The Case of the Climbing Rat: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  “That was good,” Gallois said and see down his glass again. “That clears the brain and fortifies the blood. But I was forgetting—you have brought the photographs?”

  “Well, no,” said Travers. “I was in rather a hurry and I was also of the opinion that you would like to take a look at that second murder case at Carliens yourself.”

  Gallois looked astonished. “But I return almost at once to Paris.”

  “But we have to go to Lizou to-morrow to fetch Charles. Which reminds me. There are presents I must buy for the doctor and his sister.”

  “There is no hurry,” said Gallois. “To-morrow is Good Friday and the shops remain open late tonight. But why should you think there should be an anxiety for me to return to Carliens?”

  Travers hooked off his glasses and was giving them a slow deliberate polish.

  “There are things which I have not yet told you about this Letoque affair which the papers have not printed. But you have already read his description in the papers and I have already told you that his hair was dyed black.”

  “Yes,” said Gallois almost amusedly.

  “His forearms were shaved,” Travers said. “That shows he was particularly anxious that it should not be known that his hair was dyed. He was really a blond.”

  “The Swiss often are,” Gallois told him with a shrug of the shoulders. “Perhaps, however, you will permit me to change the theory which I put forward in a moment of too much speed. It is possible that this Letoque was the emissary sent by the gang from Switzerland to discover the whereabouts of Rionne and remove him. He would therefore grow a beard and dye his hair so that he should not be known to Rionne.”

  Travers was smiling even more diffidently as he hooked the glasses on again.

  “Well, I will come to the point. You would not be too incredulous if I mentioned some further resemblances between this Letoque and—Bariche?”

  “Bariche!” The eyes of Gallois narrowed.

  “Bariche had money which he obtained from his victims,” went on Travers. “He would necessarily have cash, and it was cash Letoque deposited in the bank at Carliens.”

  Gallois was still only mildly interested.

  “At Auteuil, Bariche was a blond, and clean-shaven. He killed his last victim at Auteuil, and left the body of a man for himself. To go elsewhere in France would have become very dangerous. Then why not go to Switzerland?”

  Gallois shrugged his shoulders as much as to ask why not.

  “His build and height tally, and his age. His eyes are grey-blue, and I know no method of disguising the colour of the eyes. Further, Aumade assured me in confidence that Letoque was already having an affair with at least one woman.”

  Gallois gave an inquiring look.

  “If you ask me about the lameness,” went on Travers, “I should say that Letoque was either not lame at all, or that lameness had occurred through some accident after Auteuil. The scar on the knee looked nothing important. Letoque himself told his friends it was a war wound.”

  Gallois was frowning and his lean fingers were slowly caressing his chin.

  “Then there is Brazil. Letoque had already announced that he was returning there after his leave. Brazil is a very distant country and not the easiest of places for inquiries. Wasn’t it the habit of the victims of Bariche to announce suddenly to their relatives that the husband had had an urgent call abroad, and after that nothing more was heard?”

  “Yes,” said Gallois. “Perhaps, my friend, we will after all return to Carliens. And you have other reasons?”

  Travers smiled. He had been none too sure himself of the effect of his theories upon Gallois, but now there was a confidence and in some curious way a relaxation.

  “I would like to interest my grandchildren.”

  “Your grandchildren?” The palms of Gallois spread incredulously. “But, my friend, you have not yet even children.”

  “There is still time,” Travers told him, “and one day perhaps I may tell my grandchildren about Bariche, when they ask me for a story about Bluebeard. It will be an interesting story and they will possibly say, ’Did you ever see him alive, grandfather?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ I shall say unconcernedly. ‘I saw him alive and showed him to the famous French detective Gallois, about whom you have often heard me speak, but we neither of us believed it was Bluebeard.’”

  The fingers of Gallois rose as if to clutch the air. “When did you show him to me?”

