The Case of the Dead Diplomat (23 page)

It was a dreary little room to have to wait in. He strolled over to study the details of a bronze statuette on a marble base, representing a lady in classical dress with a discarded harp behind her, and an expression as who should say “I shall never learn to play this damned instrument.” It was an epitome of the art of the third empire.

A latch-key grated in the door. Jules Quesnay bustled in. The sepulchral voice of the “secretary” gave an affirmative answer to his question whether anyone was waiting to see him, and Bigot became convinced that the “secretary” had been brought there to qualify as a witness, to deny, if necessary, everything that passed at the interview. He would be listening at the key-hole in all probability; it would not be needful for him to overhear the conversation, in fact he would have a freer hand to describe it if he had not overheard a word.

Quesnay was almost boisterous in his welcome. “Ah, my friend, you have taken me at the foot of the letter. You've had time to think things over.”

“Not only to think things over,
monsieur le Ministre
, but to question the man you saw on October 6th and again last night.”

“I thought that we were going to deal with this matter quietly as between friends; there was no need for you to see M. Tissot. I hinted to you, and I can put the matter more firmly than in a hint, that it would be to your advantage to take no further notice of this affair.”

“That is all very well, but in a serious matter like this—I've got the British Embassy to consider.”

“The British Embassy?” Quesnay stared at him in blank astonishment. “The British Embassy has nothing whatever to do with the building of a school for zoology for children at Vincennes.”

It was now Bigot's turn to register astonishment.

Quesnay was the first to find the key to this comedy of errors. “Do you seriously mean to say that you thought I had a hand in the murder of that young man? It is time for us to lay our cards on the table. It is perfectly true that I did offer to M. Tissot to use my influence to get him the job of building the school; that I did tell him that one good turn deserves another; that he did promise me a certain commission, and if you like to make it public I did touch that commission before the contract was signed; but if you do make it public, I shall reserve to myself the right of pointing out that when criminal investigation is entrusted to men like the inspector of the ninth
arrondissement
, it is not surprising that crimes go unpunished.”

“I understand, monsieur, we are in a sense opposed to one another, but, in another sense, we may call ourselves allies.”

Quesnay rose and went to the cupboard for the bottle and glasses. “Let us cement the alliance,” he said.

D
ETECTIVE
S
ERGEANT
C
OOPER
had relieved his boredom by visiting the sights of Paris. He was full of enthusiasm for Napoleon's resting-place at the Invalides.

“To think that that little blighter from Corsica damned nearly conquered all Europe, and would have invaded England if Nelson and Wellington hadn't been there to stop him.”

Richardson tapped his foot impatiently.

“Oh, I forgot, you've seen it all before, but I tell you, inspector, that the sight of that little tomb in the basement set me thinking.”

“I have the present to think of, not the past. Have you seen anything of that little gang with the gold brick?”

“Not a word. I suppose they'll turn up on Monday for my final answer.”

Richardson began to pace the room. “It's no good pretending that we're getting on. We have struck a bad patch, and if we don't mind our step there will be a row with the Foreign Office about our expenses.”

“I don't suppose you've been idle these last two days.”

“No, I've been to the Zoo with Verneuil, and we've established the fact that a platinum blonde woman took one of those photographs from the back of the wolves' cages. If she was Pinet's woman, then either she or Pinet let the film drop in the murdered man's room.”

“Well, that's something surely. Pinet admitted that he had visited the flat on the night of the murder. Why should he have denied that he or his wife had a camera of just that size? If he was innocent he would have told the whole truth. It's no crime to photograph animals at the Zoo. Wouldn't Verneuil consent to search that villa from top to bottom?”

“He would. In fact, he told me that he intended to, but if we find the camera and interrogate those two people to within an inch of their lives, we shan't have enough evidence to convict the murderer. No, I'm not going to trust to Verneuil. I'm going down this very evening to le Pecq to do a spell of quiet observation on that villa. You can't come with me in that kit; they'd spot you a mile off.”

