CHAPTER X. – Traps
The day before the encounter with Mr. Cranley at the house of the lady of The Bunhouse, Barton, when he came home from a round of professional visits, had found Maitland waiting in his chill, unlighted lodgings. Of late, Maitland had got into the habit of loitering there, discussing and discussing all the mysteries which made him feel that he was indeed “moving about in worlds not realized.” Keen as was the interest which Barton took in the labyrinth of his friend’s affairs, he now and again wearied of Maitland, and of a conversation that ever revolved round the same fixed but otherwise uncertain points.
“Hullo, Maitland; glad to see you,” he observed, with some shade of hypocrisy. “Anything new to-day?”
“Yes,” said Maitland; “I really do think I have a clew at last.”
“Well, wait a bit till they bring the candles,” said Barton, groaning as the bell-rope came away in his hands. “Bring lights, please, and tea, and stir up the fire, Jemima, my friend,” he remarked, when the blackened but alert face of the little slavey appeared at the door.
“Yes, Dr. Barton, in a minute, sir,” answered Jemima, who greatly admired the Doctor, and in ten minutes the dismal lodgings looked almost comfortable.
“Now for your clew, old man,” exclaimed Barton, as he handed Maitland a cup of his peculiar mixture, very weak, with plenty of milk and no sugar. “Oh, Ariadne, what a boon that clew of yours has been to the detective mind! To think that, without the Minotaur, the police would probably never have hit on that invaluable expression, ‘the police have a clew.’”
Maitland thought this was trifling with the subject.
“This advertisement,” he said, gravely, “appears to me undoubtedly to refer to the miscreant who carried off Margaret, poor girl.”
“Does it, by Jove?” cried Barton, with some eagerness this time. “Let’s have a look at it!”
This was what he read aloud:
“Bearskin Coat. – The gentleman travelling with a young lady, who, on Feb. 19th, left a bearskin coat at the Hôtel Alsace and Lorraine, Avenue de l’Opéra, Paris, is requested to remove it, or it will be sold to defray expenses.
“Dupin.”
“This may mean business,” he said, “or it may not. In the first place, is there such an hotel in Paris as the ‘Alsace et Lorraine,’ and is M. Dupin the proprietor?”
“That’s all right,” said Maitland. “I went at once to the Club, and looked up the Bottin, the Paris Directory, don’t you know.”
“So far, so good; and yet I don’t quite see what you can make of it. It does not come to much, you know, even if the owner of the coat is the man you want And again, is he likely to have left such a very notable article of dress behind him in an hotel? Anyway, can’t you send some detective fellow? Are you going over yourself in this awful weather?”
So Barton argued, but Maitland was not to be easily put off the hopeful scent.
“Why, don’t you see,” he exclaimed, “the people at the hotel will at least be able to give one a fuller description of the man than anything we have yet. And they may have some idea of where he has gone to; and, at least, they will have noticed how he was treating Margaret, and that, of course, is what I am most anxious to learn. Again, he may have left other things besides the coat, or there may be documents in the pockets. I have read of such things happening.”
“Yes, in ‘Le Crime de l’Opéra;’ and a very good story, too,” answered the incredulous Barton; “but I don’t fancy that the villain of real life is quite so innocent and careless as the monster of fiction.”
“Everyone knows that murderers are generally detected through some incredible piece of carelessness,” said Mait-land; “and why should this elaborate scoundrel be more fortunate than the rest? If he did leave the coat, he will scarcely care to go back for it; and I do not think the chance should be lost, even if it is a poor one. Besides, I’m doing no good here, and I can do no harm there.”
This was undeniably true; and though Barton muttered something about “a false scent,” he no longer attempted to turn Maitland from his purpose. He did, however, with some difficulty, prevent the Fellow of St. Gatien’s from purchasing a blonde beard, one of those wigs which simulate baldness, and a pair of blue spectacles. In these disguises, Maitland argued, he would certainly avoid recognition, and so discomfit any mischief planned by the enemies of Margaret.
“Yes; but, on the other hand, you would look exactly like a German professor, and probably be taken for a spy of Bismarck’s,” said Barton.
And Maitland reluctantly gave up the idea of disguise. He retained, however, certain astute notions of his own about his plan of operations, and these, unfortunately, he did not communicate to his friend. The fact is, that the long dormant romance of Maitland’s character was now thoroughly awake, and he began, unconsciously, to enjoy the adventure.