  “That night in the Hôtel de France,” said Travers. “You remember I said any one might be Bariche? Even the waiter—or that lame man with the black beard?”

  “He was Letoque?”

  “Yes,” said Travers. “He was Letoque, who I’m also fairly sure is Bariche.”

  CHAPTER IX

  GALLOIS IS UNCONVINCED

  It was Good Friday, a day always associated in the mind of Travers with dishes of dry, tasteless cod, and he was at Lizou where the farewells were being said.

  Old Favre had rung up to present his compliments to everybody, and Gallois had some private talk with Debran. The doctor still urged quiet for the patient. It was far from rare, for instance, for pneumonia to supervene after such shocks, though he was fairly confident now that Charles would run little risk.

  Gallois in very strict confidence mentioned the accident. The police, particularly those of the prominence of himself and Charles, always had enemies, he said, and fantastic though it might seem to the doctor, an attack was far from an unlikely thing. The doctor heard him with perfect seriousness. He had seen no suspicious characters about, he said, and as for the cantonnier, he could vouch for his implicit honesty. Then just before the actual moment of farewell there was a little ceremony—most unexpected and affecting for the Debrans—when the presents were presented: a picnic set for Gabrielle to use on her trips in the mountains, and a travelling-rug for the doctor for winter use in the car. As for the professional bills, Gallois protested that the amounts were absurd. Favre, for instance, had charged only one hundred and twenty-five francs for his visits of the Tuesday and the Wednesday, and his professional advice.

  “I’ll send him a box of special snuff from London, as soon as I get back,” Travers said.

  “And if you are in Paris, any of you, you must come and see me,” Gallois said. “It does not matter how busy I am, there will always be time for you.”

  “And if you should ever travel as far as London,” said Travers and looked in his wallet for a card, “my wife and I will be only too delighted to see you or to be of any service.”

  Charles was feeling an emotion. He actually embraced the doctor and it was with much affection that he kissed the hand of Gabrielle. Suddenly it occurred to Debran that he had not been told where the party were going.

  “If there is no hurry to return to Paris, I should stay for a time where M. Charles could enjoy the air and sun,” he said.

  “There are many little places between Toulon and Marseilles,” Gabrielle said, “which will also be handy for M. Travers when he meets his wife. But wait a minute.”

  She flew back into the house and returned with an hotel address at Mariette which she knew to be a most delightful little resort quite near Marseilles. Gallois took it with many thanks.

  “And you will be sure to write and tell us about the patient?” was Debran’s last word when the car was at last ready to move off.

  “And about yourselves?” added Gabrielle.

  So with much waving of hands and with much of real regret, the last glimpses of Lizou were seen. But as far as Gallois was concerned his sadness lasted only a minute. No sooner in fact had the car left the tiny town than he was himself.

  “An expensive affair this holiday of yours, as far as concerns yourself,” he said to Charles.

  Charles grinned. “At Mariette, I shall be able to economize.”

  “Unhappily we are not going to Mariette,” Gallois told him. “We are going to Carliens and shall deposit you at the Hôtel de France. M. Travers and myself have an appointmen
t for ten-thirty, for which we are already late.”

  As they walked to the Hôtel de Ville, only one like Travers who knew him so well could have discerned in the manner of Gallois the least trace of excitement or anxiety.

  “If this Letoque is Bariche, then he is something private for ourselves,” he said. “All that M. Aumade will know is that we have a few days of holiday and wish to offer our services. What he will imagine is that we are seeking, with him, the assassin of this Letoque.”

  Travers assured him that he would be discretion itself.

  Gallois smiled dreamily. “For our friend Aumade, it will be the play of Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. Whatever it is that we discover about Letoque, professional honour demands that we impart it, except that Letoque is Bariche.”

  Aumade was delighted to see them both, and his first anxiety was whether Gallois was acquainted with the case. Travers reassured him and at once Aumade had some information to give.

  “We have had news from Switzerland; the passport is a forgery from beginning to end.”