“But look here, inspector, you mustn't leave me without final orders as to what I'm to say to these gold-brick blighters when I see them to-morrow.”

“I shall be back to-night. There will be plenty of time to decide that point to-morrow morning.”

The rush hour was just beginning when Richardson took his return ticket to le Pecq; the platform and the carriage were crowded with season ticket-holders, many of them going through to St. Germain. A train was about to leave, but since every seat in the second class was occupied, Richardson became a strap-hanger. At Croissy passengers poured out of the train; the number going through to le Pecq and St. Germain was not large. Indeed, when the train pulled up at that station, Richardson was the only second-class passenger to alight; only one man got down from the first-class coach and ran down into the subway before Richardson reached the steps. The platform lights were dim, but there was something familiar about the walk, and when the figure was between him and the station-lamp at the exit, recognition came in a flash; it was Pinet himself. For a moment Richardson decreased the distance between them with some vague instinct to keep the other man in view, but quite suddenly he caught sight of a lady, waiting under the lamp outside the station, and its rays glinted on hair the colour of bronzed silver. He was perhaps seven yards behind Pinet when the two met, and he heard the woman demand, without any greeting, “Have you brought the evening papers?” and the man's reply, “Yes, three of them, but there's not a word about her.”

“Perhaps they didn't think a woman of the
pavé
worth while.” The man grunted and Richardson heard no more.

It being unsafe to follow the pair too closely, Richardson gave them a start of two or three minutes; they were quickly lost to view in the ill-lighted avenue which led to their villa; when Richardson came abreast of the villa, the shutters were closed and not a glimmer of light could be seen. He looked for a convenient observation post and found one in the muddy little lane which ran at right-angles to the tarred highway on which the villa looked out. It was a fairly substantial pine tree within five yards of the lane; anyone standing behind it to watch the house would be entirely invisible from the windows. Opposite to this post stood the garage.

Richardson found one strong drawback to his observation post; the place was infested with mosquitoes of the predatory and hungry species with striped legs; they attacked his face, neck and hands, and when he attempted to defend himself they made his socks and ankles their point of attack, even crawling up his trouser leg and plunging their weapons into his bare skin. A police officer on observation duty cannot spend his time slapping himself without asking for trouble; the pest had to be borne in spartan silence.

How long the torture was to be endured became the question of the moment. Probably these people were sitting snugly round their supper-table, scanning the columns of the evening papers, and here was he, marooned in a mosquito swamp without any hope of returning to Paris with a discovery to the good. The futility of this self-imposed task of observation filled his mind, when suddenly a shaft of light shot across the main road on his left; the front door had been opened. It was closed a second or two later, leaving a darkness that could be felt. But there were sounds—heel-taps on the tarred road; the heels of two persons who could not keep step. They were approaching him down the muddy lane; they stopped at the garage and unlocked it, as could be heard by the grating of the key.

“Stand there,” said a man's voice. “I will run the car out.”

The garage doors were swung back; the door of the car was opened and shut; the headlights were switched on. They would have risked disclosing Richardson had they been in their normal position, but they were dipping headlights and they were dipped. The self-starter whirred; the engine roared; the car began to move.

The headlights shone upon the second person waiting in the road; it was, as Richardson suspected, the woman they knew as the “platinum blonde.” Her feet were in a pool of light; she was wearing black shoes, but these were secured by fancy laces of black and white plaid. Where had he seen laces like these before? Suddenly the recollection came to him. The wad of notes which the sick woman had under her pillow had been tied with a shoe-lace of exactly this pattern.

The two people exchanged places after talking for two or three minutes in low tones. The woman took the wheel, waved a gloved hand to Pinet, and slipped in her clutch. The car turned in the direction of Paris and gathered speed. Richardson could not move from his observation post until the man was safely within doors. He did some quick thinking. Somehow he must discover the streamline car, painted scarlet and beige, in Paris, for to Paris it was obvious that its driver was going. He could not follow her; if he were to charter a car from the garage opposite the station and order the driver to overtake Pinet's car, the news would certainly filter through to Pinet that a foreigner, speaking French with an accent, was on his track. This was not to be thought of. There was one other way—to take the next train to St. Lazare; to taxi to the Place Vendôme, where the woman had parked her car on the last occasion, and trust to luck that she had done this a second time. And here was Pinet fooling about in the garage with the light turned on when every minute counted.

