Housebreaking or prowling had never been the gambler’s metier. He would have much preferred to be in on the conversation behind that one lighted window in the rear of the gambling house, and he might have crept close enough to overhear what went on there, too; but he chose the other way.
With the facts in his hand, marshaled at length in his brain, he had his last resources: The gambler’s way — bluff.
He rang the bell. Somewhere inside the darkened house an echo of its chime came to him. Only silence followed. Then at last footsteps and the door came open on a stout chain.
A servant stood there, a servant only partly undressed. Burton recognized him as one of the Cercle attendants. And he could not fail to recognize the automatic in the man’s hand.
Burton said: “Monsieur Lavergne, at once! And it is greatly important! Vile! Hurry!”
The man knew him. There was a sullen and crafty look in his eye when he unbolted the heavy chain lock that guarded the portal. But he obeyed the command, nevertheless, and he stepped back as Burton entered the gloomy, semi-dark hallway and stepped into the groping shadows.
The door closed. The gambler repeated: “Take me to your master, Monsieur Lavergne. There is no time to lose!”
The man hesitated. Then at last he turned with a shrug and made a gesture. Burton was aware that his hand had dropped the gun into a side pocket and followed it there.
Burton knew he must use finesse. Without it he was lost. No one knew where he had gone, for certain; the taxicab driver would probably never relate the affair. The police? It was just possible, Burton knew, that Ouchy had had him trailed, on an off chance. But he had seen no sign of any shadow as yet.
Lavergne stood, coatless, across a table in a green-walled chamber. Yellow light shone down on the table. In the room’s corners stealthy shadows lurked. Across from the gambling house proprietor stood the sleek, meticulously clad figure of Jules Peret.
They stared at the intruder. The house servant hugged the wall in the background. Lavergne’s eyes were both questioning and hostile. Peret had no secret in his look; it was baleful, savage, and yet a little fearful.
Burton said easily, “You’ll forgive the intrusion, I know, Monsieur Lavergne. Under ordinary circumstances I should never have thought of it. But I reasoned that you would want to know something I have discovered. It concerns you, I think.”
Lavergne waited. He raised bushy eyebrows; his heavy jaw thrust forward a little. He said:
“The intrusion may perhaps be forgiven. It remains to be seen — its justification. What is it that monsieur wants?”
Burton nodded, almost as if to himself, then said lightly: “The letters, Monsieur Lavergne. The letters that mademoiselle the American had stolen from her. The letters, in short, that Peret took away from your gigolo when he killed him at the lady’s villa!”
Peret uttered an oath. Lavergne’s eyes widened. Before the rising storm of expostulation could break, Burton was going on swiftly:
“Don’t object yet, Lavergne! Perhaps you’ll see things as I see them when I tell you that Peret was making off with them on the first fast train north in the morning. That he was giving you what you’d call the merry-go-round and getting to the girl’s father first with them!”
Lavergne stared disbelievingly. “You are mad, perhaps, monsieur. You suggest that Peret here killed Descamps?”
“More than that! He killed Descamps at your orders! And then he took the letters. The letters he discovered can be used for blackmail. But I can see that that wasn’t the idea behind it all. Descamps knew too much and he went to Miss Blaine that night intending to tell her the whole truth. And that? Why, you and your gang had planned to have Descamps marry her, then make her very wealthy father pay through the nose for an annulment. That was behind your whole plot. It tripped up when young Descamps found he couldn’t go through with a dirty scheme like that. He was too decent, when it came right down to the last bit of dirty work. So he came to tell her the truth — the truth about you and your gang of Apaches, and the truth was that you had arranged for her to be forced to marry him if worse came to worst! And that’s the time he returned with her letters.”
Peret interposed, his calmness slightly restored: “In that case the lady must have the letters.”
Burton swung on him. “In such a case the lady would have the letters if you hadn’t got there first and killed Descamps!” Turning quickly on Lavergne the gambler continued hurriedly: “You, Lavergne! Can’t you see now? It was a merry-go-round, all this you began, but Peret intended to finish it. In his pocket you’ll find tickets for the next train north, leaving in about an hour from now. He had an accomplice of his own; and he and this other — whoever he is — were double-crossing the whole lot of you. I know now the plot wasn’t blackmail to begin with and that Descamps was killed because you were afraid he’d talk too much, but afterward Peret saw his chance and now he’s playing his own hand!”
Lavergne’s eyes flickered to his hireling. In them was something of crafty understanding, the kind of grudging approval a jackal might cast upon another of his own kind. An unscrupulous man himself, the operator could recognize the Machiavellian scheme that his subordinate had planned so carefully under his nose. Now that it had been pointed out to him it was all patently clear.
Into his small eyes, suddenly smaller, a look of cunning and comprehension crept. The eyes flicked beyond Burton to where the henchman who had answered the door hovered in partial shadow. Lavergne moistened his thick-ish lips until they seemed pouting childishly under his heavy mustache.
Peret commenced to speak. But Lavergne cut in:
“Oui, a most charming plan. But believe me, Burton, my idea had no element of blackmail in it. It was only... well, Descamps was in the way, a too gallant adolescent who could seriously interfere with my ideas. And the letters...” He sighed. “Ah, yes. And then it is, I suppose you wish me to gather, that my friend Peret intended to go north on this morning’s train? In Paris he would see the girl’s father, eh? Perhaps even the boy’s attorneys and then he would be negotiating for money for the letters on his own account. For I have heard they are all the police need for conviction. And no doubt her father would willingly have paid in full, for his daughter’s sake and even for Monsieur Kitterley?”
“It’s rather plain, isn’t it?” Burton said. “But since I’ve explained and since I see you understand, if you’ll hand over the letters to me, I...”
Burton knew that this gesture was bluff. But he had to get the reaction. He could not be certain at the moment who had the letters, whether Peret had broken down and taken his employer in with his scheme, at the last, or not. He held out his hand.
Lavergne was laughing in a soft, chuckling way.
“Mais non!” he exclaimed. “As I swore to you, the whole thing was not conceived by me in this way. But now you have been so kind as to understand Peret’s scheme, to outline its possibilities so generously to me, what is there to stop a poor operative to profit by it?”
Burton had not moved but he found he had only to turn the slightest bit in order to see the automatic of the servant who had brought him in; the weapon was pointed at his middle. Lavergne was saying in his deadly voice:
“You and I, my good friend Peret, we will have much to talk of — later. Much!” He turned, continued, “But in the meantime — non, do not move of the slightest, M. Burton!”