The Case of the Climbing Rat: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  “Action is necessary at once,” Aumade told him. He glanced at the clock and frowned for a moment in thought. “Inquire at once in the town about this disappearance of Mme Perthus and later perhaps this afternoon you can fetch the woman Fouré.”

  It was well past noon, but just as they were about to adjourn, in came Briant, the surgeon. Aumade, with whom he appeared to be something of a favourite, introduced him most flatteringly to the two. Gallois liked the look of him at once.

  “And the scar?” Aumade asked.

  Briant smiled. “It is probably a cut that happened in his youth. Perhaps he fell and tore his knee on some rocks.”

  “So much for that,” said Aumade. “It is only more evidence that he was a liar and a rogue.”

  After some brief talk, the four parted on the pavement outside the front door. Gallois had requested the pleasure of the company to dinner of both Aumade and the surgeon, but the latter was not free that night and so the dinner was postponed. As for the inquiry, Aumade said he was arranging that afternoon for a test at the Villa Sablons. It was his own opinion the shots could not have been heard from the veranda. After that he did not know what would be happening. Mme Perthus, as he put it, had been one of his trump cards, and now she was missing from the pack.

  “Well, is he Bariche?” was Travers’s first question as soon as the two had crossed the road.

  The smile of Gallois had never been more mournful.

  “As the great Shakespeare, says, everything that shines is not the real gold.”

  “Yes, but what further tests can we apply?”

  “That we do not know,” said Gallois, and his smile was, if possible, even more melancholy. “Nevertheless there is something that occurs to me. This morning we heard much about women. May we not then arrive at some connection with Rionne?”

  “But how?” asked Travers.

  “Was it not with a woman that Rionne was seen at Furolles?” Gallois reminded him.

  CHAPTER X

  A DISCOVERY

  CHARLES had been so famished after his morning on the beach that he had almost finished his lunch. The hotel was crowded, but Velot had reserved a special table for the three in a corner of the loggia.

  “A good appetite is a good sign,” said Travers in French. “You’re almost yourself again, Charles.”

  “You will pardon me,” said Gallois, “but he will talk in English when with ourselves. By my instruction he continues his studies since you saw him last,and here is an occasion that is admirable for practice. Also there may be times when we do not wish that others understand what it is that we say.”

  Charles caught the eye of Travers. Travers, older than Gallois, was still, as Charles had come to know, very much of a boy.

  “Well then, how are you coming along, Charles?” Travers asked flippantly.

  “I come along very well,” Charles told him, with a grin. “There is the—the buzz in the head, but very little now.”

  Gallois nodded benignantly.

  “A day or two and he will be able perhaps to assist in this business of Letoque.”

  “But what has this Letoque to do with Bariche? For my part I do not see a connection.”

  Gallois gave him a look of sad reproach.

  “It appears that this morning you do not rest. On the contrary you occupy yourself with reading the papers.”

  Charles grimaced. “It is necessary that one passes the time.”

  Gallois ignored him and turned to Travers. “This afternoon, we will spend on the beach, where I shall perhaps explain this new affair to those who have only read of it in newspapers.”

  But what he did discuss during lunch was Charles’s accident, which, since the Letoque–Bariche discoveries, had acquired in his eyes an even greater significance. Charles was frankly of the opinion of Travers, that the accident was precisely what it had seemed, and that a deliberate collision with his car would have required a timing and an ingenuity which the circumstances could not conceivably have allowed.

  Gallois shelved the subject, though far from abandoning his own opinion. After lunch deck–chairs were taken to the beach. It was not too crowded,and there was plenty to observe.

  “Lizou would have been an ideal spot for your convalescence, Charles,” Travers said. “I wouldn’t mind being ill there myself.”

  “Ah! The country, the mountains, the goodair,” said Gallois with a grand poetic flourish. “Above all, the quiet, the solitude, in which one can reflect and even create.”

  Charles once more caught the eye of Travers.

  “That is what I thought when I woke,” he said in his tentative English. “I ask myself where I am, because everywhere it is quiet. For a moment I tell myself I am dead, because there is no noise even of a moustique, but after I have the milk and take a little sleep for an hour I wake again and it is not so quiet―no! There is the noise of sheep and cows, and Gabrielle, she laughs and tells me it is the animals that traverse the road from the fair.”

  “I met some of them the same night,” Travers told him.

  Gallois was making a gesture of impatience.

  “The sounds of animals are not the noise which yon call them. They also are part of the country.” His lip curled. “There are ignorants who say that the chanting of birds is a noise. To them the town. The country should not encumber itself with such imbeciles. But now it is necessary that you rest. Listen, then, while I explain what has arrived concerning this Letoque, about whom you imagine doubtless you have read everything.”

  “Parlons français alors,” Charles told him with a grimace. ”Je suis au bout de mon latin.”

  Travers lay back in his chair and soon the two voices were a peaceful drone that was lulling him to sleep. Then out of the corner of his eye he saw in the distance his old acquaintance the photographer, but as he came nearer, he could see it was not the same one. Then he had an idea.

  “I think I’ll go along and fetch those photographs,” he told Gallois.

  Gallois paused in his explanation.

