Castles in the Air

  5.

  Thus about a week or ten days went by and I had just come reluctantlyto the conclusion that there must be some truth in the old mediaevallegends which tell us that the devil runs away with his elect fromtime to time, when I received a summons from M. the Commissary ofPolice to present myself at his bureau.

  He was pleasant and urbane as usual, but to my anxious query afterTheodore he only gave me the old reply: "No trace of him can befound."

  Then he added: "We must therefore take it for granted, my good M.Ratichon, that your man of all work is--of his own free will--keepingout of the way. The murder theory is untenable; we have had to abandonit. The total disappearance of the body is an unanswerable argumentagainst it. Would you care to offer a reward for information leadingto the recovery of your missing friend?"

  I hesitated. I certainly was not prepared to pay anyone for findingTheodore.

  "Think it over, my good M. Ratichon," rejoined M. le Commissairepleasantly. "But in the meanwhile I must tell you that we have decidedto set Aristide Nicolet free. There is not a particle of evidenceagainst him either in the matter of the dog or of that of your friend.Mme. de Nole's servants cannot swear to his identity, whilst you havesworn that you last saw the dog in your man's arms. That being so, Ifeel that we have no right to detain an innocent man."

  Well, Sir, what could I say? I knew well enough that there was not atittle of solid evidence against the man Nicolet, nor had I the powerto move the police of His Majesty the King from their decision. In myheart of hearts I had the firm conviction that the ginger-polledruffian knew all about Carissimo and all about the present whereaboutsof that rascal Theodore. But what could I say, Sir? What could I do?

  I went home that night to my lodgings at Passy more perplexed thanever I had been in my life before.

  The next morning I arrived at my office soon after nine. The problemhad presented itself to me during the night of finding a new man ofall work who would serve me on the same terms as that ungratefulwretch Theodore.

  I mounted the stairs with a heavy step and opened the outer door of myapartment with my private key; and then, Sir, I assure you that forone brief moment I felt that my knees were giving way under me andthat I should presently measure my full length on the floor.

  There, sitting at the table in my private room, was Theodore. He haddonned one of the many suits of clothes which I always kept at theoffice for purposes of my business, and he was calmly consuming aluscious sausage which was to have been part of my dinner today, andfinishing a half-bottle of my best Bordeaux.

  He appeared wholly unconscious of his enormities, and when I taxed himwith his villainies and plied him with peremptory questions he met mewith a dogged silence and a sulky attitude which I have never seenequalled in all my life. He flatly denied that he had ever walked thestreets of Paris with a dog under his arm, or that I had ever chasedhim up the Rue Beaune. He denied ever having lodged in the Hotel desCadets, or been acquainted with its proprietress, or with ared-polled, hunchback miscreant named Aristide Nicolet. He denied thatthe coat and hat found in room No. 25 were his; in fact, he deniedeverything, and with an impudence, Sir, which was past belief.

  But he put the crown to his insolence when he finally demanded twohundred francs from me: his share in the sum paid to me by Mme. deNole for the recovery of her dog. He demanded this, Sir, in the nameof justice and of equity, and even brandished our partnership contractin my face.

  I was so irate at his audacity, so disgusted that presently I feltthat I could not bear the sight of him any longer. I turned my back onhim and walked out of my own private room, leaving him there stillmunching my sausage and drinking my Bordeaux.

  I was going through the antechamber with a view to going out into thestreet for a little fresh air when something in the aspect of thechair-bedstead on which that abominable brute Theodore had apparentlyspent the night attracted my attention. I turned over one of thecushions, and with a cry of rage which I took no pains to suppress Iseized upon what I found lying beneath: a blue linen blouse, Sir, apeaked cap, a ginger-coloured wig and beard!

  The villain! The abominable mountebank! The wretch! The . . . I waswellnigh choking with wrath.

  With the damning pieces of conviction in my hand, I rushed back intothe inner room. Already my cry of indignation had aroused the vampirefrom his orgy. He stood before me sheepish, grinning, and taunted me,Sir--taunted me for my blindness in not recognizing him under thedisguise of the so-called Aristide Nicolet.

  It was a disguise which he had kept by him in case of an emergencywhen first he decided to start business as a dog thief. Carissimo hadbeen his first serious venture and but for my interference it wouldhave been a wholly successful one. He had worked the whole thing outwith marvellous cleverness, being greatly assisted by Madame Sand, theproprietress of the Hotel des Cadets, who was a friend of hismother's. The lady, it seems, carried on a lucrative business of thesame sort herself, and she undertook to furnish him with the necessaryconfederates for the carrying out of his plan. The proceeds of theaffair were to be shared equally between himself and Madame; theconfederates, who helped to jostle Mme. de Nole whilst her dog wasbeing stolen, were to receive five francs each for their trouble.

  When he met me at the corner of the Rue Beaune he was on his way tothe Rue Guenegaud, hoping to exchange Carissimo for five thousandfrancs. When he met me, however, he felt that the best thing to do forthe moment was to seek safety in flight. He had only just time to runback to the hotel to warn Mme. Sand of my approach and beg her todetain me at any cost. Then he flew up the stairs, changed into hisdisguise, Carissimo barking all the time furiously. Whilst he wastrying to pacify the dog, the latter bit him severely in the arm,drawing a good deal of blood--the crimson scar across his face was alast happy inspiration which put the finishing touch to his disguiseand to the hoodwinking of the police and of me. He had only just timeto staunch the blood from his arm and to thrust his own clothes andCarissimo into the wall cupboard when the gendarme and I burst in uponhim.

  I could only gasp. For one brief moment the thought rushed through mymind that I would denounce him to the police for . . . for . . .

  But that was just the trouble. Of what could I accuse him? Ofmurdering himself or of stealing Mme. de Nole's dog? The commissarywould hardly listen to such a tale . . . and it would make me seemridiculous. . . .

  So I gave Theodore the soundest thrashing he ever had in his life, andfifty francs to keep his mouth shut.

  But did I not tell you that he was a monster of ingratitude?

  CHAPTER V

  THE TOYS