The Strange Adventures of Mr. John Smith in Paris

Front matter

“Something Tells Me, Son, That You Don't Speak English Either,” Remarked Mr. Smith.

THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF MR. JOHN SMITH IN PARIS

By JACQUES FUTRELLE

Chapter 1

IN FOUR PARTS Part I.

CHAPTER I.

FROM the mottled front of the Gare du Nord, in the gathering gloom of dusk, Mr. John Smith took his first look at Paris; and so far as he could see, it didn’t have a thing on Passaic, New Jersey. No fine frenzy of imagination was kindled by this initial glimpse of the wonder city of the world; he merely pondered how. in the absence of trolley cars, he could get down to the Rue de Main Street, or whatever they called it, where the hotels were. No unspeakable emotion, born of a long cherished dream come true, struggled within his soul; the thing uppermost in his mind was a deep seated craving for a fifteen minute séance with a beef stew that had lots of potatoes in it. It would require many beef stews, he figured, to fill the aching void caused by his eight-day ocean trip.

So, meditatively, for a time Mr. John Smith stood looking upon Paris with comparative eye. And the longer he looked the worse it was for Paris. The time stained, weather beaten buildings across the street were not one-two-nine with the new brick block back home; the rain drenched square before him was neither wider, nor grander, nor in any way more calculated to arouse his enthusiasm than was the square in front of the church at Passaic-ave. and Grove-st. Trim lines of trees edged the curbs straight away ahead of him; but they would be dwarfs if set down beside the trees back home. Awnings were flapping in the wind which drove the mist before it; but the awnings back home always flapped when the wind blew. The restless throng on the sidewalk was neither more restless nor more dense than the Saturday night crowd on Main-ave. And trolley cars! In the absence of these, Mr. Smith was surprised that Paris had even electric lights.

Back home in Passaic, New Jersey, Mr. John Smith was assistant paying teller of a bank. In person he looked precisely like the assistant paying teller of a bank in Passaic, New Jersey. His hair was wiry, straight, and of a dingy black; his face the rugged, strongly limned countenance of one who shaves often and scrupulously; and he had the direct, straight staring, unerring eyes of a man who lives for, by, and with figures, accustomed to seeing all that is writ and no more. He had never seen Niagara Falls, had Mr. Smith; but he knew to an ounce their capacity in horsepower if properly harnessed, and wondered why some one had not harnessed them. He had never crossed the placid bosom of the majestic Hudson River without wondering why it had not been filled in and cut up into city lots. Of course the ocean was all right; they caught fish in that.

There were faint lines of weariness in Mr. Smith’s face now, and the straight staring eyes were somber; not be cause of any disillusionment at his first sight of Paris, but because he was tired and sleepy and hungry. He wanted to stretch his long legs in a real bed again after his eight nights of fitful slumber on a folding shelf in a stateroom. It was good to stand on something that didn’t wabble, and it would be better to draw up to a table, beyond the sound of the heaving ocean, and eat. Heaving! Mr. Smith shuddered at the word.

These physical comforts provided, Mr. Smith would be prepared to rise and shake Paris in his teeth, as a terrier shakes a rat; for he had a purpose in Paris, did Mr. Smith, a purpose fixed, immutable, as was every purpose that ever laid hold of him. Nothing short of a purpose would ever have dragged him so far away from dear old Passaic. The somberness passed from the straight staring eyes and there came a glint of steel into them as that purpose recurred to him. It made him impatient to eat, to sleep, and to be at it. So the first thing was to find a hotel. He reëntered the great railway station and approached a porter.

“Say, son,” he began affably, “I want a hack.”

The porter stared at him and shrugged his shoulders. “Non compren' pas,” he said.

“A hack, a cab, a buggy,” Mr. Smith explained.

The porter shook his head.

“A vehicle, a wagon, a truck.”

The porter appeared to be suffering intensely in his efforts to understand. His shoulders were squirming, his arms writhing, the agony was depicted upon every line of his face.

“Something with wheels on it, you know, that turn round and round,” Mr. Smith elucidated patiently. “An oxcart, a herdic, a bicycle, a wheelbarrow—something to ride in.”

“Non compren pas!” the porter wailed helplessly. Oh, the pain and sorrow in his face!