At last that cursed light was switched off, the garage doors clanged to and locked and a shadowy figure, more imagined than seen, was on its way to the front gate. He must still wait until he saw a light from the front door. Ah! There it was! Bang went the door and Richardson was alone with the mosquitoes. He covered the distance in record time; a train clattered in; it was nearly empty; he found a seat in a second class and wondered whether the train would be run as an express from Croissy to St. Lazare. It was, for this was used as a theatre train by the good people of the suburbs.

At this hour the traffic in Paris was thinning. Richardson jumped into a taxi and directed the driver to drop him at the corner of the rue de la Paix and the Place Vendôme, and paid him off with a liberal
pourboire
for the speed he had used. The Paris taxi-driver is seldom interested in the business of his fares; otherwise this one might have wondered why a passenger who had urged him to speed should have sauntered off among the parked cars as if he had the entire night before him. But he swung round and drove off in the direction of the station. The Place Vendôme was fairly crowded with parked cars ranged in lines, and others were joining the ranks every moment. The lighting was not good enough to show up even the most gaudily painted car; one had to pass along the ranks to find the car one wanted. Richardson drew blank in those on the right side of the square, the woman's usual parking-place, and had just begun a scrutiny of the cars on the other side when he caught sight of a gaudy scarlet and beige car just in front of him. Yes, it was the car he was looking for, he knew the number; but through the back window he could see a woman's hat. The car was occupied and he must not risk being seen and recognized. Who was she waiting for? Not the man she was living with; she had left him behind at le Pecq. He ran rapidly over in his mind the little discovery he had made of the shoe-laces which matched that he had seen round the bundle of notes. Was this one of the lucky coincidences which so often step in to help the fortunate detective?

Was this woman in the car in a position to pay over to a woman of the
trottoir
a sum of several thousand francs? It must be blackmail; there could be no other explanation. But again—where did the money come from? Dimly within his mind an idea began to take shape. Perhaps the platinum blonde had some hold over another person—a successful politician for example—and it was he who had provided the money to be paid to the blackmailer. So he was quite prepared to see a man approach the scarlet and beige car, and he determined to change his place for another which commanded a nearer view of the car. His plan was quickly made. He would follow the man until he discovered his address.

And then, as so often happens in police work, it was the unexpected that supervened. He was standing quite close to a shabby, old-fashioned car with rusty, battered wings and all the other marks of a car bought second-hand, when a woman came quietly past him, walking down the ranks of the car park. She gave him a quick look, probably mistaking him for the owner of the antediluvian vehicle by which he was standing. The light was poor, but there was something familiar to him about her profile. He could not have sworn to her identity in any court; it was only a vague impression that linked her with the sick woman he had seen in bed that morning—the woman who kept her money tied up with a variegated shoe-lace. Her dress and walk had the cheap, flashy aspect of her profession; a whiff of cheap perfume assailed his nostrils as she passed. It required no great gift of intuition to guess that this was the person awaited by the platinum blonde. He had only to wait to see the meeting to know what his next move was to be.

A moment later the woman caught sight of the car she was looking for and went straight to it through the intervening ranks. Richardson saw the two women in conversation and wormed his way through the lines of cars until he had a view of them through the windows of the vehicle nearest to the platinum blonde's. To judge from the gestures of the two it was not a friendly meeting. At one point both voices were raised, but he was not near enough to hear what they were saying. The point was that they had lost sight of the possibility of eavesdroppers. One sentence he did catch and understand; it came from the lips of the platinum blonde in the strident tone adopted by Frenchwomen when they are incensed.