The Strange Adventures of Mr. John Smith in Paris/Chapter 15
CHAPTER XV.
MR. JOHN SMITH spent the next four days behind prison bars—just like the prison bars in dear old Passaic. He was irritatingly cheerful about it, and met new avalanches of questions from M. Baudet with a pleasant smile and—silence. Twice M. Baudet called, and twice he stormed about the cell, only to be beaten back, defeated, angered, by the unholy calm of his prisoner. Mr. Smith stood broadly upon the general principle that the less he said the less he might have to explain, and this policy, combined with the fact that he was locked up, seemed to insure him at least temporarily from further trouble.
Meanwhile, M. le Marquis d’Aubigny buzzed about with a bewildered expression on the pasty face of him, seeking the true inwardness of it all. It had a true inwardness somewhere, else why all this maze of contradictions and untoward happenings? But he couldn’t lay his delicate fingers to it. There was one thing he could do, keep the police constantly on the search for the missing bonds, and he did that. They needed no urging. There were bonds, because M. Clarke had intended to use them in a great business deal. He had even signed the preliminary papers, and had opened the leather bag to produce the bonds, only to find it was empty. There were bonds—certainement! Mr. Smith had said to the contrary; but he was—what you call him?—the big bluffer.
M. Baudet and his satellites were singularly receptive to the suggestion that Mr. Smith was a big bluffer. On two separate occasions he had compelled them to shove their cards in the pack and ask for a new deal. They had him in their hands just at that psychological moment when he must have been maturing plans for the theft of seven and a half million francs—and they had released him! M. Baudet had swallowed hook and line the idea that Mr. Smith was a detective. He couldn’t remember that Mr. Smith had ever said he was a detective; but— Oh. la la! It made his head ache! Now the only thing to do was to wait until Clarke recovered sufficiently to give the facts in the case.
ON the morning of the fifth day M. Baudet called upon Mr. Smith in his cell, with the information that the physicians would permit a very short interview with Mr. Clarke. Mr. Smith rose and put on his hat.
“It is most irregular, this thing of allowing you to be present at the interview,” M. Baudet explained; “but M. Clarke has refused to talk at all unless you are present. Besides, the circumstances are unusual, and I have consented.”
“Good!” remarked Mr. Smith. “Has Clarke been allowed to see anybody yet?”
“Only his daughter. She was with him last night for half an hour.”
Looking straight into the inquisitive eyes of M. Baudet, Mr. John Smith of Passaic New Jersey, laughed. “Cap,” he queried enigmatically, “what is French for lemon?”
“Citron,” M. Baudet informed him after a puzzled pause. “Why?”
“Well, that’s what you’re going to get—a citron,” remarked Mr. Smith.
M. Baudet pondered it all the way to the little apartment in the Rue St. Honore where M. le Marquis was waiting. Citron! What had that to do with this most mysterious case? He doesn’t know yet.
Worn, haggard, white, feeble as a child, helpless in bed, yet with that same old commanding glitter in his eyes that Mr. Smith knew so well, Mr. Clarke received the three of them, M. Baudet, M. le Marquis d’Aubigny, and plain John Smith of Passaic. The physician had withdrawn; Edna stood beside the bed watchfully. Her eyes met Mr. Smith’s as he entered and she smiled bravely.
“Father,” she said softly, “here is Mr. Smith.”
The gaze of the sick man lingered for an instant upon the keen, inquiring face of M. Baudet, thence shifted to the Marquis, and finally was halted by the straight staring eyes of Mr. Smith. For a second, perhaps, they stared each at the other, and Clarke lifted a wasted hand.
“Hello, Smith,” he said. “I’m glad to see you.”
“Same to you, Mr. Clarke.” and Mr. Smith shook the proffered hand. “I’m sorry you’ve been ill, sir.”
Again Clarke looked at M. Baudet. “Well,” he questioned abruptly, “what is it? My physician has given me only ten minutes to talk to you.”