“Well, don’t take it to heart so,” Mr. Smith advised kindly. “I want to ride, do you understand? In a—a dray, or an omnibus, or a taxicab, or—”

“Taxi! Oui!”

The fuse had burned to the powder, and the explosion came; the serenity of a summer's day settled upon the porter’s face. He seized upon Mr. Smith's suitcase and gently but firmly led him around to his right, where he ceremoniously bowed him into an automobile. The chauffeur appeared at the door for instructions.

“Now, son, we're getting somewhere,” Mr. Smith remarked pleasantly. “I want to go to a quiet little hotel where no one will think I’m a Standard Oil magnate. How about it?”

The chauffeur looked at the porter, and the porter looked at the chauffeur, They both seemed to be suffering.

“Non compren pas!” the chauffeur complained.

Mr. Smith sighed deeply and prepared to go into details. “A hotel,” he said distinctly, “a place where you eat and sleep. A hash house, a beanery?”

The chauffeur stared at him helplessly, then turned to the porter, and they rattled unanimously. Mr. Smith sat patiently waiting.

“A boarding house, a soup kitchen?” he told them. “A hotel? Why, dam it! isn’t there such a thing as a hotel in Paris? Hotel! H-o-t-e-1!”

“Non compren' pas!” the porter and chauffeur bleated in unison.

Mr. Smith drew pencil and paper from his pocket and printed a word on it in large letters. “Hotel!” he bellowed at them suddenly.

They took the paper and read it. “Hôtel!” They burst into song triumphantly. The storm had passed; peace had come.

“Sure, a hotel,” Mr. Smith agreed. “Now, son, that you're hep, understand me that I want a cheap little place where I can get a room and bath and something to eat at about two dollars and a half per, on the American plan?”

“Oui, oui—Americaine!”

They seized upon the word they understood and bore it aloft. Mr. Smith was satisfied, and when the porter's palm was outstretched thrust his hand into his pocket. He had been doing that steadily ever since he left Passaic—good old Passaic! He dropped a coin into the waiting hand, then lounged back in the automobile.

“And bang went ten cents!” he quoted.

The taxicab wriggled out into the Rue de la Fayette and went scudding along toward the Place de l’Opéra. Mr. Smith looked out the window with growing interest and wonder. ’Twas a biggish sort of place, after all, was Paris. Passaic would have to look to her laurels! He was whirled past the Opera House and into the Rue de la Paix.

THE car stopped in the Place Vendome. Mr. Smith glanced up at the sign above the door of a hotel and felt a cold chill start at the base of his brain and run down his spinal column, after which it ran up again. It was one word, “Ritz!” That was no place for a young man with a hundred and seventy-three dollars, who might have to stay in Paris for five or six weeks. He leaned out and spoke to the chauffeur.

“Drive on!” he directed.

“Hotel Ritz," the chauffeur informed him complacently.

“I know it," said Mr. Smith. “Drive on! Giddap! Cluck-cluck!”

The chauffeur came around to the door to make it clear to Monsieur. This was a hotel, the Hotel Ritz.

“On your way!” Mr. Smith expostulated. “Sick him! Vamose!”

Three or four pedestrians paused to listen. Monsieur did not understand. They undertook to assist him. It was the Hotel Ritz! They assured Monsieur upon their words as gentlemen and upon the sacred honor of France that it was the Hotel Ritz. The three or four grew to a dozen, and they assured Monsieur it was the Hotel Ritz. Oh, la la! Mr. Smith sat patiently waiting for the hubbub to stop; and it only grew.

“I said a cheap hotel!” he roared suddenly, and that mighty voice from Passaic extinguished the jabber about him as the windstorm extinguishes a candle. “This is no place for me! Giddap! Skiddoo!”

Whereupon the chivalry of France bowed low and begged Monsieur to believe them when they assured him it was the Hotel Ritz. A sergeant de ville nosed his way through, and Monsieur could take it from him that these gentlemen were telling the truth. He gave way to an imposing individual who came out of the hotel, wearing more uniform than Napoleon ever saw. Mr. Smith thought he was the Chief of Police; but he was only the head porter, and he added his voice to the hubbub. Mr. Smith looked out upon the growing mob with amazement in his straight staring eyes.

