The Greatest Works of Cleveland Moffett. Cleveland Moffett
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discreetly behind with Tignol (no longer a priest) and two sturdy fellows, making four men with the chauffeur, all ready to rush up for attack or defense at the lift of his hand. There must be some miraculous interposition if this man beside him, this baby-faced wood carver, was to get away now as he did that night on the Champs Elysées.
"You'll be paying for that left-handed punch, old boy, before very long," said Coquenil to himself.
"Now," resumed Groener, as the cab turned into a quiet street out of the noisy traffic of the Rue de Rivoli, "I'll tell you how I expect to find Alice. I'm going to find her through the sister of Father Anselm."
"The sister of Father Anselm!" exclaimed the other.
"Certainly. Priests have sisters, didn't you know that? Ha, ha! She's a hairdresser on the Rue Tronchet, kind-hearted woman with children of her own. She comes to see the Bonnetons and is fond of Alice. Well, she'll know where the girl has gone, and I propose to make her tell me."
"To make her?"
"Oh, she'll want to tell me when she understands what this means to her brother. Hello! Here's the telegraph office! Just a minute."
He sprang lightly from the cab and hurried across the sidewalk. At the same moment Coquenil lifted his hand and brought it down quickly, twice, in the direction of the doorway through which Groener had passed. And a moment later Tignol was in the telegraph office writing a dispatch beside the wood carver.
"I've telegraphed the Paris agent of a big furniture dealer in Rouen," explained the latter as they drove on, "canceling an appointment for to-morrow. He was coming on especially, but I can't see him—I can't do any business until I've found Alice. She's a sweet girl, in spite of everything, and I'm very fond of her." There was a quiver of emotion in his voice.
"Are you going to the hairdresser's now?" asked Matthieu.
"Yes. Of course she may refuse to help me, but I think I can persuade her with you to back me up." He smiled meaningly.
"I? What can I do?"
"Everything, my friend. You can testify that Father Anselm planned Alice's escape, which is bad for him, as his sister will realize. I'll say to her: 'Now, my dear Madam Page'—that's her name—'you're not going to force me and my friend, M. Matthieu—he's waiting outside, in a cab—you're not going to force us to charge your reverend brother with abducting a young lady? That wouldn't be a nice story to tell the commissary of police, would it? You're too intelligent a woman, Madam Page, to allow such a thing, aren't you?' And she'll see the point mighty quick. She'll probably drive right back with us to Notre-Dame and put a little sense into her brother's shaven head. It's four o'clock now," he concluded gayly; "I'll bet you we have Alice with us for dinner by seven, and it will be a good dinner, too. Understand you dine with us, M. Matthieu."
The man's effrontery was prodigious and there was so much plausibility in his glib chatter that, in spite of himself, Coquenil kept a last lingering wonder if Groener could be telling the truth. If not, what was his motive in this elaborate fooling? He must know that his hypocrisy and deceit would presently be exposed. So what did he expect to gain by it? What could he be driving at?
"Stop at the third doorway in the Rue Tronchet," directed the wood carver as they entered the Place de la Madeleine, and pointing to a hairdresser's sign, he added: "There is her place, up one flight. Now, if you will be patient for a few minutes, I think I'll come back with good news."
As Groener stepped from the carriage, Coquenil was on the point of seizing him and stopping this farce forthwith. What would he gain by waiting? Yet, after all, what would he lose? With four trained men to guard the house there was no chance of the fellow escaping, and it was possible his visit here might reveal something. Besides, a detective has the sportsman's instinct, he likes to play his fish before landing it.
"All right," nodded M. Paul, "I'll be patient," and as the wood carver disappeared, he signaled Tignol to surround the house.
"He's trying to lose us," said the old fox, hurrying up a moment later. "There are three exits here."
"Three?"
"Don't you know this place?"
"What do you mean?"
"There's a passage from the first courtyard into a second one, and from that you can go out either into the Place de la Madeleine or the Rue de l'Arcade. I've got a man at each exit but"——he shook his head dubiously—"one man may not be enough."
"Tonnere de Dieu, it's Madam Cecile's!" cried Coquenil. Then he gave quick orders: "Put the chauffeur with one of your men in the Rue de l'Arcade, bring your other man here and we'll double him up with this driver. Listen," he said to the jehu; "you get twenty francs extra to help watch this doorway for the man who just went in. We have a warrant for his arrest. You mustn't let him get past. Understand?"
"Twenty francs," grinned the driver, a red-faced Norman with rugged shoulders; "he won't get past, you can sleep on your two ears for that."
Meantime, Tignol had returned with one of his men, who was straightway stationed in the courtyard.
"Now," went on Coquenil, "you and I will take the exit on the Place de la Madeleine. It's four to one he comes out there."
"Why is it?" grumbled Tignol.
"Never mind why," answered the other brusquely, and he walked ahead, frowning, until they reached an imposing entrance with stately palms on the white stone floor and the glimpse of an imposing stairway.
"Of course, of course," muttered M. Paul. "To think that I had forgotten it! After all, one loses some of the old tricks in two years."
"Remember that blackmail case," whispered Tignol, "when we sneaked the countess out by the Rue de l'Arcade? Eh, eh, eh, what a close shave!"
Coquenil nodded. "Here's one of the same kind." He glanced at a sober coupé from which a lady, thickly veiled, was descending, and he followed her with a shrug as she entered the house.
"To think that some of the smartest women in Paris come here!" he mused. Then to Tignol: "How about that telegram?"
The old man stroked his rough chin. "The clerk gave me a copy of it, all right, when I showed my papers. Here it is and—much good it will do us."
He handed M. Paul a telegraph blank on which was written:
DUBOIS, 20 Rue Chalgrin.
Special bivouac amateur bouillon danger must have Sahara easily Groener arms impossible.
FELIX.
"I see," nodded Coquenil; "it ought to be an easy cipher. We must look up Dubois," and he put the paper in his pocket. "Better go in now and locate this fellow. Look over the two courtyards, have a word with the doorkeepers, see if he really went into the hairdresser's; if not, find out where he did go. Tell our men at the other exits not to let a yellow dog slip past without sizing it up for Groener."
"I'll tell 'em," grinned the old man, and he slouched away.
For five minutes Coquenil waited at the Place de la Madeleine exit and it seemed a long time. Two ladies arrived in carriages and passed inside quickly with exaggerated self-possession. A couple came down the stairs smiling and separated coldly at the door. Then a man came out alone, and the detective's eyes bored into him. It wasn't Groener.
Finally, Tignol returned and reported all well at the other exits; no one had gone out who could possibly be the wood carver. Groener had not been near the hairdresser; he had gone straight through into the second courtyard, and from there he had hurried up the main stairway.
"The one that leads to Madam Cecile's?" questioned M. Paul.
"Yes, but Cecile has only two floors. There are two more above hers."
"You think he went higher up?"
"I'm sure he did, for I spoke to Cecile herself. She wouldn't dare lie to me, and she says she has seen no such man as Groener."
"Then he's in one of the upper apartments now?"