Free The Bridge That Broke by Maurice Leblanc

1
    It was a Tuesday afternoon in midsummer. Paris was deserted—a city of the dead. Jim Barnett sat in his office with his feet on his desk. He was in his shirt-sleeves. A glass of lager beer stood at his elbow. A green blind shut out the blazing sun. To the prejudiced eye, Barnett’s appearance would have suggested slumber, and this impression would have been strengthened by his rather loud and rhythmical breathing.
    A sharp tap on his door made him bring his feet down with a jerk and sit bolt upright.
    ‘No! It can’t be! The heat must be affecting my eyesight.’ Barnett affected elaborate astonishment.
    Inspector Béchoux, for it was he, closed the door behind him and observed with some distaste his friend’s state of deshabille. It was a fad with Béchoux to present at all times a perfectly groomed appearance. On this sweltering day he was cool and immaculate, not a hair out of place.
    ‘How do you do it?’ Barnett demanded, sinking back wearily into his chair.
    ‘Do what?’
    ‘Look like a fashion-plate off the ice. Damned superior, I call it!’
    Béchoux smiled with conscious pride.
    ‘It’s quite simple,’ he remarked modestly.
    ‘But I take it the case you are working on is not quite so simple, or you wouldn’t be coming to the enemy camp for assistance, eh, Béchoux?’
    Béchoux reddened. It was a very sore point with him that in his difficulties he had several times been forced to accept Jim Barnett’s help. For Barnett was helpful—almost uncannily so. The trouble was that he always managed to help himself as well as others.
    ‘What is it this time? I’ve all day to spare—and to-morrow—and the day after. The Barnett Agency doesn’t get many clients at this time of year, though it does guarantee “Information Free.” I hear that they can’t even get any deadheads to go to the theatres—pouf!’
    ‘How would you like a trip into the country?’
    ‘Béchoux, you are a blessing, albeit heavily disguised. What is the case, though?’
    Inspector Béchoux grinned involuntarily.
    ‘It’s a real mystery—the sudden death of the famous scientist, Professor Saint-Prix.’
    ‘I know the name, but I haven’t read about his death in the papers. Has he been murdered?’
    Inspector Béchoux’s countenance took on a sphinx-like expression.
    ‘That’s what I want you to help me to determine. I have my car at a garage near here. Pack a bag and come right along. I’ll tell you the facts of the case as we go.’
    Reluctantly Barnett got up, drained the last of his beer, and made his simple preparations for the trip.

2
    A quarter of an hour later they were spinning out of Paris in Inspector Béchoux’s little two-seater.
    ‘I was called in on the case,’ said Béchoux, ‘by Doctor Desportes of Beauvray—an old friend. He rang up on Monday morning to say there was going to be an inquest at Beauvray—Professor Saint-Prix, the scientist, had been killed by falling into the stream at the bottom of his garden.’
    ‘Nothing very mysterious in that.’
    ‘Ah, but wait. The professor was crossing the stream by a plank bridge, and that bridge gave way under him and precipitated the old man into the water. His head hit a sharp rock and he was killed instantaneously.’
    ‘Was the bridge rotten, then?’
    Inspector Béchoux shook his head.
    ‘My doctor friend informed me that though the police had not been called in, they would have to be. The bridge was perfectly sound, but—it had been sawed through !’
    Barnett whistled.
    ‘And so you went to Beauvray at once?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And what did you find?’
    ‘A queer situation. The professor had a little house where he lived with his daughter, Thérèse Saint-Prix. Joined on to the house was a very fine laboratory. The garden sloped down, first a lawn and then a dense shrubbery, to a stream, sunk deep between rocky banks. A stout plank bridge was the means of crossing from the Saint-Prix garden to the adjoining property of the Villa