  Gallois concealed his gratification beneath a smile of even greater melancholy.

  “What was his object then in coming to Carliens?”

  “Unhappily we have no idea,” Aumade told him. “Neither in Berne not in Paris is there any record of his fingerprints.”

  Gallois shrugged his shoulders. “He was probably some swindler who was planning a coup. Since he was provided with ready money, he may even have had in mind some fraud at your Casino. Within a day or two we should know more.”

  “You would like to see him?”

  “Yes,” Gallois said, “it is possible that I may recognize him. In my time I have seen a good many rogues and I have been assured that my memory is a tenacious one.”

  “We have a quarter of an hour,” Aumade said. “The Brassier family are arriving for an interview. They are the neighbours and important witnesses of whom M. Travers has doubtless spoken to you.”

  But when Gallois examined the dead man he had to confess that he had never seen him before.

  “There are relatives?” he said.

  “None that we know of. And no letters; no private papers—nothing.”

  Gallois had been lifting the cold sheet and looking at the scar on the knee.

  “And what did your surgeon think of this supposed wound?”

  Aumade came bustling round at once.

  “It is not a wound?”

  “If a bullet entered, or shrapnel, there is no trace of where it emerged. If it remained, there are no signs of an operation.”

  “The scar did not come within the scope of the surgeon’s instructions,” Aumade said, “which were primarily to ascertain the precise cause of death. I admit that he observed as a matter of interest that the hair had been dyed. However, I will see that he is informed.”

  He was courteously ushering them out. Then as they were passing one of the waiting-rooms there was a sound of voices in discussion. The Brassier family were already waiting, and apparently in some disagreement as to the evidence they were about to give. Aumade entered the room with a beam on his face and hand outstretched. Gallois and Travers moved on, while the examining magistrate gave in semi-public the friendly greeting that would be incompatible with his official aloofness.

  But back in his room he revealed a duplicity that highly recommended itself to Gallois. The Brassiers, he said, imagined they were coming in together, but he was having them singly.

  “I need not ask you to note their reactions to certain questions which, though not fully comprehensible to yourself, have nevertheless been most carefully framed. You will also understand later why it is Mme Brassier who will be coming in last.”

  Colonel Brassier entered, and to him, as later to the others, Aumade expressed regret for the trouble he was giving him, and thanks in anticipation for a co-operation with the law. He was a wizened, disillusioned-looking man in the late sixties.

  The details of his evidence do not matter, but the gist was this. He had been regretting for some time his too hasty friendliness with Letoque. He was almost certainly jealous of him, but on account of his popularity or for some personal reason to do with his wife or daughter was not clear. He had been fulsome in his introduction of Letoque to his circle of friends, and to retract now the flattering recommendations he had given would be to injure his own reputation. And he had one interesting revelation to make. Letoque, he said, claimed to have fought in the Argonne and, when pressed by the Colonel, who was insatiable in the matter of war details, said he had served with the 177th Infantry. But,the Colonel now said, information of his own had been available about the campaign in the Argonne, and the 177th Infantry had never been there.

  Aumade concluded with a list, which he asked the Colonel to verify, of the lady acquaintances of Letoque. Throughout, it should be said, the Colonel was most anxious to make clear that his wife was of the same opinion as himself. Aumade thanked him again and ushered him out by a different door from the one through which he had entered.

  Mlle Lucille Brassier came next. She was twenty-three, petite, modern and with manners distinctly affected. She announced that she liked Letoque enormously, and it was plain she would have liked to add, in spite of the opinion of her parents. Again Aumade recited the list of friends. And now he ventured to discuss whether any might have been an excellent partie for a bachelor like Letoque. One name was particularly prominent―that of a Mme Natalie Perthus, but Lucille was of the amused and even contemptuous opinion that Letoque could never have been enamoured of a frump like her. It was plain indeed that she would go on thinking that the only person of whom he might conceivably have been enamoured was herself.

