The Mysterious Mickey Finn by Elliot Paul Page A

Gonzo, Ivan, Kvek and Mademoiselle Montana. And Ambrose Gring was leaning weakly against the bars, his eyes glued to the doorway, listening for the sound of a familiar voice and murmuring ‘Miriam. Petroleum. The people, no, no, no.’ Every fifteen or twenty minutes an officer would approach his cell and scowl at him.
    â€˜Your cock and bull story has given your confederates a chance to get away. Not one of them is in Montparnasse,’ the commissaire bellowed.
    â€˜You mean she’s gone? The girl has disappeared?’
    â€˜Your precious girl went to America day before yesterday,’ the commissaire said.
    â€˜She couldn’t have. It’s not true. I talked with her to-night,’ Ambrose sobbed. ‘It’s Evans who’s stolen her. It’s Evans who’s to blame. Can’t you do something? Can’t you stop him, before it’s too late? The girl belongs to me.’
    â€˜When a multi-millionaire has been kidnapped, or murdered, there’s no time to be bothering with one of the trollops of the studios. I tell you, your sweetheart left the country day before yesterday, and not one of the persons you mentioned has been seen or heard from since eight o’clock to-night. It was lucky we landed you, otherwise we’d have nothing to show the American ambassador.’
    â€˜I don’t want to be shown to an ambassador,’ said Gring, his face paler and more haggard than before. ‘I want Miriam.... I want to warn her father….’
    â€˜What’s that?’
    â€˜The people are after the oil. The proletariat....’ Gring stammered, in a pitiful effort to get his point across.
    â€˜My dear sir. We were not born yesterday,’ the commissaire said. ‘If you think that by feigning insanity you can escape the guillotine, let me disillusion you at once. No use babbling about trollops or oil, to say nothing of the proletariat. I can hold you six months more for even mentioning the proletariat. You know that, I suppose.’
    Gring, in despair, flung himself on the hard wooden bunk and began to cry.
    Frémont, in Montparnasse, was making headway, or at least he thought he was. He spotted the waiter who had carried the bottles, glasses and trays to and from Hjalmar’s studio and from him, prompted by M. Chalgrin, got the names of Rosa Stier, Gwendolyn Poularde, and another kind of Swede named Snorre, who had two front teeth missing. On investigation Frémont found that all of Snorre was missing from the quarter, as well as Mme Stier, Mile Poularde, and an eccentric named Simon, a religious fanatic who spent his time carving out the Gospels on blocks of wood.
    The sergeant, leaving a large force on watch for any or all of the missing persons, went back to the commissariat to have another go at Gring, whom he found in a state of collapse.
    â€˜Be careful,’ the commissaire said. ‘He’s all we have to show the ambassador, or the prefect, either, as a matter of fact. The prefect wouldn’t care much but the ambassador will be shocked if our suspect is in bad shape. I should have thought of that in time, before I talked so much about the guillotine. The mention of the guillotine upset the fellow no end.’
    â€˜He’s not a forceful type,’ the sergeant said.
    The paintings were stacked in a cell adjacent to Gring’s and Agent Schlumberger, a whimsical Alsatian who spent his days off painting landscapes and churches, was looking at them, one by one.
    â€˜Why, this one’s been altered, just recently,’ the agent said. He turned on the strong white light ordinarily used as an aid to questioning, held up a still life of oysters and lobsters, and said: ‘Look here, sergeant. There’s another signature underneath H. Jansen. I think we’ve hit on a smuggling scheme. It’s more than possible these are old masters, with scenes and faces painted over them to make them appear of little value.