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IN THE SHADOW OF SUDDEN DEATH

IN the days of my youth I was a student in Paris, and had the good fortune to be well acquainted with Monsieur Eugene Fourbert, the chief superintendent of the Paris police. He was in many respects a very remarkable man. Possessed of extraordinary acumen, combined with a critical power of analysis and logical deduction that seldom erred, he became a terror to evil-doers, and a tremendous force on the side of order. He was a descendant of an old French family who had all more or less distinguished themselves. Eugène had commenced life in the Army, and saw much service; but being seriously wounded was forced to retire. Having friends at court, he received an appointment as chief of a division of police. In that capacity he displayed so much aptitude, so much natural ability for the work, that he very speedily made his mark, and ultimately rose to be supreme head of the army of police, which is somewhat differently ordered and controlled to what its English equivalent is; and in my opinion the French system is infinitely better. This remark particularly applies to what I may term the Detective arm of the service. In France it seems to have been brought almost to perfection, for the principle that is ever prominently kept in view is this: Crime is in effect a guerilla warfare against well- conducted society and the forces of law and order. Crime endeavours to shelter itself by the exercise of deep cunning, and since crime is unlawful, any means that may be taken to circumvent it are right. Hence the reason of that remarkable system of espionage which obtains in France. The proportion of undetected crime amongst our neighbours is at least thirty per cent. less than it is with us.

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Fourbert was pleased to take great interest in me, and need I say that his methods and manner fascinated me? He had a face of such extreme mobility, that I doubt if I have ever seen any one who equalled him, let alone excelled him. His habitual expression was one of stern thoughtfulness, but in an instant he could so change his features that, given a corresponding change of dress, he might have defied the recognition of his most intimate friend. This power was that of course of the born actor, and Fourbert being conscious of its possession had taken the most laborious means to cultivate it, until he had brought it to such a state of perfection that it was little short of marvellous. Apart from that he had the faculty of organization largely developed, and he knew how to select the right man for the right place. Nor did he hesitate for a single moment, when he deemed it necessary, to personally attempt to unravel any problem that happened to be more than ordinarily intricate. The case I am about to relate is one in which he matched his own splendid skill against the altogether superior cunning of a desperate criminal, with what result the reader will gather later on. In this instance I am simply the narrator of a drama in which I played the part of an onlooker, a close student of Monsieur Fourbert’s method, and I had the advantage of being allowed to follow as his shadow.

At the period I am dealing with, that notorious but classical region of Parisian Bohemia, the Latin Quarter, still retained much of its ancient appearance in the tall ramshackle houses, and narrow dirty streets. In the very heart of the Quarter, nearly, there was situated a dark, squalid passage known as the Rue du Chat Noir–that is, the street of the Black Cat. Why it was so named I cannot tell. Why it was called a _street_at all is not easy to understand, for it was nothing more than a short alley connecting two parallel thoroughfares that bore a far from enviable reputation. The Rue du Chat Noir was a plague-spot, on each side was about a dozen of some of the oldest houses in Paris. They were let out as tenements, and were simply hiding-places for human rats–human vermin of a most obnoxious kind. Had it been possible and allowable to have put a huge extinguisher over the whole block of buildings comprised in the Rue du Chat Noir during the daytime, when all the vermin were slinking away from the light of day, and then have lighted underneath the extinguisher a few tons of sulphur, the world would have been well rid of a colony of evil, and Paris would have been cleansed of one pest-hole. But that could not be, and so the devil in the shape of man and woman located himself there and practically defied the authorities. It was, to use an expressive term, the spawning ground of all that was obnoxious in human nature.

In the dawn of a spring morning two garde de la pair were making their way through the notorious Rue, when they stumbled on something huddled in a heap in the mid kennel. It proved to be the body of a woman, not the first dead woman who had been found there, but speedily it was made manifest that this one could not have been a denizen of that inferno. She was well, if not handsomely, dressed: all her clothing was of the best, her underlines of unusually fine texture. Her hands were white and unsoiled–the hands of a lady; and her face was patrician in its refinement and classical outlines. Her hair was rich, well kept, and golden in hue.

She had received injury sufficient to have destroyed a dozen lives had she possessed them. The skull was fractured, the neck was broken, some of the ribs were crushed in. But these were all inflicted after _death,_and were the result of a fall from a height. Death was due to a stiletto stab which had gone right through the heart. The blow had been dealt with terrific force; the stiletto must have been unusually long, for its point had projected under the shoulder-blade where there was a puncture corresponding to the one in front. Death must necessarily have come with merciful swiftness, and while the dainty body was still warm, ruffian hands had flung it into the kennel, where, crushed and mangled, the silver light of the spring dawn revealed it. The pockets of the clothing were empty, and on the clothing itself there was no sign or mark that would have served as a clue. Indents on the fingers told that she had worn rings, but they had been stripped off, and an earring had been so forcibly torn from one of her ears that the lobe was split. In age she could not have been more than thirty-two or three. There were indications that she had been a mother, and had she lived for three or four months longer she would again have experienced the pangs of maternity.

