Hugger-Mugger in the Louvre by Elliot Paul Page A

American my friends and I have lost.”
    The slim dark man, with bright eyes like coals and heavy eyebrows, was not as distant in his manner as his British colleague.
    â€œI should be glad to help you,” he said. “You’re a friend of Dr. Truc. I saw you talking together as we came in.”
    â€œHas Truc dusted?” Jackson asked.
    â€œI say. What is the fellow talking about? Dusted?” the Englishman said.
    Tom Jackson did not like Englishmen, and especially tanned ones. “I asked you a simple question,” he said, looking the blue-eyed chap severely in the eye. “Have you seen a business man leaving the cafe, and if so, in what direction was he headed?”
    â€œShall I paste him one?” asked Hjalmar, who had come up from the men’s room and had overheard a little of the conversation. The former colonel began to cry and to beat his breast, and since he was still clutching his gold-headed cane, there were minor casualties among other innocent bystanders. A number of the police officers who were vainly searching for Evans quickly flocked to the spot, to be met by Hjalmar Jansen in one of his firmest moods.
    â€œMy friend’s lost the guy he was in charge of,” Hjalmar said. “Let him alone. He’ll be all right in a couple of minutes.”
    Things might have gone better had not an officer new to the quarter put a hand on Hjalmar’s shoulder. What followed is not clear in the minds even of the participants. Witnesses agreed that several policemen were seen to turn back handsprings; that an American with glasses started throwing siphons in the air, which exploded when and where they lit; that a large potted palm was uprooted and in its place was wedged a battered blue-eyed Englishman who gave his name as Basil Hamborough; that two Rumanian pugilists who were unwise enough to try to horn into the clash were blinded with perfume thrown into their eyes by a couple of patriotic North-American school teachers; and that, finally, when the affray became general a Citroen taxi was seen retreating down the rue Delambre in a manner to suggest that the driver had formerly been employed in Keystone comedies.
    From his favorite spot beside a plane tree near the terrasse of the Coupole, the animated scene was watched somewhat jealously by M. Delbos, proprietor of that excellent but younger cafe. The interesting clients stuck faithfully to the Dôme, was his sad reflection.
    Meanwhile, the taxi, with Kvek at the wheel and Hjalmar and Tom Jackson in the back seat, was streaking toward the Plaza Athenee, where Kvek and the missing Seldon had stopped five minutes to register and wash on the way from the boat train to the Dôme. There the Russian was met by the doorman, a former captain in his regiment, and while the two embraced, Kvek poured out his story. The doorman swore by the memory of the Little Father, and the most spotless of the White Russian Saints, that no medium-sized North American having no French had passed his portals since Kvek and Seldon had departed. Words to the same effect were extracted by Hjalmar from the clerk and the telephone girl, who promised in addition to brush up her memory and to come to Jansen’s studio the next evening at eleven-thirty, on the chance that she might be able, somehow, to help him. Jackson was on the house phone, conversing with the genial press agent of the hotel, who not only was able to set him right about the Taj Mahal, which the reporter had up to that time believed was a person, but agreed to tap out a story and send it, in Jackson’s name, to the Herald.
    From the Plaza Athènée, after a round of quick drinks in the well-appointed new bar, the trio set out for the Louvre and it was their arrival that occasioned the commotion which disturbed the earlier pages of this chapter. Kvek, because of his top hat and frock coat, had got through the police lines without question. Tom Jackson and Hjalmar had not had