His enjoyment did not last very long. The usual troubles of a winter voyage, acting on a dilapidated digestive system, were not spared the guardian of Margaret But everything – even a period of waiting at the Paris salle d’attente, and a struggle with the cochers at the station (who, for some reason, always decline to take a fare) – must come to an end at last. About dinner-time, Maitland was jolted through the glare of the Parisian streets, to the Avenue de l’Opéra. At the Hôtel Alsace et Lorraine he determined not to betray himself by too precipitate eagerness. In the first place, he wrote an assumed name in the hotel book, choosing, by an unlucky inspiration, the pseudonym of Buchanan. He then ordered dinner in the hotel, and, by way of propitiation, it was a much better dinner than usual that Maitland ordered. Bottles of the higher Bordeaux wines, reposing in beautiful baskets, were brought at his command; for he was determined favorably to impress the people of the house.
His conduct in this matter was partly determined by the fact that, for the moment, the English were not popular in Paris.
In fact, as the French newspapers declared, with more truth than they suspected, “Paris was not the place for English people, especially for English women.”
In these international circumstances, then, Maitland believed he showed the wisdom of the serpent when he ordered dinner in the fearless old fashion attributed by tradition to the Milords of the past But he had reckoned without his appetite.
A consequence of sea-travel, neither uncommon nor alarming, is the putting away of all desire to eat and drink. As the waiter carried off the untouched hors d’oeuvres (whereof Maitland only nibbled the delicious bread and butter); as he bore away the huîtres, undiminished in number; as the bisque proved too much for the guest of the evening; as he faltered over the soles, and failed to appreciate the cutlets; as he turned from the noblest crûs (including the widow’s crûs, those of La Veuve Cliquot), and asked for siphon and fine champagne, the waiter’s countenance assumed an air of owl-like sagacity. There was something wrong, the garçon felt sure, about a man who could order a dinner like Maitland’s, and then decline to partake thereof. However, even in a republican country, you can hardly arrest a man merely because his intentions are better than his appetite. The waiter, therefore, contented himself with assuming an imposing attitude, and whispering something to the hall porter.
The Fellow of St. Gatien’s, having dined with the Barmecide regardless of expense, went on (as he hoped) to ingratiate himself with the concierge. From that official he purchased two large cigars, which he did not dream of attempting to enjoy; and he then endeavored to enter into conversation, selecting for a topic the state of the contemporary drama. What would monsieur advise him to go to see? Where was Mile. Jane Hading playing?
Having in this conversation broken the ice (and almost every rule of French grammar), Maitland began to lead up craftily to the great matter – the affair of the bearskin coat. Did many English use the hotel? Had any of his countrymen been there lately? He remembered that when he left England a friend of his had asked him to inquire about an article of dress – a great-coat – which he had left somewhere, perhaps in a cab. Could monsieur the Porter tell him where he ought to apply for news about the garment, a coat in peau d’ours?
On the mention of this raiment a clerkly-looking man, who had been loitering in the office of the concierge, moved to the neighborhood of the door, where he occupied himself in study of a railway map hanging on the wall.
The porter now was all smiles. But, certainly! Monsieur had fallen well in coming to him. Monsieur wanted a lost coat in skin of the bear? It had been lost by a compatriot of monsieur’s? Would monsieur give himself the trouble to follow the porter to the room where lost baggage was kept?
Maitland, full of excitement, and of belief that he now really was on the trail, followed the porter, and the clerkly man (rather a liberty, thought Maitland) followed him.
The porter led them to a door marked “private,” and they all three entered.
The clerkly-looking person now courteously motioned Maitland to take a chair.
The Englishman sat down in some surprise.
“Where,” he asked, “was the bearskin coat?”
“Would monsieur first deign to answer a few inquiries? Was the coat his own, or a friend’s?”
“A friend’s,” said Maitland, and then, beginning to hesitate, admitted that the garment only belonged to “a man he knew something about.”
“What is his name?” asked the clerkly man, who was taking notes.
His name, indeed! If Maitland only knew that! His French now began to grow worse and worse in proportion to his flurry.
Well, he explained, it was very unlucky, but he did not exactly remember the man’s name. It was quite a common name. He had met him for the first time on board the steamer; but the man was going to Brussels, and, finding that Maitland was on his way to Paris, had asked him to make inquiries.
Here the clerkly person, laying down his notes, asked if English gentlemen usually spoke of persons whom they had just met for the first time on board the steamer as their friends?
