CLOWNS AND CRIMINALS - Complete Series (Thriller Classics). E. Phillips Oppenheim

necessary for his purpose. Now that he was actually immersed in his work, the sense of depression had passed away. The keen stimulus of danger had quickened his blood. He knew very well that the woman had not exaggerated. There was no man more wanted by the French or the English police than the man who had sought his aid, and the district in which he had taken shelter was, in some respects, the very worst for his purpose. Nevertheless, Peter Ruff, who believed, at the bottom of his heart, in his star, went on with his preparations feeling morally certain that Jean Lemaitre would sleep on the following night in his native land.

      At precisely the hour agreed upon, a small motor brougham pulled up outside the door of the Hotel de Flandres and its occupant—whom ninety-nine men out of a hundred would at once, unhesitatingly, have declared to be a doctor in moderate practice—pushed open the swing doors of the restaurant and made his way to the desk. He was of medium height; he wore a frock-coat—a little frayed; gray trousers which had not been recently pressed; and thick boots.

      “I understand that one of your waiters requires my attendance,” he said, in a tone not unduly raised but still fairly audible. “I am Dr. Gilette.”

      “Dr. Gilette,” Antoine repeated, slowly.

      “And number Double-Four,” the doctor murmured.

      Antoine descended from his desk.

      “But certainly, Monsieur!” he said. “The poor fellow declares that he suffers. If he is really ill, he must go. It sounds brutal, but what can one do? We have so few rooms here, and so much business. Monsieur will come this way?”

      Antoine led the way from the cafe into a very smelly region of narrow passages and steep stairs.

      “It is to be arranged?” Antoine whispered, as they ascended.

      “Without a doubt,” the doctor answered. “Were there spies in the cafe?”

      “Two,” Antoine answered.

      The doctor nodded, and said no more. He mounted to the third story. Antoine led him through a small sitting-room and knocked four times upon the door of an inner room. It suddenly was opened. A man—unshaven, terrified, with that nameless fear in his face which one sees reflected in the expression of some trapped animal—stood there looking out at them.

      “‘Double-Four’!” the doctor said, softly. “Go back into the room, please. Antoine will kindly leave us.”

      “Who are you?” the man gasped.

      “‘Double-Four’!” the doctor answered. “Obey me, and be quick for your life! Strip!”

      The man obeyed.

      Barely twenty minutes later, the doctor—still carrying his bag—descended the stairs. He entered the cafe from a somewhat remote door. Antoine hurried to meet him, and walked by his side through the place. He asked many questions, but the doctor contented himself with shaking his head. Almost in silence he left Antoine, who conducted him even to the door of his motor. The proprietor of the cafe watched the brougham disappear, and then returned to his desk, sighing heavily.

      A man who had been sipping a liqueur dose at hand, laid down his paper.

      “One of your waiters ill, did I understand?” he asked. Monsieur Antoine was at once eloquent. It was the ill-fortune which had dogged him for the last four months! The man had been taken ill there in the restaurant. He was a Gascon—spoke no English—and had just arrived. It was not possible for him to be removed at the moment, so he had been carried to an empty bedroom. Then had come the doctor and forbidden his removal. Now for a week he had lain there and several of his other voyageurs had departed. One did not know how these things got about, but they spoke of infection. The doctor, who had just left—Dr. Gilette of Russell Square, a most famous physician—had assured him that there was no infection—no fear of any. But what did it matter—that? People were so hard to convince. Monsieur would like a cigar? But certainly! There were here some of the best.

      Antoine undid the cabinet and opened a box of Havanas. John Dory selected one and called for another liqueur.

      “You have trouble often with your waiters, I dare say,” he remarked. “They tell me that all Frenchmen who break the law in their own country, find their way, sooner or later, to these parts. You have to take them without characters, I suppose?”

      Antoine lifted his shoulders.

      “But what could one do?” he exclaimed. “Characters, they were easy enough to write—but were they worth the paper they were written on? Indeed no!”

      “Not only your waiters,” Dory continued, “but those who stay in the hotels round here have sometimes an evil name.”

      Antoine shrugged his shoulders.

      “For myself,” he said, “I am particular. We have but a few rooms, but we are careful to whom we let them.”

      “Do you keep a visitors’ book?”

      “But no, Monsieur!” Antoine protested. “For why the necessity? There are so few who come to stay for more than the night—just now scarcely any one at all.”

      There entered, at that moment, a tall, thin man dressed in dark clothes, who walked with his hands in his overcoat pockets, as though it were a habit. He came straight to Dory and handed him a piece of paper.

      John Dory glanced it through and rose to his feet. A gleam of satisfaction lit his eyes.

      “Monsieur Antoine,” he said, “I am sorry to cause you any inconvenience, but here is my card. I am a detective officer from Scotland Yard, and I have received information which compels me with your permission, to examine at once the sleeping apartments in your hotel.”

      Antoine was fiercely indignant.

      “But, Monsieur!” he exclaimed. “I do not understand! Examine my rooms? But it is impossible! Who dares to say that I harbor criminals?”

      “I have information upon which I can rely,” John Dory answered, firmly. “This comes from a man who is no friend of mine, but he is well-known. You can read for yourself what he says.”

      Monsieur Antoine, with trembling fingers, took the piece of paper from John Dory’s hands. It was addressed to—

      Mr. JOHN DORY, DETECTIVE:

       If you wish to find Jean Lemaitre, search in the upper rooms of the Hotel de Flandres. I have certain information that he is to be found there.

       PETER RUFF.

      “Never,” Antoine declared, “will I suffer such an indignity!”

      Dory raised a police whistle to his lips.

      “You are foolish,” he said. “Already there is a cordon of men about the place. If you refuse to conduct me upstairs I shall at once place you under arrest.”

      Antoine, white with fear, poured himself out a liqueur of brandy.

      “Well, well,” he said, “what must be done, then! Come!”

      He led the way out into that smelly network of passages, up the stairs to the first floor. Room after room he threw open and begged Dory to examine. Some of them were garishly furnished with gilt mirrors, cheap lace curtains tied back with blue ribbons. Others were dark, miserable holes, into which the fresh air seemed never to have penetrated. On the third floor they reached the little sitting-room, which bore more traces of occupation than some of the rooms below. Antoine would have passed on, but Dory stopped him.

      “There is a door there,” he said. “We will try that.”

      “It is the sick waiter who lies within,” Antoine protested. “Monsieur can hear him groan.”

      There was, indeed, something which sounded like a groan to be heard, but Dory was obstinate.

      “If he is so ill,” he demanded, “how is he able to lock the door on the inside? Monsieur Antoine, that door must be opened.”

      Antoine