Arthur Sherburne Hardy

“ M. Joly smiled as he recalled this conclusion. Professional pride did not prevent him from smiling in secret at the mistakes of his colleagues. Was it indeed a mistake? One circumstance certainly had given body to suspicion. According to the version in the press, just before her death Mme. Raymonde had engaged a bonne and this bonne had disappeared as completely as the jewel. It was not possible to pronounce the bonne also a myth, yet every effort to discover her had proved fruitless, and M. Joly knew from experience that when the police do not succeed they forget. ”

“ Good day, Monsieur Perrin."
"Good day, Monsieur l'Inspecteur."
"One always has Relations," smiled Monsieur Joly
Alone in the compartment of a second-class carriage M. Joly smiled again. He stood for a while at the window watching the receding meadows of Freyr, then ensconcing himself in a corner opened his pocketbook. It was most certainly a curious thing—this Japanese coin, with its strange characters and green garnets ranged along its sides. No jeweller would invent a combination so unconventional, so meaningless. ”

“ A woman was standing before the charcoal fire, a spoon in her hand. "My wife," said M. Dufresnes. She was much younger than he. Her face retained a certain freshness. It was a pleasant face, even a happy one. "Marie, monsieur is a relation of Madame Raymonde. He has come to make some inquiries."
"Ah." The woman laid down her spoon, wiping her hand on her apron.
"Why do you say 'ah?'" repeated M. Joly.
"I did not know that Madame Raymonde had any relations."
"One always has relations," smiled M. Joly. ”

“ When M. Joly inquired for the concierge at No. 5 Impasse Bertrand an old man sitting before the doorway in the sun rose and took off his hat.
"You are Monsieur Dufresnes?"
"At your service, Monsieur."
The man leaned heavily upon a stick, his hat trembling in his hand. Beneath his thin white hair a pair of faded blue eyes produced in M. Joly a kind of shock, for this benevolent face assuredly did not conform to the criminal type. In abandoning one theory M. Joly said to himself, "Come, come, now you are forming another." Then aloud, "You have been here a long time?" ”

“ Seated at one of these tables behind the protecting row of box trees, his hands clasped over his white waistcoat. Inspector Joly could observe people walking in the shade of the allée or gossiping on the stone seats. M. Joly preferred society to solitude. He loved movement and the sun. ”

“ I prefer travel by land," persisted the sergent, whose journeyings to and fro, under the lindens of the allée, resembled those of the pendulum.
Monsieur Joly preferred Society to Solitude
If M. Joly observed and heard all this, it was from force of habit, for he gave no sign. Mechanically he looked at his watch—two o'clock; there was still an hour before the train. Rising, he took a few turns back and forth under the awning, still preoccupied, his hands crossed behind him. On the terrace a young officer was reading the feuilleton of the Echo de Paris. ”

“ Shall we have a little light?" M. Joly spoke in his most affable manner. There was but one small window and he abhorred shadows. The woman obeyed sullenly, placing the lamp on the table among the vegetables laid out for the evening soup.
"What do I wish to know?" repeated M. Joly, taking from his pocketbook the green garnet pin and laying it softly beside the lamp on the table. ”

“ M. Joly did not share with some of his colleagues their scorn for speculation. For the very reason that certain facts were missing he found speculation a necessity. He maintained that the rôle of the imagination was as important for him as for the scientist, whose hypothesis is a fire-ball thrown out into the outlying dark—to illuminate that darkness, not to attract attention to itself by its own brilliancy. His preliminary inspection completed, he took out his microscope. Ah! by turning slightly one of the garnets a spring was released and the back slid gently in its grooves. Inside? Nothing. ”

“ Mme. Joly generally shared her husband's professional perplexities. In this instance he had kept silent, all because of the hundred francs paid M. Perrin. It would, he knew, be impossible to explain how the green garnets came to occupy a place in his pocketbook without mentioning that sum. It must not be supposed that these two were not of one mind. On the contrary, the same ambition animated them both, this ambition being a sort of castle in Spain to be realized when, at a certain indefinite age, M. Joly should retire from active work. ”

“ We had counselled our Russian colleague to go and amuse himself elsewhere for a time. But he has returned, and it seems the farce is about to recommence. It would be mortifying to invite this gentleman to take so soon another vacation. What you have to do is to discover and apprehend this agent. I say apprehend, for these people have an inconvenient way of eluding the interrogations of justice. Madame, here, has given us a body—what we want is a man."
"I have both," said M. Joly. ”

“ She had always the same anxious expression. Afterward she became more tranquil and smiled at me in passing. 'Madame is better,' I said to her one day. 'I shall leave you this week; I am going home,' she replied, gayly. That evening when she returned she was much agitated. It was the eleventh of June. I remember the day well because on Sunday of that week my Rosalie went to her first communion. ”

“ She took my hands in hers, which were cold. 'Dear Madame,' she said, 'I beg of you to listen to me,' then she took this"—Mme. Dufresnes touched the garnet pin—"from beneath her dress, opened it, and showed me a paper within. 'If anything should happen to me—' 'What should happen to you, Madame?' I said. Her manner terrified me. 'No one can tell what may happen. Is it so uncommon a thing to die? ”

“ Under ordinary circumstances he would certainly have been amused at the little army of school-children, their knapsacks bulging with books, gathered in awe about the yellow omnibus, which, after so many fruitless journeys to the station beyond the bridge, had returned groaning under such a load of baggage that its passage beneath the low arch of the clock tower had been accomplished only by a miracle of skill. ”

“ He had come to Freyr to make an important arrest, and as his hand closed upon the criminal an order from Paris had set this criminal free. M. Joly respected authority, but he was annoyed. He did not approve of pardons. Society was of more importance than the individual. According to his theory, when one has once definitely entered the criminal class one remains there. To open the cage door is to let loose the hawk. ”

“ We do not run after our own agents. Furthermore, we have better employment for your leisure." He paused, as if to allow these words to sink the deeper in M. Joly's consciousness. A vision of Monrepos receding into the distance passed before the latter's eyes. "These preliminaries being settled," resumed M. Levigne, taking up a memorandum from his desk, "let us pass to certain facts of which you are ignorant. On the 2d of May it came to our knowledge that the Paris representative of the Russian police was selected for assassination ”

“ It was a Japanese gold coin, rectangular in shape, surrounded by twelve green Russian garnets.
M. Joly had an astonishing memory, which stored up automatically impressions of no apparent importance. This lumber-house of unforgotten things, so invaluable to one of his profession, had not infrequently afforded him precious assistance. At this moment he had precisely the air of a man searching for something in a heap of rubbish. Yes! now he remembered. The recollections evoked by this object dangling from its string had arranged themselves in their proper places. Mme. ”

“ I told my husband it was strange Madame had not informed me that this bonne should come. 'Why do you always worry about the affairs of other people?' he said. Nevertheless, all the night I reproached myself for allowing that woman to enter. Hut you know how it is, Monsieur, when one is concierge. Some one comes, asks for some one, and one answers. Early in the morning I said to Rosalie, 'Go and see if anything is wrong with Madame Raymonde ”