AND then came to him faintly the voice of an angel, an angel from the United States, who seemed to be slightly amused. The crowd fell back respectfully, and a young woman stood before him, a tailor made young woman, trig and trim and charming. Her blue eyes were alight with understanding, and a smile tugged at the corners of her rosy mouth.

“Can’t I assist you, Mr. Smith?” she queried, and the sound of his own language stirred a responsive chord deep in Mr. Smith’s heart. “There has been some mistake, I am sure. Perhaps I can right it for you?”

“Thank you, ma’am,” said Mr. Smith humbly, and it didn’t occur to him to wonder that she knew his name. “I told the driver to take me to some cheap American plan hotel, and he didn’t seem to understand. If you’ll tell him, please, ma’am, I’ll be much obliged.”

“Certainly.” With perfect gravity the girl turned and spoke to the chauffeur. After a moment he touched his cap and climbed back into the seat. The machine whirred and started to move.

“Thank you, ma’am.” Mr. Smith said simply.

The girl smiled, nodded brightly, and entered another automobile which stood at the curb. Looking back, Mr. Smith saw her car swing about the Colonne Vendome, and then his own car turned into the Rue de Castiglione and she was lost.

“Why, Edna, how could you thrust yourself into a crowd like that?” a middle-aged woman inquired of the girl reprovingly. “It was not—”

“Why shouldn’t I have done it, Aunty?” the girl interrupted. “Mr. Smith was a passenger on the steamer with us, and shipboard acquaintances are privileged to help one another when one is in trouble. And he was in trouble, wasn’t he?”

She laughed a little, and then the mood passed and she sat for a long time staring out the window with sad, thoughtful eyes.

Chapter 2

CHAPTER II.

HERE and there across the Seine some prodigal giant has flung a handful of glittering stars in parallel arches; and these are bridges. As Mr. Smith’s taxicab spun through the Garden of the Tuileries, and over one of these, where looking out he caught the reflection of ten thousand lights in the rippling waters, he was reminded of the bridge down near the orphan asylum back home in Passaic. It gave him a comforting sense of nearness to things he new, and he found it good. Paris was looking up; there was nothing to it.

Then he was whipped round a corner, and as he struggled to steady himself he caught the words “Rue Bonaparte” on a street sign under the full glare of an electric light, and sat up straight in his seat, aroused by some swift recollection. Rue Bonaparte! Here was a thing that he had momentarily forgotten, perhaps a tangible starting point of a search that might take weeks, given over into his hands by sheer luck. There had been a time a few years previously when, in his capacity of private secretary, he had been called upon to write that phrase at least once a week for many months. And now here was the place, the street itself, rolling away under his feet!

There was a quick, tense tightening of his lips, and a narrowing of his straight staring eyes as the thought the words had aroused grew in his mind, and he was just about to stop the taxicab, when he felt it slowing, and it came to a standstill half a block farther on. He stepped out and glanced up curiously at the six-story building towering above him. Yes, it was precisely as he expected, as he knew it ought to be, the Maison de Treville, which happens to be a quiet, eminently respectable place in the Latin Quarter, opposite the Beaux Arts. It was something more than a pension and not quite a hotel; but anyway a respectable place to live. Mr. Smith had known this for years; but it had slipped his memory.

HE turned to the chauffeur with a mouthful of questions; then, suddenly remembering the disaster that had befallen his previous attempts at conversation with this individual, restrained himself and turned into the entrance. From behind the desk in the lobby a young man with delicately waxed mustache, superimposed upon an ingratiating smile, greeted him. Mr. Smith, wholly absorbed in the things he was remembering, glared at the young man with a cold glint of steel in his eyes.

“Something tells me, son, that you don’t speak English either?” he remarked questioningly.

The amiable young man’s eyebrows disappeared into his hair, and the smile widened. “Pardonnez-moi?” he queried.

“I’d have bet eight dollars you didn't,” Mr. Smith continued in calm resignation. “Well, anyhow, I want a room—a room. Are you next? And a bath—a washee—washee place. And meals—food, eats. Do you get it?”

The clerk shrugged his shoulders and bowed and scraped and smiled. These Americans! Oh, la la! They are that droll! The smile wavered a little under the steady scrutiny of Mr. Smith’s straight staring eyes; for he was thinking of other things, things that came to him afresh with the words “Rue Bonaparte.”

“By the way. do you happen to know the name W. Mandeville Clarke?” Mr. Smith continued. “W. Mandeville Clarke? He isn’t stopping here?”

