The Mysterious Mickey Finn (7 page)

There was polite applause and without further prompting the members found their places and the waiters distributed the steaming plates of
crême de pommes d
'
amour Campbell
, a speciality of the chef's when he was put out about something. Meanwhile the
maître d
'
hôtel
was in conversation with the prefect of police. The prefect was not alarmed. Americans were likely to do anything, he said. However, he agreed to inform the commissariat nearest the Dôme and to start a search for the missing multi-millionaire.

Meanwhile strange things had been happening in Montparnasse. Homer Evans, after watching with mixed feelings Lvov's taxi containing Hugo Weiss disappear into the boulevard Raspail, and having learned that the genial philanthropist had written two cheques for twenty-five hundred dollars to all intents and purposes identical, had telephoned Miriam, knowing that the Dôme's booths were reasonably soundproof and that Gring, however anxious, would not dare to follow her into the booth. Homer had asked her to meet him in fifteen minutes at the Café du Départ in the place St Michel. It had been agreed that Hjalmar was to throw a party and Evans had suggested a rendezvous in the rue de la Huchette, just off the place St Michel, where he knew of a small hotel with an unexploited revolutionary sub-cellar, an arched stone room far below the street level in which no end of carousing could occur without a whisper being heard above stairs. Monsieur Juillard, the proprietor, was an inspired cook, a genial Savoyard, and would enter into the spirit of the occasion, produce a meal that would be historic, trot out the best from his well-stocked wine cellar that in Robespierre's day had been a prison cell. Homer had asked the other participants to scatter and to go to the Hôtel du Caveau separately, without letting the news leak out in the quarter. The hour of assembly, for preliminary drinking, was set for nine o'clock.

Hjalmar, all his good spirits returned and his qualms drowned in excitement, was at the top of his form. Money galore, fame awaiting as the only painter of Hugo Weiss, and Maggie three hundred miles away. He hurried to the Dôme and flashed his cheque on the astonished M. Chalgrin, who, liking Hjalmar sincerely, rejoiced at his good fortune. Of course he would cash the cheque. Who had not heard of Hugo Weiss? He excused himself, after he had looked up the rate of exchange, went to his upstairs apartment and returned with 125,000 francs which Hjalmar stuffed carelessly into various pockets. M. Chalgrin almost went down on his knees.

‘I beg of you, I implore you. Let me keep it safe for you,' he said, but Hjalmar, for just one night, wanted to know how it felt to have unlimited funds right in his pocket.

‘Don't tell a soul about this,' Hjalmar said, and M. Chalgrin promised, shaking like a leaf. While they were standing there, Chalgrin still shaking and Hjalmar bubbling over with animal spirits, Ambrose Gring came rushing in.

‘Where is she? Where is Miriam? She's gone !' he shrieked, wringing his hands.

‘Have a drink. Who's gone?' asked Hjalmar, knowing Miriam had made a clean getaway and was probably sitting beside Evans in the place St Michel.

In despair, a picture of complete desolation, Gring turned on M. Chalgrin. ‘She got away through your side entrance ! She must have ! I was watching the main door every minute.'

‘How many thousands go in and out my doors? Do you expect me to remember? Sit patiently, and no doubt she'll come back, whoever she is you're looking for.'

Ambrose gasped, pressed his hands to his forehead and dashed across the street toward the Rotonde. Hjalmar swallowed another brace of applejacks, shook M. Chalgrin's hand, and lumbered through the
terrasse
, upsetting two tourists, one table and three beers. One of the tourists, not knowing Hjalmar's
penchant
for fighting and having lost his faculty for estimating the size of objects, rushed after the Norwegian and demanded an apology. The
habitués
of the Dôme held their breaths and those within ten metres scattered to avoid the danger of being hit by flying visitors. But to everyone's surprise and relief, Hjalmar grabbed up the little man, held him in a fervent embrace, and kissed him on both cheeks. Then he hurried on toward the Coupole.

At the Coupole he found M. Delbos, who gladly cashed the other cheque for him and gave Hjalmar 125,000 francs in 5,000 franc bills. No sooner had the bills been stuffed into Hjalmar's already bulging pockets than Gring came dashing in, more frenzied than ever.