It was a case of murder, of murder most brutal, most revolting. It might almost be described as double murder, for the unborn life had been extinguished too.

For days the remains of this beautiful creature, fashioned in God’s own image, and brutally slain by her own kind, lay exposed in the Morgue, ghastly and silent, yet eloquent in that stony stillness of a brutal wrong, a cruel fate. Crowds flocked to the place and stared half fascinated through the plate glass partitions at the decaying remnants of mortality stretched on the marble slab over which trickled a stream of ice-cold water. But of the many hundreds of curious and morbid sight-seers who passed through that chamber of death, no one came forward to claim the body, therefore did it seem as if she was a stranger in that civilized land. During the many days that the still figure lay there with the sightless eyes staring blankly upward as if in mute appeal to heaven for vengeance on her slayer, steps had been taken by the police to solve the mystery and discover her murderer, but all without avail. The ghastly secret of the Rue du Chat Noir was well kept, and some of the best talent of Paris was baffled. Monsieur le Chef Fourbert was distressed and annoyed. He recognized that this was a crime somewhat out of the ordinary. There was deductive evidence that the murdered woman was not a denizen of that pestilential Alsatia. She must have moved in a very different social station to the rats of the Chat Noir. Therefore the mystery was the greater, and around the crime was a certain glamour of romance. Amongst Fourbert’s staff was a man named Roget–a fellow who had been a convict and had given the police much trouble. Ultimately he had offered his services to the police, and his intimate knowledge of criminal ways and life had procured him admission into the secret service, and he had been the means of bringing many a hardened ruffian to his doom.

Roget was an evil-looking fellow, with a round, bullet-shaped head, his hair closely cropped, his face clean shaved. He had strongly marked features, a coarse cruel mouth, a square heavy chin, and small twinkling eyes that glittered with snake-like brightness. He was built on massive lines. His limbs were ponderous, his muscles like steel cords. When once he got a fair grip on an opponent, the opponent had little chance. Roget had been known to grip a man’s wrists so hard that he had broken the wrists simply with the pressure of his great fingers. Amongst the police he was known by the sobriquet of “The Bull-dog,” and he was said to possess all a bull-dog’s ferocity. His life had been many times attempted by his former associates, but though scarred and hacked, he had escaped serious injury.

One morning, a fortnight after the murder, when it seemed as if the crime was destined to go unavenged, Monsieur Fourbert summoned Roget to his private cabinet, and he accorded me the privilege of being present during the interview. The only other person in the room was a shorthand clerk, concealed behind a screen.

I saw Roget for the first time that morning. He was a repulsive-looking fellow, his massive frame suggestive of enormous strength, as was his whole manner, while his facial expression particularly, and glittering eyes, were suggestive of latent ferocity. Round his neck was twisted carelessly a frayed and faded red handkerchief: he wore a blue blouse, wide baggy linen trousers, and sabots. He looked hard and inquiringly at me as he entered the cabinet and made his obeisance to the chief.

“Have you any report to make, Roget?” asked Monsieur Fourbert.

“None, monsieur,” was the curt, gruff answer.

“Is the mystery of the Rue du Chat Noir to go unsolved?” said Fourbert, with an emphasized point on every word.

“I have done my best,” growled Roget.

“And failed?”

“And failed, monsieur le chef, as you say.”

“But you have haunted the dens of the Rue du Chat Noir?”

“I have.”

“And mixed with the vermin as one of them?”

“I have.”

“Still you have failed to get sign or sound that would help us?”

“Sorrowfully I confess that is so, monsieur le chef.”

“Umph! It is strange,” murmured Fourbert, reflectively. Then he added with an obvious meaning concealed in his remarks, “And yet this woman was stabbed to death and flung from a window in the Rue du Chat Noir. She was not one of the rats: she did not belong to the place, she must have been lured there; possibly for the mere purpose of robbery; _probably_for some deeper and more sinister reason. The lure that led that lady into the death trap must have been a strong and unusual one. Do you not think so?”

“I do, Monsieur Fourbert.”

“Nevertheless you, with your trained instincts, and your intimate knowledge of the ways of human beasts of prey, have failed to detect a single sign?”

“Again I repeat with sorrow, monsieur, that is quite correct.”

“Then it seems highly probable the murderer will go unpunished since _you_have failed to track him down?”

“I am afraid that will be the case,” answered Roget, with a sigh.

“So be it. It is regrettable, but one cannot do that which is impossible. You may go.”

Roget bowed and retired. The instant the door had closed Monsieur Fourbert struck his bell. An attendant entered.

“Just call Roget back; I have forgotten something.” In another minute the Bull-dog stood in the chief’s presence again.

“By the way, I have forgotten to say, Roget, that I want you on a special service to-night.”

“Good, monsieur. At what hour?”

“Midnight.”

“At what place?”

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