“Qu'est-ce que c’est!” queried the clerk.

“W. Mandeville Clarke?” Mr. Smith repeated distinctly. He picked up a slip of paper and wrote the name on it, then passed it to the clerk. “W. Mandeville Clarke!”

“Oui! M. Clarke!” the clerk burst forth rapturously. Here was something he could lay his tongue to! “M. Clarke! Americaine!”

“You don't know any more what I’m talking about than a jaybird,” Mr. Smith declared unemotionally. “My name isn’t Clarke; my name is John Smith. I’m looking for a man named Clarke.”

“M. Clarke! Oui, oui!” The clerk clung tenaciously to the thing he understood.

Mr. Smith leaned over, pulled the slip of paper from the clerk’s reluctant fingers, tore it into four pieces, and dropped them to the floor. “Forget it!” he advised. “I wanted to know if Clarke was stopping here, and I stand a fine young chance of ever finding out from you, son. And, understand, my name isn’t Clarke; my name is John Smith. Gimme that book!”

He jerked the register from beneath the hand of the astonished clerk and signed his name in it with a large flourish—just like the assistant paying teller of a bank in Passaic, New Jersey.

“Now, never mind Mr. Clarke,” he told the clerk. “We’ll fight that out to-morrow. The thing I most want in the world is a room—a room with four walls and a bed in it—a bed—sleep.” Mr. Smith made a pillow of his two hands, laid his weary head on it, closed his eyes, and snored.

The clerk beamed his delight. “Sommeil! Oui!” he exclaimed.

“If that means sleep, you’re on,” Mr. Smith agreed with a sigh of satisfaction. “Now, eats!”

He dexterously applied an imaginary knife and fork and rubbed his stomach with feigned delight.

“Manger! Oui, oui!” There was the light of perfect understanding in the clerk’s eyes.

“Now, son, you're showing symptoms of human intelligence,” Mr. Smith remarked admiringly. “And now a bath—a swim—the Big Splash. Are you hep?”

Whereupon Mr. Smith laved his face and hands in the ambient air and splashed it all over the shop, after which he dried himself. The little clerk was delighted. Monsieur was an artist! There was nothing better in the Folies-Bergère! In other words the great Coquelin himself wasn’t deuce high!

“Baigner!” he elucidated. “Oui, oui!”

And so, five minutes later, Mr. Smith found himself safely bestowed in a clean, sweet room five flights up, surrounded by his suitcase. Then came a small waiter with a large tray of food, and, sans collar, sans coat, Mr. Smith set himself to fill a long felt want. He did well.

Chapter 3

CHAPTER III.

WHETHER Paris has the most perfect police system in existence because it is the wickedest city in the world, or whether it is the wickedest city in the world because it has the most perfect-well, anyway, they do it differently in Passaic. In Paris the police have succeeded in establishing a cycle of tattletales, an endless chain which makes every man a spy upon his fellows, and the effect is a marvelous, albeit an unpleasant, system of espionage. That is, it is unpleasant when one comes to think of the manner of its existence; for its operation is noiseless, unostentatious. It would not be possible in any other part of the world.

Being blessed with such extraordinary facilities, Paris keeps close watch on the casual stranger, if for no other reason than that it keeps the intricate machinery in motion. Paris is not only always willing, but glad, to lend assistance to the police of any sister city of the earth.

So, when a cable despatch came from a private detective agency in New York asking the Paris police to locate one W. Mandeville Clarke, Paris doffed her hat and went to work. It was not surprising, therefore, that while Mr. John Smith of Passaic was peacefully snoring five flights up in the Maison de Treville, an agent of the police, M. Remi, not without fame in his own calling, should appear in the office down stairs and make certain inquiries of the clerk.

Dark insinuations underlay his manner of questioning, and the beady black eyes of him scared the amiable smile out from under the little clerk’s waxen mustache.

“M. Clarke—W. Mandeville Clarke?” the sleuth questioned.

Yes, the clerk remembered the name; he had heard it earlier in the evening; indeed, it had been written upon a slip of paper and handed to him. then snatched out of his hand—so—and destroyed.

“Ah!” It was a long aspirated expression of relief from M. Remi; the Remi reputation threatened to be crowned with new glory. “Ah! You will be so kind as to go on?”