Maitland, at this, lost his temper, and observed that, as they seemed disposed to give him more trouble than information, he would go and see the play.
Hereupon the clerkly person requested monsieur to remember, in his deportment, what was due to Justice; and when Maitland rose, in a stately way, to leave the room, he also rose and stood in front of the door.
However little of human nature an Englishman may possess, he is rarely unmoved by this kind of treatment. Maitland took the man by the collar, sans phrase, and spun him round, amid the horrified clamor of the porter. But the man, without any passion, merely produced and displayed a card, containing a voucher that he belonged to the Secret Police, and calmly asked Maitland for “his papers.”
Maitland had no papers. He had understood that passports were no longer required.
The detective assured him that passports “spoil nothing.” Had monsieur nothing stating his identity? Maitland, entirely forgetting that he had artfully entered his name as “Buchanan” on the hotel book, produced his card, on the lower corner of which was printed, St. Gatien’s College. This address puzzled the detective a good deal, while the change of name did not allay his suspicions, and he ended by requesting Maitland to accompany him into the presence of Justice. As there was no choice, Maitland obtained leave to put some linen in his travelling-bag, and was carried off to what we should call the nearest police-station. Here he was received in a chill bleak room by a formal man, wearing a decoration, who (after some private talk with the detective) asked Maitland to explain his whole conduct in the matter of the coat. In the first place, the detective’s notes on their conversation were read aloud, and it was shown that Maitland had given a false name; had originally spoken of the object of his quest as “the coat of a friend;” then as “the coat of a man whom he knew something about;” then as “the coat of a man whose name he did not know;” and that, finally, he had attempted to go away without offering any satisfactory account of himself.
All this the philanthropist was constrained to admit; but he was, not unnaturally, quite unable to submit any explanation of his proceedings. What chiefly discomfited him was the fact that his proceedings were a matter of interest and observation. Why, he kept wondering, was all this fuss made about a coat which had, or had not, been left by a traveller at the hotel? It was perfectly plain that the hotel was used as a souricière, as the police say, as a trap in which all inquirers after the coat could be captured. Now, if he had been given time (and a French dictionary), Maitland might have set before the Commissaire of Police the whole story of his troubles. He might have begun with the discovery of Shields’ body in the snow; he might have gone on to Margaret’s disappearance (enlèvement), and to a description of the costume (bearskin coat and all) of the villain who had carried her away. Then he might have described his relations with Margaret, the necessity of finding her, the clew offered by the advertisement in the Times, and his own too subtle and ingenious attempt to follow up that clew. But it is improbable that this narrative, had Maitland told it ever so movingly, would have entirely satisfied the suspicions of the Commissaire of Police. It might even have prejudiced that official against Maitland. Moreover, the Fellow of St. Gatien’s had neither the presence of mind nor the linguistic resources necessary to relate the whole plot and substance of this narrative, at a moment’s notice, in a cold police-office, to a sceptical alien. He therefore fell back on a demand to be allowed to communicate with the English Ambassador; and that night Maitland of Gatien’s passed, for the first time during his blameless career, in a police-cell.
It were superfluous to set down in detail all the humiliations endured by Maitland. Do not the newspapers continually ring with the laments of the British citizen who has fallen into the hands of Continental Justice? Are not our countrymen the common butts of German, French, Spanish, and even Greek and Portuguese Jacks in office? When an Englishman appears, do not the foreign police usually arrest him at a venture, and inquire afterward?
Maitland had, with the best intentions, done a good deal more than most of these innocents to deserve incarceration. His conduct, as the Juge d’Instruction told him, without mincing matters, was undeniably louche.
In the first place, the suspicions of M. Dupin, of the Hôtel Alsace et Lorraine, had been very naturally excited by seeing the advertisement about the great-coat in the Times, for he made a study of “the journal of the City.”
Here was a notice purporting to be signed by himself, and referring to a bearskin coat, said (quite untruly) to have been left in his own hotel. A bearskin coat! The very words breathe of Nihilism, dynamite, stratagems, and spoils. Then the advertisement was in English, which is, at present and till further notice, the language spoken by the brave Irish. M. Dupin, as a Liberal, had every sympathy with the brave Irish in their noble struggle for whatever they are struggling for; but he did not wish his hostelry to become, so to speak, the mountain-cave of Freedom, and the great secret storehouse of nitro-glycerine. With a view to elucidating the mystery of the advertisement, he had introduced the police on his premises, and the police had hardly settled down in its affût, when, lo! a stranger had been captured, in most suspicious circumstances. M. Dupin felt very clever indeed, and his friends envied him the distinction and advertisement which were soon to be his.
