V
“Take Monsieur Bertal to a cell,” the prefect directed a gendarme. “I would like to know, Monsieur Bailey, just where we stand in this matter.
The Department of Justice man grunted. “So would I. As S. Holmes used to say, ‘It is a capital mistake to theorize before we have all the data.’ I am going out to get that data. Did you instruct the Chef de Gare to hold the murder car for my investigation, and also keep the entire train crew so I can interview them?”
“Yes.”
“All right. Now, we’ll have the three confessors come out here one at a time, and tell us in detail just how they committed the crime. After that I’ll examine the car and the crew, and if that doesn’t get us some real information, I’ll go back to kindergarten.”
Goulet nodded his approbation.
“Bring in Mademoiselle Girard,” he directed.
Bailey promptly effaced himself from the scene by retiring behind a convenient screen, where he could see and hear without being observed himself.
Denise came in presently, her beautiful face white and tear stained. There were blue circles beneath her eyes, and her slender shoulders drooped. Bailey’s heart went out to her in a warm surge of love and pity. She was so young, and so much in need of help.
“Now, Mademoiselle Girard,” said the prefect in a normal conversational tone, “I want you to give me a straightforward description of what happened on the Paris-Marseilles express last night.”
“I— I told you once.”
“It is necessary that it be repeated.” He tapped his teeth with a pen-holder and looked at her quite calmly.
“Before we started from Paris,” she said hurriedly, “Sheppard, whom I knew, spoke to me insultingly. After we passed Lyons I thought I heard an exclamation of pain from the next compartment. I rose and went into the corridor. The door to the compartment was open; Sheppard seized me and drew me in. I— I knew what sort of a man he was, and, having a knife in my girdle, I pulled it out and struck blindly. He fell back on the seat, and I ran into my own compartment.”
“How is it that Madame Berthier and Monsieur Robert heard nothing of this?”
“There were no words passed—little noise. They were both sleeping.”
“You assume full responsibility for this man’s death?”
“I— I do,” she whispered.
“That is all,” said Goulet, motioning the gendarme to take her away. “Bring in Monsieur Robert,” he added.
“He has nothing to do with it—truly, truly he hasn’t,” the girl cried desperately over her shoulder.
When the blind man was led in the prefect addressed the same questions to him.
“I had every reason to hate that man,” answered Robert. “It is not necessary to explain motives—my confession obviates that. Sheppard felt safe with me because I am blind. I could tell by his breathing when he was asleep. When I was sure of it I felt for his throat—oh, so cautiously—and then used my knife.”
“What were your relative positions?” asked Bailey, coming from behind the screen.
“He was sitting next the window, I beside him.”
Bailey nodded gravely.
After the blind man was taken away Bertal was brought back again. He was visibly nervous.
“We want a detailed explanation from you,” Bailey explained.
“It will be brief. Long ago I had — for reasons that need no explanation—determined on the death of John Sheppard. He deserved it if ever a man did, but it was out of the question for me to kill him openly. I knew that he intended leaving Paris when he did. I knew exactly how the train ran; the track it used, its schedule, how it always came to a brief stop in the freight yards beyond Lyons. I learned what compartment Sheppard would occupy. Then I hid myself in a freight car beside the track used by the express. Fortune was kind to me—kinder than I expected. The train halted. I looked, and there, directly opposite me, I saw Sheppard asleep. I leaned across, resting my arm on the side of the express, and drove my knife into his throat. Then I walked back to Lyons, and two hours later caught another train to Marseilles.”
When Bertal had been escorted back to his cell, Captain Goulet looked quizzically at Bailey.
“The further we go the more tangled we get,” he observed. “Mon Dieu! What a fright I had when the body disappeared from the mortuary. I thought surely we had a ghost to deal with. But these are most palpably human folks, and each of their confessions are logical when taken alone. Together—” He shrugged his shoulders.
“We’ll straighten them out,” Bailey reassured him. “I’m off now, and I won’t be back until I’ve laid my hands on something definite.”
It was not until nine o’clock next morning that Bill returned, but he was as fresh and clear eyed as though he had been sleeping all night. Captain Goulet greeted him hopefully.
“I’ve made some progress,” the agent admitted in answer to the prefect’s question. “In fact, most of the mystery has disappeared. If you will have the three prisoners brought in again I think we can get the other phases cleared up.”
Bill flashed Denise a look that brought the color to her cheeks, and a faint smile in answer to his.
“The three of you,” he said, “have confessed to the murder of John Sheppard. There are some angles to this case that I don’t know, but I know that none of you had a hand in Sheppard’s death. In the first place, Mademoiselle Girard had absolutely nothing to do with it. She was on the train, but she left it at Dijon. I wired her description to the police at every stop the express made, and found that she registered at Dijon under the name of Madame Claire St. Pol. Isn’t that true, Denise?”
“Y-yes,” she admitted.
“Now, as to Monsieur Robert. His story was plausible. I carefully examined the spot where Sheppard had been sitting. There was a slash in the cushion, and spots of blood. But the nature of the cut, which was deep on the side toward Robert, and edged thinly toward the window, indicated that it had been made by someone outside the train. There were also drops of blood on the steps which conclusively proved that point. So, of the three confessionaries, it seemed most likely that Monsieur Bertal was the guilty party.”
The chemist nodded dully.
“As a matter of fact,” Bailey continued, “he had no more to do with Sheppard’s death than the other two. He declared that he had committed the crime while the Marseilles express halted in the freight yard beyond Lyons. As a matter of fact, the train did not stop. There was a clear track, and the express maintained a speed of thirty miles an hour through the yards. Hence, it was impossible for Bertal to have done as he claimed. Besides, Monsieur Bertal did not leave his hotel in Lyons until after the express had passed. I learned from his housekeeper the hotel he usually stayed at in that city, and found that he was aroused at five o’clock in the morning, had breakfast, and left at six. That, I think, eliminates him.”
“Then who in the name of heaven,” burst out the puzzled Goulet, “killed John Sheppard?”
“That will come out presently,” said Bailey. “Just now I have a surprise for you.”
He flung open the door, and Beau Nash, his eyes wide and staring, not a fleck of color in his face, came in!
“There’s no use stalling,” he panted. “She didn’t kill him. I— I—why, I killed Johnny Sheppard myself!”
Bill Bailey laughed.
“That confession is the finest thing you ever did, Beau—the only clean, honest thing in your whole black record. But it won’t wash. You didn’t kill Johnny Sheppard any more than I did myself!”