“That would be possible,” admitted McCloud.
“And will you tell me whether it is possible to send up a flock of little kites, so loaded, precisely over a given locality, presuming the wind is just right, so that one or more planes in a flying squadron would, with luck, encounter one of these?”
“That is probably possible, but—”
“And can the kites be constructed so that they are practically invisible, flown on—?”
“Wire, yes.”
“And the wire released at the last instant, so that it will not lead back to the kite flier?”
“Ha. Yes.”
“But does it not require long practice and great skill in kite-flying to place your kites?”
“Damme, yes, Coates. That’s my objection to—”
“You have this skill?”
“Certainly!”
“Then, Mr. McCloud, though I have not yet found the evidence of kite making or materials in my search of your quarters, I am going to hold you for the sabotage of three planes and the death of—”
“No,” said little Mr. Mears. “Wait!”
“What’s wrong?”
“Wrong person.”
“You mean — Schee? He doesn’t know kites—”
“No, not Schee.”
Coates rested back and looked at Mr. Mears. “Yourself? You’re the only other kite authority—”
Mr. Mears blushed. “No. No. Not me. It is a woman, Mr. Coates, I regret to say. It is... Miss Rider’s personal maid, Yvette.”
The gaunt woman stood up outraged. “Me, a refugee out of martyred France — me who has already suffered much — my seempathy it is with the Axis?”
“I am afraid so. Like so many of the Fifth Columnists, you were probably stationed many years in France. Then, when France fell, you came out, to take up residence, as a refugee, in the next country to be undermined. Unfortunately you have been too obliging. You gave yourself away with that wire for Moselle’s fishing leader. I remembered and checked. That is steel piano wire, 1/32 inch in diameter, weighs about 16 pounds to the mile, stands a strain of some 250–280 pounds before it breaks. That is precisely kite-flying wire. You’ll find, I think,” he turned shyly to Coates, “the materials in her room if you search. I don’t presume to know exactly how she made the kites. She is very clever. I don’t know where she flew them from — perhaps that highest mangrove hillock. Don’t know how many she put up in a flight, or what happened to the loaded kites which weren’t blown up. But what I should like to know,” said Mr. Mears, turning courteously to Yvette—
The woman stood there now with an expression of resignation. She was the fatalist. This was bound some day to come.
“— What I should really like to know, is where did you learn kite flying?”
“My father,” stated Yvette with strong pride, “he was head of the Prussian Aeronautical Observatory at Lindenberg in 1905 when that train of kites fly so high.”
“You served at table that night Sheriff Tice dined with the Riders and heard him advise them to send their niece here — where there was work for you to do — if she were ever threatened again.”
Even Yvette stared at little Mr. Mears, as at a magician. “The waitress, Alice, she has free day. Yes.”
“You sent that threatening note?”
“Naturally,” Yvette calmly agreed...
“The real coincidence,” marveled little Mr. Mears to his wife, “is that there should be two kite experts on the island of Little Mangrove at one and the same time. But probably McCloud touched Yvette off with all his talk of kites.”
“Darling,” snuggled little Mrs. Mears, “I do like a man to have a brain. When did you first guess?”
“It was something you said.”
“Then I am a help! Oh, darling, darling.”
There was an interlude which proved incontrovertibly that the honeymoon was not yet over.
“What did I say?” she remembered.
“About the plane that cast the small shadow, with no sound of an engine. Suppose it wasn’t a plane. What could it have been? A bird, perhaps. Or — a kite.”
Arsène Lupin Versus Colonel Linnaus
by Anthony Boucher
Many years ago Maurice Leblanc, in a pugilistic mood, conceived the idea of matching his undefeated master-rogue, Arsène Lupin, against the detective champion of the worlds Sherlock Holmes. The bout lasted four years, from 1907 to 1911, and extended through three of M. Leblanc’s books — THE EXPLOITS OF ARSÈNE LUPIN, ARSÈNE LUPIN VERSUS SHERLOCK HOLMES (also known, among other titles, as THE BLONDE LADY), and THE HOLLOW NEEDLE. There was no knockout, no decision; the final result, by and large, was a draw — a monumental tribute to Holmes considering that M. Leblanc was not only the promoter of the match but also the official timekeeper and referee.
It is a matter of record that the great English author never returned the great French author’s compliment. Conan Doyle never wrote a story that could have been called SHERLOCK HOLMES VERSUS ARSÈNE LUPIN. More’s the pity — what a classic tale it might have been! It remained, after all these years, for an American author, Mr. Anthony Boucher, to make up in part for Doyle’s dereliction. Mr. Boucher, himself the creator of three stellar detectives — Fergus O’Breen, Sister Ursula, and EQMM’s own Nick Noble — now gives us the first pastiche (serious and sincere imitation) of Arsène Lupin; and while Sherlock Holmes is regrettably absent, even in adumbration, we have enormous reason to be grateful to Mr. Boucher for what is in essence a “new” Lupin story.
There is a French legend that in times of extreme peril Charlemagne himself would return to save France. Surely Arsène Lupin — yes, the great Arsène, the man who singlehanded won France her vast colonial empire in Africa[1] — is, and always will be, the spiritual descendant of the great emperor.
The landmarks that Max Blanchard had memorized so carefully a month ago — the red barn, the lane of poplars — stood out in the starlight with the too vivid clarity of a surrealist painting. The pump with the broken handle was the last signpost on a nightmare road. Now he could stop crawling. He had been crawling ever since he was a young man and that was long years ago.
Max Blanchard is not, of course, his real name. Even now, they say, it’s better not to print his name nor the exact nature of his mission in France. But Max Blanchard will do. It’s the kind of name he had, being a San Franciscan whose father was born in France. In the army they called him “Frenchie,” and he took a fair amount of ribbing from the average American’s automatic distrust of a bilingual man; but his harshest ribbers owned up to a sort of admiration when he was chosen for this mission.
It’s still wise, they say, not to describe how Blanchard got into France nor where he was going nor how he received the wound. But the part of the story that can be told (and that should be told for the glimpse it gives you of the spirit still living in France) starts near dawn one winter morning in a village that might be named Rozy-sur-Marne, with Blanchard crawling through back hedges and damning the clear sharp starlight and wondering how much longer he can remain conscious after that loss of blood.
Now, with the landmarks in sight, he knew his lifelong crawl was over. Here at this underground station he could snatch a few hours of rest, the last before he reached his destination.
The man who answered Blanchard’s knock was, as he had been described, sharp-featured and black-eyed. Blanchard said, “M. Duval?”
1
Maurice Leblanc’s THE TEETH OP THE TIGER; Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1914, first U.S. edition, dark blue pictorial cloth.