The Crime of the French Cafe and Other Stories.
by Nicholas Carter.
THE CRIME OF THE FRENCH CAFe.
CHAPTER I.
PRIVATE DINING-ROOM "B."
There is a well-known French restaurant in the "Tenderloin" district which provides its patrons with small but elegantly appointed private dining-rooms.
The restaurant occupies a corner house; and, though its reputation is not strictly first-class in some respects, its cook is an artist, and its wine cellar as good as the best.
It has two entrances, and the one on the side street is not well lighted at night.
At half-past seven o'clock one evening Nick Carter was standing about fifty yards from this side door.
The detective had shadowed a man to a house on the side street, and was waiting for him to come out.
The case was a robbery of no great importance, but Nick had taken it to oblige a personal friend, who wished to have the business managed quietly. This affair would not be worth mentioning, except that it led Nick to one of the most peculiar and interesting criminal puzzles that he had ever come across in all his varied experience.
While Nick waited for his man he saw a closed carriage stop before the side door of the restaurant.
Almost immediately a waiter, bare-headed and wearing his white apron, came hurriedly out of the side door and got into the carriage, which instantly moved away at a rapid rate.
This incident struck Nick as being very peculiar. The waiter had acted like a man who was running away.
As he crossed the sidewalk he glanced hastily from side to side, as if afraid of being seen, and perhaps stopped.
It looked as if the waiter might have robbed one of the restaurant's patrons, or possibly its proprietor. If Nick had had no business on his hands he would have followed that carriage.
As it happened, however, the man for whom the detective was watching appeared at that moment.
Nick was obliged to follow him, but he knew that he would not have to go far, for Chick was waiting on Sixth avenue, and it was in that direction that the thief turned.
So it happened that within ten minutes Nick was able to turn this case over to his famous assistant, and return to clear up the mystery of the queer incident which he had chanced to observe.
Nick would not have been surprised to find the restaurant in an uproar, but it was as quiet as usual. He entered by the side door, ascended a flight of stairs, and came to a sort of office with a desk and a register.
It was the custom of the place that guests should put down their names as in a hotel before being assigned to a private dining-room.
There was nobody in sight.
The hall led toward the front of the building, and there were three rooms on the side of it toward the street.
All the doors were open and the rooms were empty. Nick glanced into these rooms, and then turned toward the desk. As he did so he saw a waiter coming down the stairs from the floor above.
This man was known by the name of Gaspard. He was the head waiter, and was on duty in the lower hall.
"Ah, Gaspard," said Nick, "who's your waiter on this floor to-night?"
Gaspard looked at Nick anxiously. He did not, of course, know who the detective really was, but he remembered him as one who had assisted the police in a case in which that house had been concerned about two years before.
"Jean Corbut," replied Gaspard. "I hope nothing is wrong."
"That remains to be seen," said Nick. "What sort of a man is this Corbut?"
"A little man," answered Gaspard, "and very thin. He has long, black hair, and mustaches pointed like two needles."
"Have you sent him out for anything?"
"Oh, no; he is here."
"Where?"
"In one of the rooms at the front. We have parties in A and B."
"You go and find him," said Nick. "I want to see him right away."
Gaspard went to the front of the house. A hall branched off at right angles with that in which Nick was standing. On the second hall were three rooms, A, B and C.
Room C was next the avenue. The other two had windows on an open space between two wings of the building. Nick glanced at the register, and saw that "R.M. Clark and wife" had been assigned to room A, and "John Jones and wife" to room B. Room C was vacant.
The detective had barely time to note these entries on the book when Gaspard came running back.
His face was as white as paper, and his lips were working as if he were saying something, but not a sound came from them.
He was struck dumb with fright. Whatever it was that he had seen must have been horrible, to judge from the man's trembling limbs and distorted face.
Nick had seen people in that condition before, and he did not waste time trying to get any information out of Gaspard.
Instead, he seized the frightened fellow by the shoulder and pushed him along toward the front of the house.
Gaspard made a feeble resistance. Evidently he did not want to see again the sight which had so terrified him.
But he was powerless in Nick's grasp. In five seconds they stood before the open door of room B.
The door was open, and there was a bright glare of gas within.
It shone upon the table, where a rich repast lay untasted. It illumined the gaudy furnishings of the room and the costly pictures upon the walls.
It shone, too, upon a beautiful face, rigid and perfectly white, except for a horrible stain of black and red upon the temple.
The face was that of a woman of twenty-five years. She had very abundant hair of a light corn color, which clustered in little curls around her forehead, and was gathered behind in a great mass of plaited braids.
She reclined in a large easy-chair, in a natural attitude, but the pallid face, the fixed and glassy eyes, and the grim wound upon the temple announced, in unmistakable terms, the presence of death.