‘I can't find Evans either ! He's stolen her. I know he's stolen her…. You wait. I'll find her, and I'll get even with him. You see if I don't. You're all in league. You're all against me,' Ambrose said.

‘Have a Calvados,' Hjalmar said. ‘It can't be as bad as all that.' He had a generous expansive nature and when he himself was feeling so good he couldn't bear to have another man sad.

‘It can't be Evans who got her,' Hjalmar said, thinking that would comfort Gring. ‘Evans is banqueting with Hugo Weiss. I'm sure. No women present. Swanky dinner of some sort. I saw them go away together.'

That seemed to give Ambrose a new lease of energy and, panting with dismay and apprehension, he dashed across the street to the Select.

By nine-fifteen, not one person who had been a party to the deception of Hugo Weiss in Hjalmar's studio that day was to be seen in Montpamasse. They had, without exception, disappeared without trace. The light showed yellow-green around the street lamps and pink reflexions of the quarter's mad glitter could be seen on the clouds above. Through the gay crowd the rug peddlers strolled with their wares, the fire-eater sprayed forth his first geyser of flame. All the seats on the
terrasses
were occupied and extra chairs and tables had been used to extend the area. Taxis arrived and departed. Everyone was carefree and light-hearted except Ambrose Gring, who staggered desperately from
café
to
café
, mumbling and imploring.

At ten o'clock, he could contain himself no longer. He rushed to a telephone, called the
Cercle Interalliée
and begged to be allowed to speak with Evans.

‘No M. Evans is here this evening,' the
maître d
'
hôtel
replied.

‘My God ! He must be ! Then let me speak with Hugo Weiss.'

The
maître d
'
hôtel
did not lose his head. He merely asked an assistant to call the prefect of police and ask him to trace the mysterious call and listen in, so the rest of the dialogue between the distracted Ambrose and the
maître d
'
hôtel
was heard by the prefect and a stenographer, while police reserves rushed towards the Dôme to take Gring into custody.

‘I demand to speak with M. Weiss.... My girl has gone, the people may seize the oil at any moment. I can't find Miriam, I can't find Homer Evans....'

‘Would you mind repeating those names?' the
maître d
'
hôtel
asked, having in mind that the police were on the wire.

‘Homer Evans. There's a plot ! I don't know what to do. I've looked everywhere. Homer Evans went to your club with Hugo Weiss. I know he did.... No, I didn't see him. Hjalmar told me.'

‘Damn these foreign names,' said the stenographer.

‘H for Henriette, J for Julienne. Yes, that's it. J. Hjalmar Jansen, a painter. He said Homer was with Mr Weiss. That they set out together for the club. . . . Glub. Help. Mamma !'

The conversation terminated in a series of pitiful shrieks as the heavy hands of a quartette of cops tore Ambrose from the phone booth, and rushed him through the crowded
terrasse
and into the wagon.

M
IRIAM
, with Evans beside her, was sitting on the comer of the Café du Départ, her back to Notre Dame, with the Conciergerie on her right and the St Michel fountain on the starboard side.

‘We could have done nothing without your help,' Evans said. Nevertheless he was afraid Gring still might find out what had happened. ‘You're sure he didn't suspect anything?' he asked.

‘He wasn't out of my sight,' Miriam said. ‘Of course, last night two men I'd never seen in the quarter sought him out and spoke with him. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but they wanted something from Ambrose. Once I thought I heard the word “ Greco ” but I might have been mistaken. Come to think of it, the same pair found him again to-night and they were disappointed, displeased with what Ambrose had or had not done, I think.'

‘Let's forget Gring. You were magnificent,' he repeated.

‘I've never seen such singleness of purpose as poor Ambrose showed,' she said, this time without a shudder. ‘Had he been attracted to me, in a messy way, the situation would have been unbearable. But I never have felt so impersonal. It was as if I were the Goddess of Petroleum in technicolor, thrown upon a screen amid gushers and bank vaults. Now, if I could keep my eye on the ball like that I'd make Brailowsky sound like a piano tuner. And you ... Why, Homer, with that kind of concentration, you'd be ... why, you'd be ...'

‘What would I be, if I pulled myself together?'

