Revenge! | Page 8

the gar?on who had made himself so active in arresting Hertzog.
Dupr�� was a methodical man. He spoke quite truly when he said he was a student. He now turned his student training on the case as if it were a problem in mathematics.
First, the dynamite must be exploded inside the caf��. Second, the thing must be done so deftly that no suspicion could fall on the perpetrator. Third, revenge was no revenge when it (A) killed the man who fired the mine, or (B) left a trail that would lead to his arrest.
Dupr�� sat down at his table, thrust his hands in his pockets, stretched out his legs, knit his brows, and set himself to solve the conundrum. He could easily take a handbag filled with explosive material into the caf��. He was known there, but not as a friend of Hertzog's. He was a customer and a tenant, therefore doubly safe. But he could not leave the bag there, and if he stayed with it his revenge would rebound on himself. He could hand the bag to the waiter saying he would call for it again, but the waiter would naturally wonder why he did not give it to the concierge, and have it sent to his rooms; besides, the gar?on was wildly suspicious. The waiter felt his unfortunate position. He dare not leave the Caf�� Vernon, for he now knew that he was a marked man. At the Vernon he had police protection, while if he went anywhere else he would have no more safeguard than any other citizen; so he stayed on at the Vernon, such a course being, he thought, the least of two evils. But he watched every incomer much more sharply than did the policeman.
Dupr�� also realised that there was another difficulty about the handbag scheme. The dynamite must be set off either by a fuse or by clockwork machinery. A fuse caused smoke, and the moment a man touched a bag containing clockwork his hand felt the thrill of moving machinery. A man who hears for the first time the buzz of the rattlesnake's signal, like the shaking of dry peas in a pod, springs instinctively aside, even though he knows nothing of snakes. How much more, therefore, would a suspicious waiter, whose nerves were all alert for the soft, deadly purr of dynamite mechanism, spoil everything the moment his hand touched the bag? Yes, Dupr�� reluctantly admitted to himself, the handbag theory was not practical. It led to either self-destruction or prison.
What then was the next thing, as fuse or mechanism were unavailable? There was the bomb that exploded when it struck, and Dupr�� had himself made several. A man might stand in the middle of the street and shy it in through the open door. But then he might miss the doorway. Also until the hour the caf�� closed the street was as light as day. Then the policeman was all alert for people in the middle of the street. His own safety depended upon it too. How was the man in the street to be dispensed with, yet the result attained? If the Boulevard was not so wide, a person on the opposite side in a front room might fire a dynamite bomb across, as they do from dynamite guns, but then there was--
"By God!" cried Dupr��, "I have it!"
He drew in his outstretched legs, went to the window and threw it open, gazing down for a moment at the pavement below. He must measure the distance at night--and late at night too--he said to himself. He bought a ball of cord, as nearly the colour of the front of the building as possible. He left his window open, and after midnight ran the cord out till he estimated that it about reached the top of the caf�� door. He stole quietly down and let himself out, leaving the door unlatched. The door to the apartments was at the extreme edge of the building, while the caf�� doors were in the middle, with large windows on each side. As he came round to the front, his heart almost ceased to beat when a voice from the caf�� door said--
"What do you want? What are you doing here at this hour?"
The policeman had become so much a part of the pavement in Dupr��'s mind that he had actually forgotten the officer was there night and day. Dupr�� allowed himself the luxury of one silent gasp, then his heart took up its work again.
"I was looking for you," he said quietly. By straining his eyes he noticed at the same moment that the cord dangled about a foot above the policeman's head, as he stood in the dark doorway.
[Illustration: THE CORD DANGLED ABOUT A FOOT ABOVE THE POLICEMAN'S HEAD]
"I was looking for