr von
Kirchweg, and then with the remaining German whom
in want of something better, he hailed through the
door simply as:
“Oh, you !"
There they lay side by side, Nordeg and the other
three picked men who had been the leaders in Germany's
game of secret diplomacy, and for a moment Tennant,
as always after a real achievement, a duty splendidly
carried through, felt slightly disappointed, disillu-
sioned.
He turned to the men whom he had rescued.
“Well, there you are!” he said thinly.
He did not expect M. Lantaigne's reply.
“Yes, M. Tennant, there I am!” The accents were
bitter, raucous, grating. “You have won out. And
I have lost. You are satisfied; you have ruined me,
my son, my daughter-for the sake of your personal
satisfaction, your career, the pay you draw."
“But, M. Lantaigne” Tennant looked from father
to son, helpless, hurt, uncomprehending.
The older man's eyes blazed. But his voice was low,
even.
“You are a clever detective, I grant it. You were.
right from the beginning. You proved your point.
You ferreted out the whole secret regardless of the
happiness, the honor of others.”
ever you are the beginnin cole secret


CHAPTER XXIV
ALL'S WELL
The steely ring of the shot had startled the other
three Germans into consciousness.
Baron von Bardeleben strained his bonds, trying to
see what had happened. He saw and his eyes filled
with tears. Thickly, through his gag, came a great,
tearing sob.
Tennant was loosening the bonds which held Nor-
deg's limp body. He put his ear to the man's chest.
The heart futtered feebly, irregularly, like an impris-
oned bird.
“Is he dead?” asked Menzies-Kerr who had disarmed
Marcel; and it was Nordeg who gave answer, jerking
out his words, one by one, as from a lacerated throat:
"I—shall diebut my work—you cannot kill it—"
Tennant felt a wave of pity surge over his soul.
He tried to alleviate the dying man's sufferings, to
ease the bleeding, martyred body.
Nordeg smiled.
“Funny chaps, you Yankees,” he brought out.
“Trying to be fair, even to enemies ” Here a rattle
in his throat, blending laughter and pain. “Damned
fools !"
He sank into a stupor.
A few minutes earlier, Tennant had decided that, with
338


340
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST
hour-perhaps more-find combination- Mean-
while"
The word gurgled out in his throat. Very suddenly,
bunching every ounce of his dying strength and energy
and savagery and hatred into a tremendous, final ef-
fort, he pulled at the bracket.
It clicked protestingly, bent, then broke. Came a
strange, threatening, splintering, hissing noise, a faint
pop—
“Dead-all” he stammered, sinking to the ground.
“What do you mean?”
Then once more the throaty, choking laughter.
“Time fuse-dynamite-trick walls—can't get out
seven minutes—all you blown to hell" and it was
thus that Guillaume Nordeg died.
For a moment, but only for a moment, confusion
and fear whirled through Tennant's brain. He listened.
The time fuse was burning somewhere in the wall.
Seven minutes—and then- God! And the rescuers
might come-would come most any second now—An-
gele, Ducastel, Doumay—
“Quick !” he shouted to the others who were standing
as if fear had turned them into stone. “Out through
this door! Through the casemate! To the old house!"
“But," Menzies-Kerr was trying to keep his voice
steady. “The trick wall. How "
“It's all right. I left it open. Get a move on!"
He bent and cut rapidly through the bonds which held
the legs of the three Germān secret-service men. “Here,
you, M. Lantaigne, Marcel, Allistair-help yourself
to a Dutchman apiece—and see they don't get away,
once you're outside. Hurry—for God's sake!"
A moment later, with Tennant bringing up the rear,


ALL'S WELL
341
they were running down the tunnel-like casemate to-
ward the flickering wedge-shaped shaft of light where
the trick wall was still open. They bounded through,
running like whippet hounds, and bumped straight into
the rescuing party: Angele in the lead, followed by
Doumay, Ducastel, and Captain Xavier Roux.
“James-James-dearest"
Tennant took her by the arm and twirled her back
in the direction whence she had come. There was no
time for explanation. Just a few stammered remarks,
and they rushed out of the house, up the Impasse
Oudinot, as fast as they could.
None too soon.
For they had just turned the corner of the Impasse
when, with the moaning of all purgatory, with flames
suddenly forking up, scarlet-hearted, blue-tipped, yel-
low-frayed, with an immense popping jar followed by a
crackle like machine-gun fire, the whole façade of the
Rohan-Chabot palace ripped away from stone-coped
roof to granite cellar. It jumped into the air, like a
solid mass. It seemed to swing there, for an eternity;
then came tumbling down in a crazy, twisting, smoking,
burning heap, sending up an immense mass of dirty,
smoky flame that licked the clouds with blotchy,
speckled ruby and ensanguined orange.
Part of the falling mass struck the ramshackle house
next door, enveloping it in a hissing cloak of fire;
another part jumped back into the remaining part of
the palace which stood there, an expectant, tragic, mu-
tilated thing, and carried it to the ground, loud boom-
ing, like the black crack of doom. Jagged, burning
bits of wood, twisted balconies red-hot, flew out and
jerked across the street, striking the German Embassy.
velopped bagere,


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