Murder Abroad (28 page)

“Not entirely, surely,” Bobby said. “It can be checked in various details. Also you have there the finger-print photographs. The broken pieces of the wine glasses are being returned to me. You will find they match with others in Shields's possession.”

“Wine glasses of the same pattern are not uncommon,” Clauzel pointed out, “and it would not be difficult to secure on them any finger-prints you desired by inviting such persons to share a bottle of wine with you. The point is not one that need be discussed at present. The urgent necessity appears to be a visit to Monsieur Shields. I will ring up Monsieur Alain, the juge d'instruction, and ask him to meet us there.”

“A confrontation?” Bobby murmured, and Clauzel either did not hear or did not choose to answer.

“You will do us the honour to accompany us,” he went on.

“Enchanted,” Bobby said. “I am sure it is wise there should be no delay. I am not easy in my mind for I am afraid of further incidents.”

“For what reason? There is something else you know?”

“Only that, as you are aware, Monsieur and Madame Williams have left for Paris. I expect you know also—I was told by Madame Camion—that in Paris Monsieur Williams got into some sort of trouble with the police. He had dined too well, apparently.”

“In fact, we have official knowledge of that,” Clauzel answered, smiling slightly. “I have had a letter from Madame. She was distressed. She seemed to fear the most serious consequences. She wrote from her hotel in Paris to ask if we would certify that her husband's conduct had always been exemplary here. It is of course unnecessary. Without doubt, Monsieur Williams has already been released.” Something in Bobby's expression caught Clauzel's attention. “What is the matter?” he asked quickly. “What has all that to do with us?”

“I do not know,” Bobby answered slowly, “but I do know that once before Williams established an alibi by getting himself arrested on a charge of no importance, and that while he was thus under arrest, and so possessed a perfect alibi, there took place the murder of a man with whom Williams was not unconnected.”

“You mean by that...?”

“I mean only that in England, and I expect in France also, a criminal tends often to reproduce the exact methods that have been successful before.”

Clauzel was looking at Bobby more doubtfully than ever.

“You reason well and with care,” he said. “Not all the world would have reasoned where Volny was likely to have gone on his cycle. Not every one would have observed that it was little likely a man of economical habits should have provided himself with two cycles. But that, it is perhaps for Monsieur Alain to consider.”

As clouds were coming up and rain was beginning to fall, Bobby was allowed to return to his hotel for a mackintosh and umbrella, though he had a strong suspicion that discreet watch was being kept to make sure he did not seize the opportunity to disappear. When he came downstairs from his room with the mackintosh he had been to fetch, he found the two older Camions talking to a stranger in the entrance hall. Camion Père was silent, sullen and troubled, muttering only a word or two from time to time in support of his wife who was protesting with voluble indignation that she had not seen her son since first thing in the morning, that he was not a babe to be tied always to her apron strings, that he was a free citizen, that the police were, as every one knew, a pest, a disgrace, and a danger to all honest folk—but Madame Camion's opinion of the police force of her country cannot be given here since it would undoubtedly scorch any paper on which it was printed.

Bobby heard the stranger say he would report to his superior and then retreat in haste before a fresh outburst calculated to make any high explosive bomb confess itself a mere back number. Monsieur Camion said ‘Pouf, Pouf', and Madame Camion collapsed, changing suddenly from a formidable and angry tigress into a tired old woman. Bobby said to her:

“Your son is making a mistake. Useless to try to avoid the police. It is almost a confession, to run away like this. Much the best plan to face things out—when you are innocent.” 

She did not answer, but at the last word she raised her head and looked at Bobby, and all too plainly he saw the awful doubt her eyes betrayed. She got to her feet and went slowly away; and about her was the dignity that there brings with it a suffering and a grief beyond the common knowledge.

Her husband looked pitifully at Bobby. He said:

“He is her son, her only son.”

“Courage,” answered Bobby. “Tell her to have courage and to hope.”

But his own voice lacked confidence, and Camion shook his head and began to walk away, walking like a blind man. Once he paused and said over his shoulder:

“They do not believe us but it is true. We do not know where Charles has gone or why.”

He walked on, disappearing into the back regions of the hotel, for at least there is always work to be done. Bobby returned to the mairie where the commissaire's car was waiting. The commissaire himself was standing near, talking to the maire. Bobby said to them:

“It seems Charles Camion is not to be found.”

“He was told that I had come again,” the commissaire said. “After that, he disappeared.”

“It is a confession,” said the maire. “Never would I have believed it. Yet I do not call it a murder when two young men quarrel and a life is lost. Young blood is hot, it acts without thought, without intention. It is not an assassination. In Citry-sur-l'eau, we do not breed assassins.”

“There is also the affair of Mademoiselle Polthwaite,” said the commissaire. “It seems there is a connection. I think they are close together as fuel and fire, as bud and blossom.”

The maire made no comment but looked angry and went away. The commissaire and Bobby took their seats. The car started. Bobby noticed that another followed behind. It was growing late now, for all this had taken time, and they had to lunch ‘on the thumb', as the French say. It was between two and three when they reached Barsac, and the commissaire, who had stopped twice upon the road for brief 'phone conversations, drove direct through the town to its outskirts where, backing on the bare and desolate slopes of the Bornay Massif stood the house occupied by Basil Shields.

Almost as they drew up, another car arrived, and from it alighted three or four men, one of whom, tall and severe-looking, wearing pince-nez through which he seemed to look suspiciously on all the world, was Monsieur Alain, the juge d'instruction, now in charge of an investigation the authorities were evidently beginning to take very seriously. He and the commissaire talked apart for some time while the others waited. Bobby sat on the footboard of the car and smoked a cigarette and wondered what the two officials were saying to each other. No doubt for one thing they would be discussing Camion's apparent flight, which to the official mind would certainly seem, as Bobby himself had said, almost a confession.

