The Mysterious Mickey Finn (31 page)

‘I suppose you have observed nothing about the hay on which we are sitting,' Evans said, as they jolted along.

The sergeant could answer truthfully in the negative. The jolting itself had been enough for him to think about. True, he had seen Evans remove a certain amount of T.N.T. from the evil-looking objects now behind them but the sergeant had not peeped in to make sure that Evans had not overlooked a kilo or two of the stuff.

‘I'm not a rustic, I'm a city man,' the sergeant said. ‘Still, Hydrangea has spoken of the hay fields, or cotton, was it? You have so many crops in North America.'

‘This is not alfalfa (
Medicago sativa
)
,
and fortunately, too, for alfalfa is common in this country. What I hold in my hand here is timothy (
Phleum pratense
) and very good timothy at that,' said Evans.

‘It's one and the same to me,' the sergeant said. His mind was veering from T.N.T. to his prefect whom he had left trussed up like a rabbit on a strange Aubusson rug.

‘It won't be one and the same when you take it to court,' Evans said.

‘ If I take hay to court, it'll be my luck that the judge has hay fever and will think I did it on purpose.'

‘Seriously,' Evans said. ‘This is very important. It chances, my friend, that the timothy now in my hands corresponds exactly with a few wisps I observed in the trousers cuff of Tom Jackson. He had just visited the
Presque Sans Souci.
'

The sergeant caught on so quickly he nearly fell off the tailboard. ‘Ah,
ça
! We've only to find the hayfield.'

‘We skirted it this morning, just before I immobilized the first sentry,' Evans said.

‘We left my prefect immobilized, too. Don't let that slip your mind,' said Sergeant Frémont. ‘It will be hard for me to explain.'

‘The fragments are fitting together, and high time,' Evans said. ‘The prefect will find his proper niche.'

‘The least I'll find is Devil's Island,' murmured Frémont. ‘Ah, Hydrangea. Would you follow me to Guinea, among the serpents, Corsicans and butterflies?'

‘At this moment,' said Evans, glancing at the sun, ‘Miss Waite is only sixteen hundred and four-tenths miles away.'

‘What a curse is distance !' Frémont sighed.

The truck had turned into a deeply-rutted and deserted road two hundred yards from the Seine. The terrain was sparsely wooded and had been somewhat littered by cows and other domestic animals.

‘Be careful,' Miriam said, as they all descended but Goujon. Jacques kept his seat.

‘What next?' he asked, laconically. ‘Some guys were supposed to meet me in the shed and unload these firecrackers. I'll be damned if I try to lift 'em alone.'

‘Continue to the shed, but slowly. Complain afterwards about the ruts, and the danger of exploding the T.N.T. Or maybe those men don't know about the T.N.T.?'

‘They're from the château,' Jacques said. ‘They know, all right.'

‘And now,' said Evans, as soon as Jacques had started away. ‘A little jaunt to the Grapes Movietone. They have a studio nearby and I'm eager to see my old friend the director.'

‘God,' groaned the sergeant. ‘In the midst of a case, we must take time off for a picture show.'

‘Not so fast. We must have evidence. Justice in France, successor to Greece and Rome, is not the high-handed procedure of our western frontier.'

‘Shall I ever make myself clear?' said the sergeant in despair. ‘Evidence, not only in France, but in Rome, Greece, Tyre, Sidon and also China, no doubt, is not to be used against higher-ups but the small fry you speak of with such disdain. The miraculous draught of fishes were not marlin or sailfish-Each one was small, and in itself, insignificant.

‘I'm not going to regale you with a film, but only to borrow a camera, and the director's roadster,' Evans said.

This done, they hurried back to a knoll which afforded a view of the shed and the river. There Evans set up the camera, concealed it with leaved branches, and waved to Goujon who was waiting for them on the other side of the stream. Hastily they joined him and went with him to his boarding house for a sumptuous country meal. There were cold pickled mushrooms, fresh young onions, beans, carrots and parsnips, a
lotte
fresh from the river and a chicken which had been well treated before and after its death.

‘Is it true that in America certain detectives who ought to know better drench their stomachs with bottled beer?' the sergeant asked.

‘It takes all kinds to protect the public,' Homer answered.

