The Milliner's Hat Mystery (12 page)

It was not to be. The director himself was in his room and disengaged. He was a curious product of the departmental machine. His name had been prominent in the newspaper reports of most of the important criminal cases as prosecutor for the Crown; his appointment as Director of Public Prosecutions had therefore occasioned no surprise and very little heartburning from those of his profession who aspired to the appointment. He had been knighted; he was now a permanent official like any other civil servant but he had retained the forensic mannerisms of his earlier days at the Bar, being neither fish nor fowl, since he had not been through the Civil Service mill that grinds all men to something of the same pattern. Sir John Manning wore a fringe of grey hair about the conical dome of his skull; otherwise his skin was naked, not, it was alleged by the subordinate members of his staff, through the attentions of the razor, but because Nature, in designing him, had taken the hen's egg for the model to work upon and had denied him the hirsute adornments that decorated his fellow men. But lest anyone should think that there was anything feminine in his make-up, she had endowed him with the deepest of bass voices, at which timid solicitors' clerks introduced without warning into the Presence had been known to leap three inches from their chairs.

It was not the first time that Vincent had been required to undergo the ordeal, indeed he found that he was a
persona grata
with the great man.

“Well, Mr Vincent, what are you bringing us to-day?—something interesting, I feel sure. Someone told me that you had gone abroad on a confidential mission.”

“Yes, Sir John, and I am just back.”

“Did your travels take you as far as Geneva? I was there the other day and I was immensely struck with that great building they have erected for the League of Nations. You have seen it, of course?”

“Yes, Sir John, and I have attended little international conferences in one of the rooms there.”

“On criminal questions, I suppose?”

“Yes, Sir John. On the drug traffic and on the question of the form of cheque which would be proof against forgery. The interest lay in the fact that even the Americans had deputed their expert police officers to attend.”

“I am glad to think that the League of Nations is serving
some
useful purpose; otherwise there will be nothing for it but to convert that building into a hospital for incurables.”

“I am not sure, Sir John, that it has not already gone some way in that direction, judging from the curious long-haired people that one meets in the corridors.”

“But we are gossiping about international politics when we ought to be talking business. You have something to tell me.”

Thereupon Vincent gave him a succinct account of the problem that was facing him. When he had finished, the fingertips of the director came together. “If I understand you correctly you suggest that there are grounds for applying for extradition on the charge of wilful murder. Is that correct?”

“Yes sir, it is.”

“The evidence, as I see it, is purely circumstantial—the hiring of a car, the breaking of one of the windows by a revolver bullet, the finding of the body of a murdered man by a witness who can be produced, and this coat that was found in the tool box of the hired car. I confess that I have known stronger cases; but when I have your report I will go very carefully through it and send for you again. In the meantime I understand that the men in question are being safely held by the French authorities.”

“That is so, sir. Thank you very much. I will go and write my report at once.”

On his way to the chief inspector's room Vincent knocked at his chief constable's door and was at once admitted.

“Well,” said his chief, “what did the director say?”

“He told me to go and write my report, sir, and he would consider whether there were sufficient grounds for charging these men with murder. In that case he did not anticipate any difficulty in obtaining an extradition warrant.”

“Very well,” said Richardson, “you had better lose no time in writing your report, but let me see it first.”

To Vincent, writing a convincing report was child's play. He was a strict economist in words, but that was so refreshing a contrast with the reports of many of his colleagues that he had no fear about the verdict of the director, nor did his chief constable find any fault with it.

“Right. You can take that round to the director and tell him, if you like, that I have seen it.”

All this had eaten away the morning and Vincent was beginning to feel the pangs of hunger. He was about to make his way up to the floor where dinners were served when a telegram was put into his hands. He tore open the envelope and felt on reading the message that all appetite for food had deserted him. The message was signed “Goron.” It was quite brief.

BOTH MEN ESCAPED FROM CUSTODY DURING THE NIGHT.

There was nothing for it but for Vincent to take the telegram to his chief and ask for further instructions. For once, Richardson betrayed impatience. “Thank God,” he said, “that our men know how to hold their prisoners without giving all this trouble. You'll have to run over to France again.”

“To Paris, sir?”

“Yes, because by this time Goron must have returned to duty in Paris and rascals of this kind would find Paris their safest hiding place.”

“Very good, sir; I'll cross by the night boat to Dieppe—unless you think that it would be better to take St Malo on the way?”

“No. You must go to Paris. Get into touch with M. Verneuil again, as well. He is not very quick in the uptake but when the scent is strong he never abandons the chase.”

O
N ARRIVING
at the Gare St Lazare, Vincent's first objective was the Ministry of the Interior. He went straight to Goron's room and was fortunate enough to find him alone.

“Come in, my friend. I am very glad to see you. I thought it not improbable that my telegram might bring you again to Paris, where you are always welcome.”

“Thank you. The atmosphere of Paris is always exhilarating to the jaded Londoner but, on this occasion, it has been your bad news that has brought me. Those rascals have escaped?”

“Yes. I can scarcely contain myself when I think of the laxity of these provincial police officers, if indeed it was slackness and not bribery.”

“I should not have dared to make that suggestion myself, but since you have made it…One must remember that the profits in the drug traffic are so considerable that bribes can be offered on quite a liberal scale. M. Verneuil may have found some corroborative evidence in Madame Germaine's address book showing that our surmise that drugs are concerned in this case was correct.”

“Then let us go and see M. Verneuil.”

By this time they had become familiar figures to the doorkeeper, who saluted them with a forefinger and indicated the lift. Verneuil received them with his usual bluff welcome and inquired after their health. As usual, in the public offices in France, minutes were expended in the preliminary courtesies.