  “Obtain also one for this Charles, at my expense. Perhaps one could also arrange that he photographs the three of us, which would be an admirable souvenir for our friends at Lizou.”

  So through the heat of the afternoon, Travers made his way to the Rue des Alpes and was soon aware of the bay window, which had in it hundreds of photographs. When he walked into the shop, M. Lebrun was busy behind the counter. He smiled at the sight of Travers.

  “Good afternoon, sir.”

  “So you are English,” Travers said.

  “You guessed it then, sir?”

  “Yes and no,” Travers told him. “What part of England do you come from? London?”

  “You’ve got it first time, sir. Born in Lewisham, and lived there all my life.”

  Travers was shaking his head and smiling.

  “The funny thing is, you know, you look the absolute perfect figure of a Frenchman. And what about the Jaques Lebrun part of it?”

  “Well, it’s like this, sir. You’re not in a hurry by the way? Then we’ll go in there. We shall hear the bell if it goes.”

  They went through to a beautifully fitted studio, where special photographs could be taken if required. Travers took an easy-chair and accepted a cigarette.

  “As a matter of fact, sir, my name’s Brown—Jack Brown—and I took this French moniker by arrangement. It’s like this. My old dad was a photographer, and I went to not a bad sort of school, and as soon as I left I started to help him in the business. Then the war came and I served the last couple of years and ended up on the Rhine. I met a nice little French girl there and married her and took her home with me.

  “Then the bottom fell out of the photographic business and we had a pretty tough time scraping along. Then the old dad died and I took over the business, but it wasn’t anything much to shout about even then. Then this quick-fire photo business came over from America, and another chap and I tried it out at Brighton and didn’t do so badly. Just as we were going str
ong along came the depression, so my wife said why shouldn’t we come along here to her mother. I spoke French pretty well by then, with what I’d learned at school and what I’d picked up from her, and she reckoned that if we came down here we’d make a packet.”

  He smiled. “We didn’t for a bit, then things picked up, and now we can’t grumble. I run another outdoor man and there’re a couple of girls working upstairs.”

  “And now you actually live in Carliens?”

  “Most of the year,” he said. “We come over in January and stay till September. Then we go back to London where my old mother’s still alive.”

  “Well, jolly good luck to you,” said Travers. “As soon as I saw that business card of yours I knew you’d get on.”

  The bell went, but within a minute or two he was back. Things were always slack in the afternoons, he said. The busiest time was just before lunch and between tea and dinner.

  “I expect you’ve snapped some famous people in your time,” Travers said.

  He quoted a whole string of them. Of most of the French names Travers was perfectly ignorant.

  “And you’ve had some funny experiences I expect?”

  “I have that, sir. I had one only the other day, as a matter of fact.” He was frowning in a curiously amused kind of way as he went over to a drawer. “I thought I’d be clever and do some business at that circus which was here the other day.”

  “I saw it at Furolles,” Travers said. “It opened here the same day as I arrived.”

  “Well, I went along there on the Tuesday morning early. There wasn’t anybody at the entrance gate so in I walked. The first one I saw was a young fellow coming my way, and before he could say Jack Robinson I had him, and was giving him my card. Mad? You never saw any one so mad in your life! He spat like a cat and I thought he was going to lay hands on me, and then when he started hollering to a couple of tough-looking blokes and they came running, I started to run first. I don’t mind telling you, sir, they didn’t see me for dust, and I was behind that mimosa hedge before they knew I’d gone. And then what do you think happened? He came here and asked if I’d actually taken his photograph. I told him I never developed any films which I knew weren’t likely to sell. Then he asked if he could buy the film, so I gave it to him to pacify him. I didn’t want any trouble with him, though, mind you, he was as different as chalk is from cheese. Butter wouldn’t have melted in his mouth. And who do you think he was, sir?”

  “Don’t know,” said Travers.

  “Jules Helmont, that trapeze artist of theirs.”

  “Really? And how did you find out?”

  “I’ve got ways and means,” he said. “It was him all right. Have a look at that, sir. Quite a nice-looking fellow, isn’t he? Some say he’s the son of some big French bug or other, born the wrong side of the blanket.”

  “But you said you hadn’t developed the film.”

  “You bet your life I developed the film,” he said.

  Travers polished his glasses and had a good look as it. Then he took it to the window and looked at it again.

  “A good-looking fellow, as you say. And what did you actually make of him? I mean what kind of man was he?”

  “Oh, he was a gentleman all right, sir, though you wouldn’t have guessed it from the sort of job he’s doing.”

  “All work is honourable,” Travers told him, and then rather blushed for the sententiousness. “And I suppose if the truth were known he makes as much money a year as either of us.”

  Then he was getting to his feet. It was much later than he thought, he said, and he would have to be going. As for the third enlargement, he would call for it in a day or so and pay for it with the other two.

  Travers got back to the beach to find Charles apparently having a nap and Gallois sitting in profound thought. While he had been going over the case with Charles, he said, new ideas had occurred, and at once he began imparting them to Travers.