The little clerk leaned forward dramatically. “I have reason to believe M. Clarke is here in the hotel even now,” he declared. “I will go further, Monsieur. I will say I am positive he is here!”

“Ah!” The cunning black eyes were alive as flames. “Your reasons, Monsieur?”

“He came here, an American, early in the evening, and his conduct was suspicious in the extreme,” the little clerk ran on volubly. “He used strange American words, and a great many of them, although he must have known that I could not understand—I, who speak only the language of my beloved France.”

“I am awaiting details, Monsieur,” remarked M. Remi.

“When first he came he repeated the name W. Mandeville Clarke many times, and finally, Monsieur, I came to know that he was introducing himself. Ah! You must give me credit for the great acumen! I did not fully comprehend this, Monsieur, until finally he wrote the name upon a slip of paper; then, apparently realizing that he had committed a blunder and betrayed himself, he snatched the paper from my hand,—so,—tore it into bits, and cast it away. It must be here even now.”

Together they pounced on the four bits of paper which had been knocking about the floor all night, and patched them together again. It was perfect! W. Mandeville Clarke! Little cries of satisfaction escaped them as the name grew beneath their deft fingers, and when all was done they shook hands mutely, admiringly.

“Then, when he had torn up and cast away this so precious bit of paper,” the clerk went on breathlessly, “he seemed not himself, and again he said many strange words. Then he seized the register—so—and wrote upon it another name.”

“What name?” demanded the sleuth keenly.

“See for yourself, Monsieur.”

He spun the book round on the desk, and M. Remi read therein the large written:

John Smith Passaic, N. J.

FOR a time M. Remi looked, then there came into his beady black eyes a supercilious light, and finally he permitted a sneering smile to curl the corners of his mouth. “It is a strange thing, Monsieur,” he told the little clerk easily, from the depths of his infinite wisdom, “that whenever and wherever an American is arrested or is threatened with arrest he gives his name as John Smith. If there had been any doubt as to this—er—M. Smith’s attempt to hide his true identity, the mere fact that he signed the name John Smith would have tended to dissipate that doubt. A clumsy thing to do, Monsieur! He is a tyro, a bungler!”

“Oh, la la—la la la!” the clerk exclaimed. “A child in the hands of so distinguished a man as M. Remi!”

The sleuth permitted the compliment to pass unheeded and produced from the depths of his cavernous pocket a large notebook. Fascinated, the clerk watched him as he deliberately turned the pages. Then:

“This, M.—er—er—Smith,” the detective inquired with deep meaning,—“this M. Smith—he wears the full, square cut beard?”

The eager anticipation of the clerk’s face was wiped out as by the brush of a painter—a house painter.

“No, Monsieur!” he exclaimed, and all hope had fled. “I must tell you the truth. He is of the clean shave.”

M. Remi did not seem to be particularly cast down at this chilling bit of information; on the contrary the sneering smile came again to his lips, and there was something akin to pity in the depths of his black eyes. “There are razors in the world, eh, Monsieur?” he queried quietly.

“Oui, oui, oui! Magnificent!”

M. Remi took his time about the next question. “His hair is gray? Almost white?”

“His head is like the raven. Monsieur; but,” and the little clerk poked the detective in his distinguished ribs, “there are hair dyes, eh, Monsieur?”

M. Remi admitted it with the strange feeling of having lost something. His voice grew stern, accusing. “He is tall?”

“He is tall, Monsieur—so great tall.”

“Weighing about one hundred and eighty pounds?”

“Oui, Monsieur.”

“Powerful of physique?”

“Of the grand physique.”

M. Remi closed the book and replaced it in his cavernous pocket with an air of finality. “That is all, Monsieur,” he said simply.

“You will arouse him and take him away with you now?” the clerk queried eagerly.

“I have no orders to arrest him, Monsieur,” M. Remi explained. “My orders were only to locate him and keep him under close surveillance.”

Oh, la la! Here was disappointment indeed. The little clerk’s waxen mustache began to droop. “But what has he done, Monsieur?” he demanded excitedly after a moment. “Is he the robber, the murderer? Is it safe to let him remain in the house? You must tell me, Monsieur!”

“He will remain here undisturbed,” M. Remi declared positively. “Who he is and what he is I may not tell you.”