“Pleased as I am to see you, my friend,” said Verneuil, “I feel sure that it is the laxity of those miserable police in St Malo in allowing those rascals to escape that has brought you back to France.”

“It is,” put in Goron, “but I have assured our English colleague that they should be recaptured if they are still on French soil. Orders have been given to all ports and frontier towns to stop them. And now, to turn to another phase of the case, did you find that little book of any use to you?”

“Yes. The most important bit of evidence it contains is the name of that suspected factory in Belfort. As you were averse from alarming the lady by direct interview, I put her premises under observation and my man is instructed to make notes of every visitor to the shop. He is one of my most trusted officers, so you need have no misgivings.”

He had scarcely finished speaking when there was a tap on the door and a young man with deep anxiety graven on his features exposed his head to view and at once withdrew it on seeing that his chief was not alone.

“Ah, this is the man I posted to watch those premises. Come in, André,” he shouted. “What have you to report?”

“Monsieur, in some mysterious way, that woman in the rue Duphot has disappeared. Yesterday afternoon and this morning a number of people came and tried the door of her shop. Some of the more impatient thumped on the door. This morning the baker called with bread but could get no one to take it in.”

“But there are no back entrances to those old shops in the rue Duphot.”

“That is true, monsieur.”

“And yet you are satisfied that she did not leave by the front door?”

“Quite satisfied, monsieur.”

A flush began to suffuse Verneuil's weather-beaten countenance as a horrible suspicion assailed him.

“Did no vehicle stop at the shop door while you were on duty?”

“No, monsieur, except of course the baker this morning, who tried the door and went away.” 

“And yesterday?”

“Only the laundry van, late in the afternoon.”

“And the driver carried into the shop an empty basket—a basket large enough for a week's family washing?”

“Yes, monsieur, it was a large basket: it required the driver and another man to carry it.”

“And after a few minutes they came out again with the basket and loaded it into the van?”

“Yes, monsieur,” replied the watcher, surprised at the intuition of his questioner.

“My God! That any Parisian should be so lacking in intelligence as to let that basket pass unopened.”

“Why, monsieur? It was an ordinary laundry basket.”

“And I suppose that you would describe yourself as a man of ordinary intelligence? But if you had raised the lid of that basket you would have had the shock of your life. It had a woman in it.”

The poor constable looked as if this last remark was all the shock he needed.

“Well, you will say that you were only told to watch for people who came and went on their two legs—not for ladies who chose to be carried out in laundry baskets. But there it is. The harm is done. Can you give me a description of the people who tried the door after the laundry van had gone?” 

“Well, monsieur, now I come to think of it, I remember only one; a tall, thin man, with a face like a hatchet.”

“Come, you can give me a better description of him than that. What age was he?”

“Between thirty and forty, I should say. He was dressed like an Englishman.”

“You mean that he went to a good tailor for his clothes?”

“Yes, monsieur, the clothes were certainly not sold to him ready made.”

“Thank you, André. I shall want nothing more for the present,” said Verneuil.

The man's air was crestfallen as he went out: he knew that there would be more to come about his lack of intuition.

“
Mon Dieu!
” said Verneuil. “We seem not to be distinguishing ourselves in this affair, but it may not be so difficult to find the lady as you suspect. We have first to trace that laundry van.”

“Her uneasiness is not difficult to explain,” said Vincent. “She must have missed that little book of hers and the man on observation was not concealing the fact that he was posted to watch her. She thought an unobtrusive disappearance was the safest card to play. Now I'm wondering if the tall, thin man who called at the shop could have been Lewis.”

“Would he be such a fool,” said Goron, “as to run his head into the lion's mouth by calling at the shop?”

“Well, Germaine had warned the wives, but the women could not pass on the warning to the men, as apparently they were not in touch with them.”

“Listen,” said Verneuil. “I mean to get to the bottom of this escape from St Malo. In this little book,” he fluttered the pages of Madame Germaine's notebook, “there is an address P.H., 9, rue de la Couronne, St Malo. Who can P.H. be?”

“Why not telephone to the St Malo police?” suggested Vincent.

“I was on the point of doing so when you gentlemen came in.”

The telephoning did not take long. Within ten minutes they were in possession of the fact that the address was that of the mayor himself, Philippe Henriques.

“Things are beginning to warm up,” murmured Goron. “In a port such as St Malo the mayor has opportunities—very profitable opportunities—and if those two criminals could get into friendly touch with him we need be surprised at nothing.”

“Well,” said Vincent, “assuming that money has passed and that the major was at the bottom of the escape, what is to be our next step? My only concern in this matter is to get hold of those two men and see that they are safely held in custody in France, leaving me free to go over to London and get extradition warrants signed. As I had to return on receipt of your telegram there was no time to get them.”

“You can rest assured,” said Verneuil grimly, “that the next time they are caught, they will not escape.”

“If one of them, as we believe, called on Madame Germaine as late as yesterday evening, probably both the men are in Paris at this moment. It seems to me that the obvious step is to call upon that concierge in their old lodgings and the driver of the taxi which they were in the habit of using.”

“I could get these enquiries done at once in the arrondissement, but I don't think that we had better spread this business too widely,” said Verneuil.

“My main interest,” said Goron, “is in the drug traffic now that the connection of these men with drugs is established. You, my friend, are concerned only with getting these men arrested on charges of murder. Is that not so?”

“I feel that we are all sailing in the same boat, gentlemen,” said Vincent, “for we are all concerned—deeply concerned—in the arrest of these two rascals, Blake and Lewis.”

“I think we may safely leave the enquiries in Paris to our friend here, who, when once he undertakes a delicate enquiry, never lets go until he gets what he wants,” said Goron.