  “You still wonder perhaps why I refuse to believe that this Letoque is also Bariche, but if I were to believe too soon, and I was wrong, then it would be the tragedy of my life. Also, once more it seems to me that there are instincts which are more important than facts. For example. We assume for a moment that Letoque is Bariche. The history of Bariche is that he is a swindler and a murderer. To kill is essential. It is part of his metier—what you call his business. But Letoque is not the murderer. Letoque is a person who is murdered! There is, I think, a difference which demands that we stop and think.”

  “Yes,” said Travers warily.

  “If Letoque is Bariche, why is it that Bariche is killed? At once we are requiring a motive, which is also something new.”

  “I agree to all that,” Travers said. “You come down here to discuss perhaps some crime that Bariche had committed or was about to commit, instead of which you find it is Bariche himself who has been killed.”

  Gallois nodded affably.

  “And something else. In a case that has a real importance one is confronted with many clues. But—and it is without doubt the experience of yourself—there is always the clue which has an importance that is supreme. It is the key that unlocks everything. At the moment of your arrival I am demanding of myself if I have in my hands this key, and whether I do not know it.”

  “I agree,” said Travers and smiled dryly. “Unfortunately that kind of key is always the hardest to find.”

  “Nevertheless, there are things which occur to me,” Gallois said gently. “This woman in the hat of black with the white decoration, who was with Rionne at Furolles. It is not impossible that she is Mme Brassier or the Mme Perthus who disappears, and of whom Mme Brassier is so scornful and so jealous.”

  “You suspect a crime passionel?”

  “I suspect everything,” Gallois said sadly.

  Travers was hooking off his glasses.

  “Talking of this Mme Perthus, I suppose she cannot already be a victim of Bariche?” Then he smiled feebly. “But of course not. He couldn’t have had time to lay hands on her money. But couldn’t you find out from her bank whether, for instance, she had realized any securities? That would not only be an indication as to whether she was in the clutches of Letoque, but a real proof that Letoque was Bariche.”

  Gallois was making a note in his note-book. As soon as possible, he said, it should be done.

  “And what of the man who gave to Mme Dubois the free ticket for the circus?”

  It was Charles who had spoken. He had been shamming sleep, while he was putting his English words in order. “If he arranges that Letoque should be alone in the Villa that afternoon, why is it not he who kills him?”

  “So you do not rest,” Gallois told him. “You excite your brain with theories.”

  “But talking of this man,” Travers cut in. “Surely he is a vital factor?”

  “Undoubtedly,” Charles said. “He is one, for instance, with whom I should like very much to talk.”

  “In this world, there are many things that one would like,” Gallois said with a quiet irony. Then suddenly he paused and the large gentle eyes were turned on Travers. “There is something which you discover?”

  “Yes,” said Travers, and at once was telling the story of the photographer. Charles made no more pretence of sleep. He sat up and swivelled round in his chair.

  “And so this Jules Helmont does not desire to be photographed,” was the comment of Gallois. “There is perhaps a truth in the rumours that make of him a man of mystery.”

  “But wait a minute,” Travers said. “I believe when we were coming back from Lizou on that little trip of ours, I pointed out where a young man had taken the wrong road. That man was Jules Helmont. I recognized him from the photograph.”

  Gallois was trying to be interested, but still did not see the point.

  “Think it out for yourself,” Travers said patiently. “Just before five o’clock on Monday afternoon last he was at that fork. You were at the circus. Was he at the circus?”

  “But yes.
I saw him myself.”

  Travers was slowly shaking his head. “Was it Jules Helmont that you saw?”

  Gallois stared. “You mean that there was what you call a―a substitute?”

  “Yes. An understudy. And if you remember, Auguste would not climb the rope to a master who was not there. But in the evening, according to the guest at the Hôtel de France who had been there, Auguste performed normally, and therefore the actual Jules Helmont was back again.”

  The lean fingers of Gallois were feeling the air. “It is this Jules Helmont who gave the ticket to Mme Dubois?”

  Travers shrugged his shoulders.

  “That may be going too far ahead. Also at the moment, if I were you, I would not show Mme Dubois the photograph. Later we may be able to let her see Jules Helmont himself. But there is another mystery. Auguste, if you remember, was supposed in the afternoon to be sick. In the evening he had recovered. Nevertheless the next day he was dead!”

  “Yes,” said Gallois. “There were to be no more contretemps like those that I saw at the circus, and therefore he was killed—ce pauvre Auguste!”

  “That’s how I see things myself,” Travers said. “But may I suggest something? Why should I not go to-morrow morning to Cannes, or wherever the circus is, and make a few inquiries? Better still, why should not Charles go with me?”

  “Charles? But it is impossible. The express orders were that he should rest. One does not go to Cannes with stitches in one’s head.”

  Travers smiled dryly. “I would not take him to Cannes if the stitches were not in his head. But there will be no excitement I assure you. And think. You yourself ought not to leave Carliens at the moment, and at Cannes Helmont will recognize me if he sees me. But nobody connected with the circus has ever seen Charles.”

  “The night brings counsel,” pronounced Gallois, and already it seemed that he was somewhat yielding.

  Travers caught the eye of Charles. He,at least, appeared to be having no doubts that the morning would find him on the road to Cannes.