Miriam was not fidgety, exactly, but she wondered about the case from time to time. Evans noticed her uneasiness and smiled.

‘The
Presque Sans Souci,
with Captain Gonzo at the helm, will not reach the danger point in the river bed until between four and six,' he began.

‘Can't you fix the time a little closer?' asked the sergeant, from force of habit.

‘All right. Say between five and five-fifteen. Meanwhile the mines will be laid.'

‘But, God, man. There are other barges on the river besides the
Presque Sans Souci.
Do you mean …?' the sergeant gasped.

‘Not a hair of a bargeman's head, nor a barnacle from a skiff's leaky bottom shall come to grief,' Evans said. ‘That is, if we are careful. These mines will not be strewn about as if the Seine were enemy waters. Another method must be found to insure that the barge in question, and no other, will be contacted by the deadly firing pins. Now how is that to be done? I propose not only to find out for myself, but to take certified and witnessed pictures of the event. I take it you all will want to accompany me?'

Before they set out, however, Evans called the landlady's son to his side. He had a way with children, and instead of calling the boy ‘Bobo' or ‘Little Cabbage,' he addressed him by his name, Jean-Baptiste. To the truck driver's surprise the boy responded, and in a few minutes returned panting with a copy of the local paper, the Charenton
En-tout-cas.
Scanning the pages, Evans gasped and said to the sergeant:

‘We must not under-estimate the master mind. He's diabolically clever. Brilliant but anti-social. You see. He's invited the entire membership of the
Société des Artistes Français
for a house party at the château beginning this evening. What an alibi.'

‘Corsicans. Tarantulas,' groaned the sergeant. ‘I am to go into court with a wisp of exotic hay and a few eccentric foreigners, to be confronted with four score of the most decorated and distinguished men and savants in France.'

‘Cheer up,' said Evans. ‘We will furnish you with evidence, all right. This afternoon we shall photograph the mine laying operations, this evening we will watch the château. The
Presque Sans Souci
will reach the danger zone about five to-morrow morning. Then we'll ride into Paris and I'll elucidate as we go…'

‘Thank God for that,' Frémont said. ‘But how are you going to get a word to Gonzo? Tell me that!'

‘With pleasure, if the subject is not too delicate,' Evans said. ‘Gonzo, or Jansen, is a resourceful man. He has aboard a valuable corpse called Eloi le Mec, who died some time ago. Now in the case of certain saintly men, it is said that after death, decay and the accompanying phenomena do not occur. Eloi le Mec was not of that illustrious number. He was low. If there is anything in the theory, and it works both ways, we would be able to smell him in Charenton right now. What will Gonzo do, to avoid arousing suspicion, and also for the comfort of his crew and prisoners?'

‘Go on. I'm waiting !' the sergeant said.

‘There is an ice plant on the shore at the point he will pass about noon….'

‘Gonzo will heave-to a moment, get a large supply of ice, and store Eloi in the hold, well wrapped in ice and hay,' said Evans. ‘I sent him a telegram at the ice plant from the Grapes Movietone studio. We'll stop a moment there a little later for his reply.'

M
IRIAM
entered, refreshed by a dip in the pool and the piquant conversation of the landlady. Seeing the sergeant so downcast she went to his side and lightly touched his forehead.

‘Courage, sergeant,' she said. ‘To-morrow we'll all be back in Paris.'

Frémont winced. ‘It would be far better for me to start right now for Estonia. There's no extradition from there,' he said, rising reluctantly to his feet. Goujon stretched and turned to the Madame.

‘We'll need another feed between seven and seven-ten,' he said. ‘Get busy.'

Obediently she left the room, although advised by her bright little son to tell that big palooka to go to hell. A lively scene ensued because the little chap insisted on going along with Evans. He had sensed that something exciting was afoot. Goujon was for chucking little ‘Bobo' into an abandoned well that was handy in the garden. Frémont had the Continental idea that children should not go about without female relatives or nurses until they are safely through college. But Miriam had taken a fancy to the sprightly little fellow, so Evans finally gave way and said:

‘What's the harm?'

