Hugger-Mugger in the Louvre by Elliot Paul Page B

the same good fortune. The former, at first asserting that he had a newspaper pass, had been unable to find or produce it. And the sergeant in charge outside the museum had been one of the officers who, a year ago, had been in hospital six weeks on account of the row that followed when Hjalmar Jansen doused the prefect with violet ink. The sergeant took no chances this time. He pulled out his automatic, shoved it into Hjalmar’s ribs and made no bones of saying that in case of resistance he would pull the trigger. Hjalmar, depressed as he was about the putty-like whiskers and the date he had inadvertently made with the telephone girl, said, “What the hell.” He felt sure he would see Chief of Detectives Frémont at the prefecture eventually, so he and Jackson let themselves be led away.
    The former Colonel Kvek, however, having passed the outer lines was challenged in the second line trenches, as it were, and had to resort to fisticuffs in order to get through the main door. He was sprinting down the slippery corridor toward the Winged Victory, and taking great satisfaction in Schlumberger’s order that the enemy’s fire be withheld, when an attendant stepped out from behind a stone sarcophagus and gave him the leg. In falling, Kvek struck his head on a bunch of bronze grapes being held by the statue of a Roman youth who had belonged to a Nudist cult. The grapes, the gold-headed cane and Kvek all crashed to the floor and, more surprised than injured, the colonel found himself, a few moments later, being transported, surrounded by cops in uniform, in what unquestionably was a Black Maria.
    â€œMy taxi,” he murmured.
    â€œNo need to tell your taxi-man to wait,” an officer said. “You’ll be lucky if he’s still driving a taxi when you get out again.”
    So it was that Hjalmar, Jackson and Kvek found themselves in separate cells in the prefecture, the one known as the Goldfish Bowl having been chosen for Kvek on account of the additional charge against him of breaking and entering.
    Evans, Miriam and Frémont might have reached the Winged Victory in time to witness the arrests and intervene except for one unfortunate happening. Overcautious, one of the guardians-in-chief of the Louvre had caused a barrier to be set up between the room containing the Egyptian cats and the other filled with pagan jewelry. Therefore, Evans, in the lead, was forced to swerve to the right, push open a side door for employees only, and later found himself in the long ebony-paneled gallery in which, among priceless exhibits of faiences and porcelains, repose in showcases the former crown jewels of the kings of France. Swinging doors joined this with a rotunda in which the prize piece was Correggio’s Last Supper. There the racing trio were blocked again, for the door into the entrance chamber containing Ingres’ The Spring had been barricaded and nailed. Evans and Frémont finally were obliged to break it down, so that when they reached the main exit all violent excitement there was over.
    â€œA bunch of American drunks tried to crash the gate. We hauled them in,” an officer said.
    â€œExcuse me, but one of them was not American, the one with the stove-pipe hat. I heard Americans swear in ’17 and ’18 and the inflection was not at all the same. Americans curse short and snappily, like a telegraph. Dot-dash-dot-dot. That way. The well-dressed party let it roll just like coal on a chute.”
    Frémont was relieved, but indignant. “Have I trained this police force so badly that you let me be interrupted in a crucial investigation by a passel of inebriates, American, Chinese, no matter what?”
    â€œIt wasn’t our fault. They just drove up and insisted on entering,” the officer said.
    â€œAnd who was idiot enough to shoot, in the midst of the world’s greatest collection of objects of art and of antiquity?” the chief demanded.
    â€œIt was a