The Golden Triangle by Maurice Leblanc (top rated books of all time TXT) 📕

Masseron alighted from his car with his men. The business did not take long. The open front of the café was surrounded. The accomplices offered no resistance. M. Masseron sent three of them under a strong guard to the Dépôt and hustled Bournef into a private room.

“Come along,” he said to Patrice. “We’ll question him.”

“Mme. Essarès is alone at the house,” Patrice objected.

“Alone? No. There are all your soldier-men.”

“Yes, but I would rather go back, if you don’t mind. It’s the first time that I’ve left her and I’m justified in feeling anxious.”

“It’s only a matter of a few minutes,” M. Masseron insisted. “One should always take advantage of the fluster caused by the arrest.”

Patrice followed him, but they soon saw that Bournef was not one of those men who are easily put out. He simply shrugged his shoulders at their threats:

“It is no use, sir,” he said, “to try and frighten me. I risk nothing. Shot, do you say? Nonsense! You don’t shoot people in France for the least thing; and we are all four subjects of a neutral country. Tried? Sentenced? Imprisoned? Never! You forget that you have kept everything dark so far; and, when you hushed up the murder of Mustapha, of Fakhi and of Essarès, it was not done with the object of reviving the case for no valid reason. No, sir, I am quite easy. The internment-camp is the worst that can await me.”

“Then you refuse to answer?” said M. Masseron.

“Not a bit of it! I accept internment. But there are twenty different ways of treating a man in these camps, and I should like to earn your favor and, in so doing, make sure of reasonable comfort till the end of the war. But first of all, what do you know?”

“Pretty well everything.”

“That’s a pity: it decreases my value. Do you know about Essarès’ last night?”

“Yes, with the bargain of the four millions. What’s become of the money?”

Bournef made a furious gesture:

“Taken from us! Stolen! It was a trap!”

“Who took it?”

“One Grégoire.”

“Who was he?”

“His familiar, as we have since learnt. We discovered that this Grégoire was no other than a fellow who used to serve as his chauffeur on occasion.”

“And who therefore helped him to convey the bags of gold from the bank to his house.”

“Yes. And we also think, we know⁠ ⁠… Look here, you may as well call it a certainty. Grégoire⁠ ⁠… is a woman.”

“A woman!”

“Exactly. His mistress. We have several proofs of it. But she’s a trustworthy, capable woman, strong as a man and afraid of nothing.”

“Do you know her address?”

“No.”

“As to the gold: have you no clue to its whereabouts, no suspicion?”

“No. The gold is in the garden or in the house in the Rue Raynouard. We saw it being taken in every day for a week. It has not been taken out since. We kept watch every night. The bags are there.”

“No clue either to Essarès’ murderer?”

“No, none.”

“Are you quite sure?”

“Why should I tell a lie?”

“Suppose it was yourself? Or one of your friends?”

“We thought that you would suspect us. Fortunately, we happen to have an alibi.”

“Easy to prove?”

“Impossible to upset.”

“We’ll look into it. So you have nothing more to reveal?”

“No. But I have an idea⁠ ⁠… or rather a question which you will answer or not, as you please. Who betrayed us? Your reply may throw some useful light, for one person only knew of our weekly meetings here from four to five o’clock, one person only, Essarès Bey; and he himself often came here to confer with us. Essarès is dead. Then who gave us away?”

“Old Siméon.”

Bournef started with astonishment:

“What! Siméon? Siméon Diodokis?”

“Yes. Siméon Diodokis, Essarès Bey’s secretary.”

“He? Oh, I’ll make him pay for this, the blackguard! But no, it’s impossible.”

“What makes you say that it’s impossible?’ ”

“Why, because⁠ ⁠…”

He stopped and thought for some time, no doubt to convince himself that there was no harm in speaking. Then he finished his sentence:

“Because old Siméon was on our side.”

“What’s that you say?” exclaimed Patrice, whose turn it was to be surprised.

“I say and I swear that Siméon Diodokis was on our side. He was our man. It was he who kept us informed of Essarès Bey’s shady tricks. It was he who rang us up at nine o’clock in the evening to tell us that Essarès had lit the furnace of the old hothouses and that the signal of the sparks was going to work. It was he who opened the door to us, pretending to resist, of course, and allowed us to tie him up in the porter’s lodge. It was he, lastly, who paid and dismissed the menservants.”

“But why? Why this treachery? For the sake of money?”

“No, from hatred. He bore Essarès Bey a hatred that often gave us the shudders.”

“What prompted it?”

“I don’t know. Siméon keeps his own counsel. But it dated a long way back.”

“Did he know where the gold was hidden?” asked M. Masseron.

“No. And it was not for want of hunting to find out. He never knew how the bags got out the cellar, which was only a temporary hiding-place.”

“And yet they used to leave the grounds. If so, how are we to know that the same thing didn’t happen this time?”

“This time we were keeping watch the whole way round outside, a thing which Siméon could not do by himself.”

Patrice now put the question:

“Can you tell us nothing more about him?”

“No, I can’t. Wait, though; there was one rather curious thing. On the afternoon of the great day, I received a letter in which Siméon gave me certain particulars. In the same envelope was another letter, which had evidently got there by some incredible mistake, for it appeared to be highly important.”

“What did it say?” asked Patrice, anxiously.

“It was all about a key.”

“Don’t you remember the details?”

“Here is the letter. I kept it in order to give it back to him and warn him what he had done. Here, it’s certainly his writing.⁠ ⁠…”

Patrice took the sheet of notepaper; and the first thing that he saw