When Maitland appeared, as he did in due course, before the Juge d’Instruction, he attempted to fall back on the obsolete Civis Romanus sum! He was an English citizen. He had written to the English ambassador, or rather to an old St. Gatien’s man, an attaché of the embassy, whom he luckily happened to know. But this great ally chanced to be out of town, and his name availed Maitland nothing in his interview with the Juge d’Instruction. That magistrate, sitting with his back to the light, gazed at Maitland with steady, small gray eyes, while the scribble of the pen of the greffier, as he took down the Englishman’s deposition, sounded shrill in the bleak torture-chamber of the law.
“Your name?” asked the Juge d’Instruction.
“Maitland,” replied the Fellow of St. Gatien’s.
“You lie!” said the Juge d’Instruction. “You entered the name of Buchanan in the book of the hotel.”
“My name is on my cards, and on that letter,” said Maitland, keeping his temper wonderfully.
The documents in question lay on a table, as pièces justificatives.
“These cards, that letter, you have robbed them from some unfortunate person, and have draped (afflublé) yourself in the trappings of your victim! Where is his body?”
This was the working hypothesis which the Juge d’Instruction had formed within himself to account for the general conduct and proceedings of the person under examination.
“Where is whose body?” asked Maitland, in unspeakable surprise.
“Buchanan,” said the Juge d’Instruction. (And to hear the gallantry with which he attacked this difficult name, of itself insured respect.) “Buchanan, you are acting on a deplorable system. Justice is not deceived by your falsehoods, nor eluded by your subterfuges. She is calm, stern, but merciful. Unbosom yourself freely” (répandez franchement), “and you may learn that justice can be lenient It is your interest to be frank.” (Il est de votre intérêt d’être franc.)
“But what do you want me to say?” asked the prévenu, “What is all this pother about a great-coat?” (Tant de fracas pour un paletot?)
Maitland was rather proud of this sentence.
“It is the part of Justice to ask questions, not to answer them,” said the Juge d’Instruction. “Levity will avail you nothing. Tell me, Buchanan, why did you ask for the coat at the Hôtel Alsace et Lorraine?”
“In answer to that advertisement in the Times.”
“That is false; you yourself inserted the advertisement. But, on your own system, bad as it is, what did you want with the coat?”
“It belonged to a man who had done me an ill-turn.”
“His name?”
“I do not know his name; that is just what I wanted to find out I might have found his tailor’s name on the coat, and then have discovered for whom the coat was made.”
“You are aware that the proprietor of the hotel did not insert the forged advertisement?”
“So he says.”
“You doubt his word? You insult France in one of her citizens!”
Maitland apologized.
“Then whom do you suspect of inserting the advertisement, as you deny having done it yourself, for some purpose which does not appear?”
“I believe the owner of the coat put in the advertisement.”
“That is absurd. What had he to gain by it?”
“To remove me from London, where he is probably conspiring against me at this moment.”
“Buchanan, you trifle with Justice!”
“I have told you that my name is not Buchanan.”
“Then why did you forge that name in the hotel book?”
“I wrote it in the hurry and excitement of the moment; it was incorrect.”
“Why did you lie?” (Pourquoi avez vous menti?)
Maitland made an irritable movement
“You threaten Justice. Your attitude is deplorable. You are consigned au secret, and will have an opportunity of revising your situation, and replying more fully to the inquiries of Justice.”
So ended Maitland’s first and, happily, sole interview with a Juge d’Instruction. Lord Walter Brixton, his old St Gatien’s pupil, returned from the country on the very day of Maitland’s examination. An interview (during which Lord Walter laughed unfeelingly) with his old coach was not refused to the attaché, and, in a few hours, after some formalities had been complied with, Maitland was a free man. His pièces justificatives, his letters, cards, and return ticket to Charing Cross, were returned to him intact.
But Maitland determined to sacrifice the privileges of the last-named document.
“I am going straight to Constantinople and the Greek Islands,” he wrote to Barton. “Do you know, I don’t like Paris. My attempt at an investigation has not been a success. I have endured considerable discomfort, and I fear my case will get into the Figaro, and there will be dozens of ‘social leaders’ and ‘descriptive headers’ about me in all the penny papers.”
Then Maitland gave his banker’s address at Constantinople, relinquished the quest of Margaret, and for a while, as the Sagas say, “is out of the story.”