There were four reasons why M. Remi could not tell. The first was he didn’t know, and the other three are of no consequence.

Meanwhile, Mr. John Smith of Passaic, New Jersey, wrapped in the utter innocence of slumber, dreamed lightly of the voice of an angel—an angel from the United States—which came to him vaguely through a babble.

Chapter 4

CHAPTER IV.

IN the midst of his shaving, Mr. John Smith paused and from the high-up windows of his room looked down meditatively on the sea of mist that veiled Paris. Far away, a snow white island in the murk of morning, glistening spotlessly under the rays of a pale sun, was Sacred Heart; to his left was Eiffel Tower, that thin, spidery structure that thrust its flagpole straight toward the stars. What a fine young shot tower that would make back in Jersey! As the mists began to lift he could trace the serpentine sweep of the River Seine, winding from a point almost at his feet away, away, and disappearing like a silver ribbon in the distance—just like the dear old Passaic River! In front of him, at the far end of a trio of arched bridges, was the vast roof of the Louvre; it reminded him of the roof of the rubber works back home. And the Garden of the Tuileries! It made him almost homesick for another glimpse of First Ward Park.

Homesick! He shook off the shadowy suggestion; for there was work to be done in Paris, tedious work, the work of finding a man named Clarke, W. Mandeville Clarke, and his reward was to be the exquisite delight of pounding Mr. Clarke to a pulp. After which they would sit down calmly and discuss two or three matters of moment to both of them. He had come all the way to Paris to do this, and this he would do! It had never occurred to him that Clarke might be hopelessly lost in the labyrinthine wildernesses of the city, or that he might not be in Paris. He would find him, because it was meet and proper that he should find him, and Mr. Smith was blessed with a firm belief in the eternal justice of things.

He bared his great right arm and, looking down on it complacently, fell to imagining how Clarke would look when be had quite finished with him. The mental picture he conjured up pleased him so he smiled, and smilingly he finished shaving. After which came breakfast. Not a puny little thing of coffee and rolls, but breakfast with a couple of chops and three or four eggs, and innumerable rashers of bacon. The waiter, who spoke eating-English, allowed his eyes to grow round and rounder as Mr. Smith ordered, and he stood by in a sort of trance as Mr. Smith ate. These Americans! What gormands they were! No wonder zey aire ze beeg and ze husky!

THESE preliminaries disposed of, Mr. Smith planted his hat upon his head and started out to get a toothhold upon Paris. It was of no particular moment to him that, as he passed through the office, the new clerk on duty glanced at him suspiciously and greeted him with a servility that was wholly out of keeping with his station. It was of no particular moment that the clerk didn’t speak English,—Mr. Smith looked at him once, and knew that,—because, when he had exhausted the hotels where he could make himself understood, he would hire an interpreter and do the others.

It was of no particular moment to him that the cunning black eyes of a loiterer in the lobby swept his rugged face in one comprehensive glance and took particular note of the color of his hair, after which the owner of the eyes leisurely strolled out.

Maison de Treville, Rue Bonaparte! The combination of words had aroused a cameo-cut recollection in his mind, because once, half a dozen years ago, that had been the home in Paris of Miss Edna Clarke, the daughter of the man he sought. It was odd that he should be stopping at the same place, odd; but upon reflection overnight Mr. Smith could find nothing in it, save its oddity. Miss Clarke had lived there for nearly two years with a chaperon while she was completing her education; but there seemed to be no reason why either she or her father should be known at the Maison de Treville now. He had been convinced by the night clerk’s manner that Clarke was not living in the hotel, and, anyway, if he found it necessary, he could go into the matter further with the aid of an interpreter.

Edna Clarke! She must be twenty-four or twenty-five years old now, and for no reason he found himself wondering what she might look like. Once upon a time he had seen a little picture of her, one of a group of laughing girls on a terrace at Versailles, and he had wondered how anybody that far away from Passaic could laugh. The picture had lain for a day or so on Clarke’s desk; that same desk where Clarke had practised his knavery and— His teeth closed with a snap and there came an unpleasant glare into his straight staring eyes as he strode into the street and turned toward the river. From his cursory view of Paris at his windows it had seemed that all the big buildings were across the river, and where all the big buildings were the big hotels should be, and skulking in one of the big hotels somewhere, under some name, was W. Mandeville Clarke.