The Mysterious Mickey Finn (33 page)

‘By no means brilliant on my part,' said Evans ruefully. ‘Eh, sergeant?'

‘I didn't count them either,' Frémont said.

M
IRIAM
, Frémont, and Evans went directly to the dock to welcome Hjalmar and his passengers. Jacques and Melchisedek were given brief instructions. After loading the boxes containing the prefect and Paty de Pussy, the two wailing expressmen, the three dead cable cutters, the three kidnappers from the abandoned well, and the lame horse aboard the barge, they got in the truck and drove across the pasture to fetch the corpse with the converted duelling pistols. Homer, after hearty greetings and a brief tour of inspection, was organizing his posse for a quick raid of the chateau. Hjalmar and Jackson gleefully agreed to accompany the punitive expedition into the surrounding woods. Meanwhile, Evans had snatched a moment to telephone Hugo Weiss, the ambassador and the minister of justice, urging them to charter a taxi and hasten to Charenton without delay.

‘Sergeant,' Homer said, noting Frémont's dejected air, ‘since you are reluctant to rile the big shots, perhaps you'd just as soon stay on the barge while we stalk the master mind?'

The sergeant drew himself up to his full five feet five. ‘Monsieur Evans,' he said gravely, ‘there is a gulf of miscomprehension between us Latins and you who have Anglo-Saxon blood. When we are troubled, we frankly say so. When we mourn, we do not hide. If you have mistaken the expression of my forebodings for faint-heartedness, I can only say that I have given you credit for more acumen than you have.'

‘Forgive me,' Evans said, extending his hand.

The truck was free by that time, and the clock said five to five. They rumbled along the road, enjoying silently their reunited companionship and that rare exhilaration an escape from horrible death affords.

In the grove of birches near the ‘S' curve, they left the truck and started for the timothy field outside the wall but which commanded a view of the rear of the château and a part of the grounds. Evans, Hjalmar and Miriam led the way, Sergeant Frémont and Jackson were close behind them, Jacques and Melchisedek brought up the rear. The latter was fingering his rabbit's foot assiduously.

‘The rest of you hide in the haystacks and wait for my signal,' Homer said. ‘The sergeant and I will try to smoke out our quarry. Above all, don't shoot any
Artistes Français.
There are at least fifteen of them on the premises, all innocent of any wrong doing.'

‘They're lousy painters,' grunted Hjalmar.

‘Unhappily, in our present state of civilization, that's not a punishable crime,' Evans said.

No sentries were in sight. They had the fields and the woods all to themselves. Evans looked at his watch. ‘It's after five-fifteen,' he said. Still there were no signs of life in the grim château. At five-thirty Homer said he'd wait fifteen minutes more, and at a quarter to six he was about to arise when he saw a tall man, wearing wine-coloured pyjamas and slippers embroidered with the arms of the Bourbons, walk rapidly across the yard.

‘There he is,' Evans whispered, and his hand went instinctively to his holster.

‘I'll be damned. It's Haute Costa de Bellevieu,' Jackson muttered. ‘What a story. The old reprobate. The hound.'

‘He's got some papers in his hand, and he's distraught, all right,' the sergeant said.

‘Damaging proofs,' Evans said. ‘He's frightened. Thinks his subordinates bungled. We must see what he does with the papers.'

Then even Evans' saturnine countenance blanched with fear and horror. ‘Quick. Deep into the hay,' he cried, for Haute Coste de Bellevieu had paused at the sandpile, had taken up an iron shovel and just as the last of Evans' party disappeared as far into the depths of the haystacks as possible, the enraged aristocrat plunted the shovel viciously into the sandpile.

What followed beggars description and even contemplation. Thechâteau and the grounds seemed to rise into the air and dissolve, great trees were flattened, clouds of smoke and dust obscured the woods. The ground heaved and tipped like an ice floe and the rain of falling objects was like a sudden cloudburst. Fragments of wood and ironwork, small pieces of human bodies; limp birds struck dead in flight, copies of
L'Action Française
and
L'Art pour l'Art,
monogrammed chamber pots, torn paintings,
faiences,
and stone benches thudded all around the dumbfounded members of the posse from under whom the haystacks had been blown
in toto.
Luckily none of the party was hurt, although all were bruised and battered.