  So much for the stepdaughter of Mme Brassier, but before she herself came in, Aumade had something to reveal. Mme Dubois, that shifty, intriguing housekeeper of Letoque’s, had stated in her evidence that on two occasions recently she had been suspicious when her employer had dismissed her for the afternoon, and once―by accident she claimed, though only too obviously by design―she had chanced to see Mme Brassier entering the Villa Sablons by the back door, and she had further found out that at the same time the Colonel and his daughter were at their bathing-hut on the beach.

  Mme Brassier, as has been indicated, was the Colonel’s second wife. She was a handsome woman of about forty; a brunette with superb eyes and, one would guess, very much of a temper. She was the first of the three to regard with interest and even disquiet the presence of the impassive Gallois and Travers.

  She had been perfectly indifferent to Letoque, she said, who had been a friend of very short standing. Aumade, with a special look across at the stenographer, asked if he might put a personal and highly confidential question. Had Letoque ever tried to make love to her?

  She drew herself up with a dignity. Was that not in the nature of an insult?

  Aumade smiled suavely.

  “But no, I assure you. Even to a woman of your honour and standing, it suggests a certain homage.”

  “I should not have regarded it as homage,” she said, but smiled nevertheless.

  “And if he had suggested any private visit to him,” Aumade went on blandly, “you would have rejected such an invitation with scorn.”

  “Undoubtedly!” She was looking the least bit uneasy. “Why discuss impossibilities which are also distasteful?”

  “Exactly,” said Aumade. “But among the ladies of his acquaintance were there any whose ideas were possibly different from your own?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “But I was not interested in his acquaintances.”

  “Then I will become more personal,” Aumade said patiently. “Our evidence shows he was decidedly interested in a certain widow―Mme Perthus.”

  She smiled with a very definite contempt.

  “But Mme Perthus is not the type to interest anybody.”

  Aumade leaned forward. “You mean, she is not prepossessing?”

  She shrugged her shoulders indifferently. “She h
as admittedly a good figure, but―” Another shrug of the shoulders summed up the rest.

  “Ah!” said Aumade as if he understood everything. “And just one other question. You are still positive you were on the veranda when you heard those sounds which might have been the shots?”

  “On the veranda, I swear it.” Travers and Gallois is exchanged glances at that unnecessary vehemence. “And I knew it was half-past three because in my lap I had the glasses which I mentioned to you.” She smiled sweetly as she once more explained about those. “From the veranda I could see the clock here and I could often make out my husband and Lucille on the beach.”

  Out went Mme Brassier, the thanks of Aumade in her ears. But no sooner had the door closed than his smile had gone.

  “Well, gentlemen, was she his mistress?”

  “Undoubtedly,” said Gallois. “One would almost say there is no need to look further for the assassin of Letoque. A crime of jealousy perhaps. But there is one question I should like to ask.Have you any more information about this Mme Perthus whose name has already occurred several times?”

  “She is a widow, belonging to the Brassier circle,” Aumade said. “All our information is that Letoque was on specially good terms with her.”

  He had pressed the buzzer and now he was speaking. Was there any confirmation about the interview with Mme Perthus? At once a consternation was coming into his tone, and he was asking for Fournal. No sooner had the receiver been replaced than Fournal was coming in. He gave a look of much surprise at the sight of Gallois and Travers.

  “What is this about Mme Perthus?” Aumade demanded.

  Fournal explained that he had proceeded to her house in order to ensure an interview for two o’clock that afternoon, and had found there was no one there at all. From a neighbouring villa he had ascertained that Mme Perthus had been seen to leave her house on the Tuesday afternoon, and the maid had, it was believed, been sent home on a holiday.

  “But,” said Fournal with a look of some importance, “I made it my business to discover the gardener, and from him I learned the address of the maid and her name. She is a Marthe Fouré who lives at St. Isare. I returned here therefore to arrange for a car.”