Castles in the Air

  4.

  Having been forced thus to give up Carissimo, and with him all myhopes of a really substantial fortune, I was determined to make thered-polled miscreant suffer for my disappointment, and the minions ofthe law sweat in the exercise of their duty.

  I demanded Theodore! My friend, my comrade, my right hand! I had seenhim not ten minutes ago, carrying in his arms this very dog, whom Ihad subsequently found inside a wall cupboard beside a blood-stainedcoat. Where was Theodore? Pointing an avenging finger at thered-headed reprobate, I boldly accused him of having murdered myfriend with a view to robbing him of the reward offered for therecovery of the dog.

  This brought a new train of thought into the wooden pates of thegendarmes. A quartet of them had by this time assembled within therespectable precincts of the Hotel des Cadets. One of them--senior tothe others--at once dispatched a younger comrade to the nearestcommissary of police for advice and assistance.

  Then he ordered us all into the room pompously labelled "Reception,"and there proceeded once more to interrogate us all, making copiousnotes in his leather-bound book all the time, whilst I, moaning andlamenting the loss of my faithful friend and man of all work, loudlydemanded the punishment of his assassin.

  Theodore's coat, his hat, the blood-stained rag, had all been broughtdown from No. 25 and laid out upon the table ready for the inspectionof M. the Commissary of Police.

  That gentleman arrived with two private agents, armed with full powersand wrapped in the magnificent imperturbability of the law. Thegendarme had already put him _au fait_ of the events, and as soon ashe was seated behind the table upon which reposed the "pieces deconviction," he in his turn proceeded to interrogate the ginger-patedmiscreant.

  But strive how he might, M. the Commissary elicited no furtherinformation from him than that which we all already possessed. The mangave his name as Aristide Nicolet. He had no fixed abode. He had cometo visit his friend who lodged in No. 25 in the Hotel des Cadets. Notfinding him at home he had sat by the fire and had waited for him. Heknew absolutely nothing of the dog and absolutely nothing of thewhereabouts of Theodore.

  "We'll soon see about that!" asserted M. the Commissary.

  He ordered a perquisition of every room and every corner of the hotel,Madame the proprietress loudly lamenting that she and her respectablehouse would henceforth be disgraced for ever. But the thieves--whoeverthey were--were clever. Not a trace of any illicit practice was foundon the premises--and not a trace of Theodore.

  Had he indeed been murdered? The thought now had taken root in mymind. For the moment I had even forgotten Carissimo and my vanishedfive thousand francs.

  Well, Sir! Aristide Nicolet was marched off to the depot--stillprotesting his innocence. The next day he was confronted with Mme. laComtesse de Nole, who could not say more than that he might haveformed part of the gang who had jostled her on the Quai Voltaire,whilst the servant who had taken the missive from him failed torecognize him.

  Carissimo was restored to the arms of his loving mistress, but thereward for his recovery had to be shared between the police andmyself: three thousand francs going to the police who apprehended thethief, and two thousand to me who had put them on the track.

  It was not a fortune, Sir, but I had to be satisfied. But in themeanwhile the disappearance of Theodore had remained an unfathomablemystery. No amount of questionings and cross-questionings, no amountof confrontations and perquisitions, had brought any new matter tolight. Aristide Nicolet persisted in his statements, as did theproprietress and the concierge of the Hotel des Cadets in theirs.Theodore had undoubtedly occupied room No. 25 in the hotel during thethree days while I was racking my brain as to what had become of him.I equally undoubtedly saw him for a few moments running up the RueBeaune with Carissimo's tail projecting beneath his coat. Then heentered the open doorway of the hotel, and henceforth his whereaboutsremained a baffling mystery.

  Beyond his coat and hat, the stained rag and the dog himself, therewas not the faintest indication of what became of him after that. Theconcierge vowed that he did not enter the hotel--Aristide Nicoletvowed that he did not enter No. 25. But then the dog was in thecupboard, and so were the hat and coat; and even the police were boundto admit that in the short space of time between my last glimpse ofTheodore and the gendarme's entry into room 25 it would be impossiblefor the most experienced criminal on earth to murder a man, concealevery trace of the crime, and so to dispose of the body as to bafflethe most minute inquiry and the most exhaustive search.

  Sometimes when I thought the whole matter out I felt that I wasgrowing crazy.