‘What happened? Did you blow him up on purpose?' Hjalmar said. ‘You might have let us in on it.'

‘Perhaps it's just as well,' said Evans philosophically. ‘After all, the victims among the artists had passed the Biblical age. And now, our friend the sergeant won't have to buck their influence in court. ... Well, we may as well go back to the barge.'

Sergeant Frémont was kicking his heels and murmuring, ‘Hydrangea. Promotion. Spectre of Devil's Island, farewell.'

‘No use waiting around here,' Evans said. ‘Everybody's dead and unrecognizable where the chateau used to be. It had slipped my mind, until I saw the beggar with a shovel, that I had hidden the T.N.T. in that sandpile. Suppose he never knew what struck him. Lucky the concussion didn't set off a powder factory in Charenton. Come on ! We've got a brisk walk ahead of us, then breakfast.'

‘What's the matter with the truck?' asked Jacques. ‘I ain't walked that far in years.'

‘The truck will be demolished,' Evans said. ‘It wasn't lucky enough to be wrapped in a haymow, as we were. Nothing but hay or sawdust would have saved us. I thought, truly, we were gone that time.'

‘What about my truck? Do I collect, or not?' asked Jacques.

‘Full value, and a bonus,' Evans said.

‘Don't give him a nickel,' said little Bobo who had come up and had overheard the conversation. ‘The big heel'll only get fried.'

The party had scarcely boarded the
Presque Sans Souci
when the ambassadorial limousine drove up and out stepped Hugo Weiss, the ambassador and Colonel Lvov Kvek. All wore tall hats, frock coats, grey striped trousers and patent leather shoes, all carried gold-headed canes. Anyone would be hard put to decide which of them looked more distinguished, and which of them carried his load of liquor with more aplomb. Very likely it was the colonel who was enjoying himself the most, on account of his long years of privation and struggle. He was slightly regretful, however, that all the windows in town had been broken, for he doted on the sound of tinkling glass.

In the galley of the barge, Mme Sosthène was turning out mountains of eggs and French fried potatoes. The prisoners, up forward, were agog with curiosity. In the hold was a large fresh supply of ice and stretched upon it were the corpses, then numbering five.

‘Been up to some kind of hell, my boy?' asked the ambassador, shaking hands with Hjalmar, then with Evans.

‘The master mind got away,' Jansen said, with an expressive gesture toward the sky.

‘Ah, well. Another time. Never know when to stop, these criminal Johnnies,' the ambassador said.

Another smart limousine drove up and the minister of justice stepped out, followed by Dr Hyacinthe Toudoux.

‘Where's the prefect?' he demanded.

Evans pointed to the prefect's box, which was amidships, near the bar. ‘That box to the left. Maybe we'd better let him out.'

‘This is an outrage,' shouted Paty de Pussy from the box on the right.

‘Uncrate them and give them some breakfast, but keep them tied up for a while,' Evans said.

‘Well, Evans, my boy. Tell us all about it,' said the ambassador, accepting a glass of applejack from Sosthène and allowing Gaby to take his hat and stick.

‘First let's have breakfast, then start down river. I'll explain on the way. It will help pass the time,' said Homer.

Sergeant Frémont blinked. ‘I think there's no doubt of that,' he said, glancing nervously at the minister of justice, and more nervously at the prefect, who was being lifted from the box and placed in a nearby chair. The prefect, however, did not berate the sergeant or anyone else. He was in the throes of black despair.

‘That noise. The explosion. What was it?' he asked.

‘Your colleague ... er ... got away, as Mr Jansen puts it. He was blown into smithereens.'

‘I should have met him on the field of honour,' said Paty de Pussy, stretching his sword arm and rubbing it tenderly, for it was badly cramped.

‘Snug little barge you have here. Where'd you get it?' asked the ambassador, as Mme Sosthène served him a large helping of eggs and potatoes. The smell of coffee cheered even the manacled prisoners. For some time all else was forgotten while the company fell to.

‘M
AKE
yourselves comfortable,' Evans said, as he passed around cigars. The company had been assembled in a large circle on deck, even the prisoners and five labelled corpses for which Homer had need in his elucidation. Jackson had a wad of copy paper on his knee to note down dates, names and addresses.