They set out, Miriam and Jean-Baptiste in the roadster and Goujon and Sergeant Frémont following in the truck. Up river, as Evans had said, they found a ferry, with a precarious raft. Nevertheless, it got them all across, and the ferryman promised, for a generous consideration, to keep an eye on the vehicles until such time as the passengers should return. As they walked through the woods, Evans explained to the boy how necessary it was, if he was to be a good detective, to be quiet and to attract no attention.

‘How old will I be before I can take a poke at that big mug who eats us out of house and home?' the child asked.

‘Between eighteen and twenty-four, I should say,' was Evans' answer.

‘Aw, gee ! Can't you fix it closer than that?' the boy asked.

They were near the knoll that afforded the view. A view that is ‘afforded' is much softer in character than one that is ‘commanded'. The view in question was much as it had been when they had left it, allowing for a shifting of the angles and length of the shadows and the redistribution of domestic animals in the pastures. Evans, however, tested the camera, checked the focus, then sat down behind a clump of bushes.

‘Can a guy smoke here?' asked Jacques.

‘Quiet, all of you,' Evans whispered. His sharp eyes had detected a movement among the branches on the far side of the river, just opposite the shed. Three men in new overalls were struggling with a reel of what appeared to be three-quarter-inch twisted cable, with eight strands of two hundred wires each around a core of copper. A launch zoomed around the bend and as the cable was loaded aboard a raft, towed it to the shed where, out of sight of the camera, the mines were threaded on the cable, reloaded on the raft and, well-weighted, were placed in the channel under cover of the tarpaulin. Homer, intent on the camera, and trusting to its telescopic lens, was more concerned with the technique of the photography than with watching the proceedings with his naked eye.

‘New overalls,' he said. ‘Trust these aristocrats to inject a false note whenever actual work is concerned. New overalls, stiff and clean at three in the afternoon.'

When the mining operations were over and the pseudo-workmen had left the scene, Evans sent the sergeant and Jacques Goujon back to the truck while he and Miriam, together with the thrilled young Bobo, started for the movie lot on foot. Homer held the camera and the precious contents under his arm while the boy took pleasure in lugging the tripod.

‘Won't you let mademoiselle shoot just once? I never seen a gun go off, except in pictures,' the child begged. Smiling, Evans reached for his silencer and slipped it over Miriam's automatic.

‘What shall I hit for you?' Miriam asked, touched by the boy's eagerness.

‘That guy who's been watching us through the bushes near the old red cow,' said Bobo, and suddenly the ping of a bullet cut the air, then another. Between pings, however, Miriam glanced at Evans who had thrown her, the boy and the camera into a slight depression in the damp pasture.

‘Shoot,' Homer said. Miriam shot.

‘Oh, gee ! Oh, gee, mademoiselle,' panted Bobo breathlessly. ‘You got him ! Gee ! You got him. How old will I be...'

‘Wait here,' Evans said, as he sprinted towards the bush near the old red cow, who had continued chewing her cud philosophically throughout the whole dramatic scene. The body of a slender young man, a brace of converted duelling pistols dangling from his lifeless hands, was prone on the ground, and from a surprisingly small neat round hole in his forehead a drop of blood was oozing.

‘Identical with the shot at Whistler's aunt,' Homer murmured. ‘She can't help showing off, but then, dear girl, she's young. But who is this young chap who has come to such an early end, and who took such liberties with my coat?' for he had noticed that the second shot had passed through his tropical worsted sleeve and pongee shirt as neatly as if the converted pistols had been buttonhole scissors. Kneeling, he rummaged in the pockets of the youth, but found no papers. This was disconcerting in the extreme. Evidently the corpse was of a good family, and if the news of the shooting got bruited about before five-fifteen in the morning, Evans' well-laid plans might well be thwarted. Hastily he covered the body with branches he stripped from the alders and young evergreens, rejoined Miriam and the boy, and said they must be on their way.

‘Can't I take just one peek at the corpse? Mademoiselle, here, says she shot him right in the middle of the forehead, and we got a bet up that she didn't,' Jean-Baptiste said. ‘Gee ! This is the best time I ever had. If it only had been that truck driver ... but, Gee, I can't have everything.'

‘Take a quick look, and be sure to cover him up again. His head's nearest the back end of the cow. Don't scratch around there too long. You might attract attention,' Evans said.