THIS gentleman, as you may know,” and M. Baudet indicated Mr. Smith, “is now being held prisoner on the charge of stealing seven and a half million francs worth of United States bonds from you. He was arrested on complaint of M. le Marquis d’Aubigny, who gave me to understand that he was acting in your behalf. M. le Marquis said you had these bonds in denominations of ten thousand dollars each; that you told him they must have been stolen. He said further that you and he had agreed that M. Smith must have stolen the bonds with the assistance of a trained nurse who was here, this assumption being based principally upon the fact that only three persons in Paris knew the bonds were here, M. le Marquis d’Aubigny, yourself, and M. Smith. Frankly, we have been unable to connect M. Smith directly with the disappearance of any bonds, although there are many mystifying things connected with his presence here. Certain it is that M. Smith did not have the bonds on him at the time of his arrest immediately following the report of the theft, and certain it is they were not hidden in his room. Where they are, we do not know. You are ill, Monsieur; I am stating it briefly.”
Clarke’s tense gaze shifted to d’Aubigny. “You reported a theft,” he said. “By whose authority? Did I ask you to report a theft?”
“The bonds were gone, Monsieur. You said so yourself. We even agreed that M. Smith took them. I reported it on my own authority.”
“The bonds were gone, you say?” Clarke questioned sharply. “How do you know they were gone? How did you know there were any bonds? Did you ever see them?”
“I didn’t see them; but—”
“In view of all the circumstances in the case and the unwarranted arrest of Smith here, I suppose I’ll have to go into the details.” Clarke was talking to M. Baudet. “The Marquis was in the United States six months ago and came to see me in Passaic about a business matter. We had had previous financial relations, and this one he suggested seemed attractive. I told him I would consider it, and I did consider it. This is what brought me to Paris three months ago. Immediately after I arrived I was stricken with fever and lay here for weeks practically unconscious, and because of the name I had assumed my friends and relatives in the United States lost track of me and grew uneasy. It had been my purpose to investigate quietly this matter the Marquis suggested, and even he wasn’t to know that I was in Paris. This illness threw all my plans out of gear. When I became convalescent I had a friend look into the situation for me, and on the strength of his report I was willing to go ahead.
“Now comes the thing that so complicated affairs and indirectly resulted in Mr. Smith’s arrest. It was my original purpose to raise funds in the United States to go into this enterprise. I lost so much time, however, that when the Marquis came to me with a statement that the deal must be consummated within a day or so it was impossible to get funds from the United States in time. I was confident, however, that I could get the funds from London. I was so confident that I told the Marquis I had the bonds, and even told him their denomination, and showed him the bag that was supposed to hold them.
“There are tricks in your profession, M. Baudet, just as there are in mine. I didn’t get the funds from London as I expected; but I permitted the deal to go ahead up to the point where I was to pay a million and a half dollars as my part. Then I opened the bag to produce the bonds, and it was empty. It was a trick by which I calculated to hold up the deal for a couple of weeks,—in other words, to gain time,—enabling me to come in later. So, you see, I had no bonds; no bonds were stolen; I didn’t even report the bonds were stolen. I’m sorry I have to put myself in this position; but it’s only fair to my good friend Smith. He is an official in my bank at home, and the last man on earth that one could associate with theft.”
MR. SMITH’S eyes were bulging with admiration. He had never known the old man to fail in a crisis, and he hadn’t failed now. Edna was smiling softly as she stroked the emaciated hand she held. M. Baudet’s face was corrugated with wrinkles of perplexity.
“It was a trick, then?” demanded the Marquis curtly.
“That’s a pretty good guess,” and Clarke smiled benignly.
“A contemptible, disreputable—” the Marquis began.
“Never mind details, son,” interrupted Mr. Smith. “Mr. Clarke is not well. Any time you want to discuss this matter further, come to me. I’ll talk it over with you.”
M. Baudet shrugged his shoulders helplessly. “There is nothing to be done, then, M. le Marquis,” he queried; “that is, unless you have been misled, and this is not M. Clarke.”
The Marquis shook his head. “It is M. Clarke,” he said. “I know him well. I have known him for years.”
“And if you have any further doubt about it,” Clarke added, “go ask the American Ambassador. He’s an intimate friend of mine. He will vouch for my identity, for my personal integrity, and for anything else you like.”
The door opened and the physician came bustling in. “Eleven minutes!” he announced. “That is all, Messieurs.”
“It’s enough, Doc,” remarked Mr. Smith, and he turned to face M. Baudet. “You know I told you you’d get a—a citron out of this.”