‘Before I begin,' Evans said, ‘I must urge you all to ask no questions until I have finished. Then, if everything is not clear, I shall be glad to answer if I can. This affair, which began officially with the disappearance of Mr Weiss (the latter bowed genially and smiled) has much deeper roots.'

Sergeant Frémont groaned.

‘First of all, let me say what you all know quite well. There is a more or less clandestine organization in France, the members of which want or pretend to want the restoration of the monarchy. With some of them, it is a matter of birth, habit, rather sloppy thinking. With others of the more unstable type it is an obsession verging on insanity. Let us leave them for a moment, after having remarked that the cause they represent is always badly in need of money.

‘The coffers of Europe have been fairly well drained by partisans of dethroned royal houses. America is the only hunting ground where solicitors for kings or almost anything else have some prospect of success.

‘In America, in 1913, an income tax law was passed and the rich have been devising tax dodging rackets ever since. There is a multi-millionaire in Delaware named T. Prosper Stables, who controls large industries, scores of banks, and who fancies himself as a patron of the arts.'

At this, Hugo Weiss began to mutter, then desisted.

‘One of Stables' employees thought out a prize scheme by means of which wealthy men could evade the heaviest part of their taxes and conceal their assets effectively. I will outline it as briefly as I can. A painting is bought in Europe for, say, five thousand dollars. The buyer “A” sells it to “B” for fifty thousand. “B” sells it to “C” for two hundred thousand, and so on until the price has been whooped up to half a million.'

At this one of the minor gangsters became so excited that he slipped off the egg crate on which he had been sitting. ‘Jeese. We're only pikers,' he said.

Homer smiled good-naturedly at the interruption. ‘Of course, Messrs A, B, C, D, and all the others are one and the same man, Mr T. Prosper Stables acting through his badly-paid agents and employees.'

Weiss began to beam and slap his knee.

‘What is the connexion between U.S. tax dodging and the royalist movement in France, you may well ask?' continued Evans. ‘That link occurred by hazard. The gentleman who was blown to bits this morning was a leader of the royalists, a clever schemer and an influential man. He had at his command a horde of fanatical followers who had pledged themselves to obey orders without question. M. Haute Costa de Bellevieu was in America in search of cash for his movement at the time Stables needed to build up a European ring to handle Old Masters. They got together, M. Haute Costa de Bellevieu agreed to organize and operate a series of agencies and agents, none known to more than one of the others. Stables, in turn, agreed to turn over part of the profits of his philanthropy to the royalist cause.

‘You have met, or seen, in the course of this investigation, several members of the ring. At first glance, the late Ambrose Gring would seem a strange choice, but I discovered what is not generally known about Ambrose, namely that he is the son of a member of the royal house of Portugal, out of a famous Can-Can dancer I need not name.'

‘The bastard,' murmured Miriam.

‘That dash of royalty,' continued Evans, ‘entitled Ambrose to be taken care of, somehow, so Haute Costa de Bellevieu entrusted him with a simple job. You see, once he got started in the affair, de Bellevieu could not see the reason for buying authentic paintings, with all the attendant difficulties, when fakes could be cooked up in short order. Gring put him in touch with M. Paty de Pussy ...'

‘You shall receive a call from my seconds,' the old painter spluttered.

Evans smiled. ‘I haven't had a chance to compliment you on your work. It is excellent. Superb, in fact.'

The old aristocrat thawed a little at that, and smiled in a deprecatory way.

Evans went on with his explanation. ‘M. Paty de Pussy furnished the forged Old Masters, for a consideration which I fear was not adequate, in view of the final prices. These were delivered by Gring to one of a number of dealers or galleries, among them being our late lamented friends, Abel Heiss and Dodo Lourde.

‘I'll not bore you with needless details,' Evans said. ‘At the time this case began, there was to be a wholesale disposal of false El Grecos. Stables had run up the listed prices to a total of three million dollars, and had offered a candlelight Greco apiece to six different museums, widely separately geographically but all more or less under his thumb. At the most inopportune moment for the conspirators, who on this side of the water were to use the proceeds of the sale for a purchase of arms and ammunition, Mr Weiss appeared in Paris, innocently enough. His presence was fatal to the scheme if he got a look at the paintings or even heard about them, since an unscrupulous dealer had tried to sell a Greco by Paty de Pussy to Weiss some years before. I was, in fact, the one to detect the fraud.' He turned to Paty de Pussy, who was bristling again.