She gave up. ‘I don't like to think of you otherwise than you are,' she said.

‘The great loafer. That's what I want to be. I have written a book and painted a portrait, only to prove to myself that I don't have to loaf if I don't want to. But that's what I want to do. I like it. I hate activity and bustle. I don't want to carry on the torch of civilization.'

‘Of course not. You make me feel small,' she said. ‘Just a few days ago I thought nothing mattered except thumping away at pianos. Now that doesn't mean anything at all.' And she sighed so happily that Evans had a faint twinge of alarm. He heard a faint roar and saw a couple of frightened bats come larruping out of the rue de la Huchette. ‘Hjalmar must be arriving,' he said. ‘Let's go to the Caveau.'

It was Hjalmar, all right, and not far behind him was Rosa Stier, who somehow had shaken off the effects of the afternoon's Pernods and was ready to start all over again. The Phoenix had nothing on Rosa, as a come-back specialist, only the fabulous bird rose from ashes and Rosa preferred something infinitely more moist. The Finn, when he appeared a moment later, had with him the Swedish actress and they all grouped themselves around M. Julliard's neat zinc bar, where they were joined by Harold Simon and his favourite model, a black girl from Martinique who was nicknamed ‘Cirage'.

‘Is this an American holiday?' M. Julliard asked, serving drinks adroitly without seeming to exert himself. There was a night's work ahead of him that might have staggered the kitchen force of the
Cercle Interalliée
, but he liked to work in good company and especially for Evans and Hjalmar, who had used his modest establishment as a refuge many times before. An
habitué
of Montparnasse who goes to a narrow street behind the place St Michel is as safely hidden as if he were in the Marquesan islands.

When Hjalmar and his friends got tired of standing around the bar, they all descended two long flights of dark stone stairs, ducked through low archways and over gravelled corridors until they reached the banquet room, which in its day had been a judgement room used by Robespierre. There they were doubly safe from either discovery or intrusion. Even a man as prominent as Robespierre had been able to carry on there at will, without the people in the streets above, or even the commissaire of police two blocks away, suspecting what was happening in those granite-vaulted chambers. And in the same degree that the placid rows of wine bottles transformed the ancient prison cell next door, the company of revellers, primed with divers stimulants and cheered by their recent success, transformed the grim tribunal into a banquet hall. The first course was not
crême de pommes d
'
amour en boite à la Campbell
, as had been served to the frock-coated academicians, but a St Germain to which M. Julliard had brought a true poetic touch as well as the prescribed ingredients. Miriam was conceded by all to be the heroine of the day and was toasted in various languages, including the Scandinavian.

Would it be too cruel to leave that happy company a moment and look upon Ambrose Gring? Ambrose, his face distorted with fear and his clothes awry, was cowering on the edge of the hard-wood bunk and staring at a blank plaster wall. A rat now and then peered at him suspiciously, then withdrew into its hole. There were, in the vicinity, neither tulips, roses, hydrangeas, nor lilies of the valley. When a draught through the bars of the door stirred the air, Ambrose, fond of money as he was, would have paid ten francs for even one sprig of catnip. He had been heaved rather forcefully into the wagon, in plain sight of all Montparnasse, jolted over cobbles and pavements, placed under a blinding white light, and asked what he knew about Hugo Weiss. He told them all he knew, and did his best at inventing more, but the officers had not thought he had told them enough. Not even half enough. The commissaire had barked and fumed, detectives had roared, threatened, and cajoled in turn. Whatever happens in police stations, hidden from the eyes of the public, happened that evening to Ambrose Gring, and all he could say was that he had interviewed Hugo Weiss at the Plaza Athénée two days previously in the hope of picking up saleable bits of information, and that he had not seen the magnate since. He repeated hundreds of times and under all conditions of light and pressure, that a painter named Hjalmar Jansen, which the prefect's stenographer had written as Iallemaire Gonso, had told him (Ambrose) that Hugo Weiss and a man called Homer Evans (transcribed by the
commissaire
as Jaume Ivan), an alleged North American without visible means of support, had (Hugo and Jaume) entered a cab driven by a dangerous Russian, Lvov Kvek (even the
commissaire
could not make that one more improbable) and disappeared.