Presently they came back together and Bobby heard Alain say:

“It is all tied up together, it is all one affair, one proceeding from the other.”

“Without doubt,” answered the commissaire, “and when there is proof in the one affair, then also there will be proof in the other.”

A third car arrived, following the one Bobby had noticed following their own; and from it, to Bobby's surprise, there alighted Père Trouché. As he moved forward he stumbled over a small obstruction in his path his groping staff had missed, and might have fallen, but that Bobby with a word of warning put out a hand to support him.

“Hé, it's you, Mr. Englishman,” the old man said. He added challengingly: “I do not often trip but on a path one does not know, it is permissible, hein?”

“It is a thing that might happen to any one,” agreed Bobby gravely.

“One has one's moments of carelessness,” the old man confessed, still a little on the defensive, though evidently pleased by Bobby's acquiescence. He added: “It seems they mean to make us tell again our story of our little walk in the early morning.”

There was no time to say more for there hurried up to separate them one or two of the several men in plain clothes standing near—police inspectors, Bobby supposed they were, the rank of inspector in the Sûreté Générale corresponding to that of constable in a British force. Père Trouché indulged in one of his eldritch chuckles.

“They do not wish us to converse together,” he said. “The police, they are not very intelligent, you know. Have we not had time enough to invent our little histories, if we had wished to do so?”

“Is that what you have done?” asked one of the inspectors sharply.

“I do not say so,” answered the blind man. “Perhaps yes. Perhaps no. It is for you to discover.”

“It is for you to help the law,” retorted the other.

“That's as may be,” the old beggar said, “but see now, I confess I am not in a good temper. I do not know in fact that I am in a mood to help the law. I do not like it that I am dragged away from my affairs in this manner. For fifty years I have made my regular rounds. One expects me, wet or fine, storm or calm, war or peace—and in the war I deserved well of my country for everywhere I went I preached faith and the victory to come. You know that, you, my friend, who are of this countryside.”

“It is true,” the other answered, “but the war, that is long ago.”

“It may be that another comes, and then again there will be need of old blind Père Trouché,” declared the beggar with dignity and conviction. “Yet now I am dragged away from my work and all along the Bornay Road they will be saying: ‘Hé, where is then the Père Trouché? Is it that he grows lazy and neglects us? It is inconceivable that he does not come,' and all the little gifts that they have put aside for me, perhaps they will not be there when I do arrive. It is probable I shall lodge a complaint. Intolerable that the work of a free citizen of the republic should be hindered through lack of intelligence and comprehension on the part of her officials.”

Don't you go talking like that to Monsieur the juge d'instruction,” the inspector warned him.

“Hé, why not, then?” demanded the old man. “Do you not know that to-day only the beggar can afford to say what he thinks?”

By this time the juge d'instruction and the commissaire had finished their colloquy and the whole party began to move towards the house. Apparently there had been some preliminary investigation for it was with a solemn air of formality that one of the plain-clothes men went up to the door and knocked, repeating at the same time, the formula:

“Ouvrez, au nom du loi.”

There was no response and after repetition of the formality, a second inspector who had been standing near in readiness advanced and examined the door.

“Locked, not bolted,” he announced; and, at a sign from Monsieur Alain, proceeded to force an entrance.

It was an easy task and once the door was open there entered Alain, Clauzel, and two inspectors, apparently senior men, one of them carrying a camera and the other apparatus for taking finger-prints. After a time, one of the inspectors came out with a message for Bobby. It seemed Bobby was the last person known to have been in the house, and the juge d'instruction would be glad if he would go through it and say if he noticed any change or any kind of difference or alteration. All the police examination already made showed was that there was no sign of any disturbance or of anything out of the ordinary. Nor was there anything to show what had become of Shields or why he had disappeared.

One or two letters had been delivered but none of any interest and only during the previous day and this morning, so there was no conclusion to be drawn concerning the date of his departure. He was not apparently in the receipt of much correspondence. There was food in the larder, and a general suggestion that absence had been intended to be only temporary. Impossible of course to be certain if clothing had been taken but so much was left that probably only what was being worn was missing. There was even a little money, though only an insignificant sum, in one of the drawers. What was evidently regarded as more important was that there was no sign of the carte d'identité issued to all foreigners resident in France for any length of time. Nor was there any sign of a passport, and these were facts to which evidently great significance was attached.

Under the guidance of one of the Sûreté inspectors Bobby made a tour of the house, including those parts he had not before visited, a fact of which the inspector assigned to him was fortunately unaware. But Bobby thought it might be interesting to have a general look round, and in the attics he noticed two rope ladders of the type nervous people sometimes keep in store as a means of escape in case of fire.

“Why two?” Bobby asked the inspector who shrugged his shoulders.

“It was perhaps an additional precaution,” he remarked.

Bobby was careful not to touch them but he pointed out to the inspector certain tiny traces of earth and vegetation adhering to them both.

“They have evidently been used,” said the inspector, slightly bored. “It is always wise to practise with such things.”

“So it is,” agreed Bobby and they went back to the dining room where Alain was very busy writing and where Bobby noticed a half-burned candle standing on the table. He wondered what it had been used for. He went across to the electric-light switch and touched it. The bulbs lighted, so evidently there had been no need to use the candle for illumination. Monsieur Alain looked up inquiringly from his writing and Bobby said:

“I am wondering what that candle was for.”

“Why? what about it?” Alain asked.

“I like to know the reason for things, especially odd things,” Bobby answered. He added uncomfortably: “I do not know why, but I do not like it. That candle, I mean. Who used it and why and for what reason?”