They go back to their table and champagne is served.
“Where we were living is of no importance. But you must know that Jim and I were raised and lived like the son and daughter of a very good family. Recently, our father was arrested in the States. This was the first time the police had ever been able to nab him. And that was only through an unusual set of circumstances. Jim and I thought that if we could just get together some money, we might probably be able to get Dad out of prison. So we came to Paris, and—”
“And you carried on right in your father’s footsteps,” Emile chimes in.
She smiles weakly.
“You can see that we didn’t really get away with it Jim had to go and lose his handkerchief on the last job. I saw you through the shop window. I wanted to...”
Her eyes have misted over. Her lips tremble a little; she takes a sip of champagne.
“I don’t hold it against you,” she goes on. “Each of us is just doing their job, right? What does scare me is to think of Jim going to jail. He’s such a delicate boy. When we were kids, I was always the tomboy of the two, and he was more like a girl. What was that?”
“Nothing. I didn’t say anything.”
“That’s why I asked you that question about the police before. Even if he is really arrested, Jim won’t be able to tell you where the jewels are, because I’m the one who is in charge of hiding them. If you promise me that you will let him go, I’ll turn them over to you. You will have accomplished your mission, and I can promise you on my end that, this very night, Jim and I will be out of the country.”
She has stretched her hand out across the table and is touching Emile’s.
“Be nice,” she whispers, with a very engaging little moue.
He does not withdraw his hand from hers. He is embarrassed and, as on any such occasion, he ends up by slowly, punctiliously, wiping off the lenses of his spectacles.
“Are the jewels at the Majestic?” he asks, after clearing his throat.
“You don’t beat around the bush, do you? If I answer you, how do I know that you’ll keep your promise?”
“Excuse me! I haven’t promised anything yet.”
“Are you refusing then? Do you think you are going to get Jim to talk? You don’t know him, believe me. He is more stubborn and obstinate than a woman, and besides... What time is it, anyway?”
“Eleven-thirty.”
Well, well! Why does this fact seem to make her even more nervous than before? Could this be the time that her brother James should be coming back to the Majestic, or else...
“Would you like to dance this number?” he asks.
“No, thanks. I’m getting a bit weary. Besides the fact that I’m concerned about my brother and that... Would you pour me another glass of champagne?”
Her hand is trembling nervously. Emile is holding the bottle in his. He leans across the table. The last thing he sees is the look in the girl’s eyes, which he is very close to, and it seems to him that they are sparkling with ironic enjoyment.
He does not have long to think about that. At that very instant, the room is plunged into darkness. Waiters can be heard scurrying about. Couples are bumping into one another and laughing about it.
“Don’t move, mesdames and messieurs. Don’t panic. Just a moment’s patience, please. We merely blew a fuse.”
Emile tries to grab hold of his companion, but his hand meets nothing but air. He gets up and walks straight ahead, toward the door and the stairway, but there are people who unintentionally stand in his way, and when he tries to shove some of them aside, they protest.
“Where does that one think he’s going?”
“What a brute!”
The lights go on again. Dolly is nowhere to be seen. Come to think of it, is she really Dolly, or Denise, or some other name? Emile goes down to the cloakroom.
“Did you by any chance see a young lady who—”
“You mean the one who just stepped outside because she was feeling faint? I wanted to give her her coat, but she said no, she was just going out for a few breaths of air.”
No trace of Denise-Dolly outside either, naturally. Emile, bareheaded, in his tuxedo, is standing on the virtually deserted sidewalk, near the blinking sign of the Casino de Paris, when a taxi pulls up. Torrence comes out of it.
“Where did he go?” he demands.
Emile knits his brow. Wondering what has gotten into Torrence.
“Did you let him get away, Boss? You know what we discovered going through the baggage? That the brother and sister are one and the same person! Only one of them — a man, obviously.”
“Or a woman,” Emile replies.
“At any rate, a very sharp article.”
“That’s what comes from behaving with modesty,” sighs the redheaded young man. “While she was changing her clothes at the hotel, I stayed primly behind my screen. That gave her time to write a little note. Once she got here, she probably slipped it to the maître d’ or one of the waiters, with a hefty bill attached to it ‘Please turn out all the lights, for just a moment, at exactly eleven-thirty.’ And that was when she asked me to pour her some more champagne, so I would have the bottle in my hand.”
Torrence makes no comment. Perhaps he is not totally unhappy to see that even his strange boss could fall into such a simple trap. At long last, he presumes to ask, “Are you sure she didn’t pick your pockets?”
IV
In which Torrence is upset by his boss’s lack of activity and in which the latter nevertheless finally does give some orders.
Three A.M. at the Cité Bergère. Torrence has boiled some water on an electric hot plate and made them coffee. Emile is lying on his back, stretched out on a narrow couch, just staring at the ceiling.
“What I don’t get, if you want me to tell you how I really feel about it,” Torrence finally says, “is that you’re not even going over to the Majestic to have a look-see. I admit that Barbet doesn’t often overlook any kind of clue. And I’ve been over everything myself, too...”
Emile does not react. Impossible to tell whether he even hears Torrence’s voice. It would almost seem he doesn’t.
“In a word, where do we stand now? We just know that the burglar, whether a man or a woman—”
“A woman,” Emile cuts in dolefully.
He does not feel he can add that when they were dancing, a few hours before, he held her so tightly in his arms that he had no doubt at all that she was a woman.
“Okay, if that’s the way you want it. As I was saying, we have the proof that the jewel robberies were committed by a woman, that this woman had registered at the Hôtel Majestic under the name of Dolly Morrison as well as her brother James, which must have been a very practical arrangement. Because that way she could sometimes go out as a young woman and at other times as a young man. No one, in a hotel the size of the Majestic, would think of being surprised that they never saw the two of them together. As for knowing whether she is really the daughter of Baldhead Teddy — well, whatever she is, she slipped through our fingers. There is just one question left, the only one that still matters: Where did she hide the jewels? Because we can be sure that she will eventually go wherever the jewels are. We have the Majestic under surveillance. There was nothing to be found in either of their rooms. And she didn’t deposit anything in any of the hotel safes, either.”
Emile comes back in a dreamy voice:
“You certainly are talkative, Torrence, for a policeman.”
“And you are certainly apathetic! I’m beginning to wonder whether you realize that time is going by. It’s true that I’ve given the police the picture of our sweet little crook, and right now they have every railroad station and every seaport covered.”