The Case of the Climbing Rat: A Ludovic Travers Mystery
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“But you know how it is. At every moment I’ve been expecting the papers to turn up again, and so it got put off and put off. All the same, I’m prepared to answer any questions whatever which you care to put to me.”
Gallois with an extreme deliberation wrote in his note-book that Jules Nevers, professional name Helmont, aged thirty-four, had been born at Lille of French parents, and then to the enormous surprise of Travers he was stating that the interview was at an end. There did follow a warning, however. In the morning Helmont must be prepared to accompany the police to interview those witnesses whom he had promised to secure. In the meantime, Gallois reminded him that the arm of the law was very long. A word of thanks to Pertini and he was making his way down the caravan steps.
“That story of his seems remarkably unconvincing to me,” said Travers as soon as they were out of earshot. “Are you sure he won’t try to get away?”
Gallois smiled with a confidence that was almost complacent, but Travers was still far from being convinced. The methods of Gallois, though doubtless not without purpose, seemed for once careless to the point of danger.
“And that story about his papers. Didn’t that seem a bit extraordinary to you?”
“If he produces the witnesses, then the papers are unnecessary,” Gallois said. “You and I are not clerks and officials who make miserable the lives of people with their documents. We desire the assassin of Letoque, not papers of identification.”
Just short of the exit he paused for a moment and took a quick look round.
“And now, my friend, there is something it is necessary to do. Discover at the telephone bureau where this call comes from that arrives just now for M. Helmont. In ten minutes I join you there, and then perhaps there are things which may happen.”
CHAPTER XV
THE ANTICLIMAX
ONE thing Travers had not mentioned to Gallois. He also, now he had seen Helmont again in the flesh, was convinced that somewhere or other he had run up against him in some place far removed from the cross-roads on that Monday afternoon of the murder of Rionne. Indeed he might have been worrying his wits in an effort to solve that minor mystery had not the major mystery of the queer conduct of Gallois superimposed itself.
For the conduct of Gallois in that brief inquiry had certainly been inexplicable. Never had an interrogation been more mild and informal. It had been, in fact, like a fond parent reluctantly reprimanding a delinquent son. No cross-examination, no threats of confrontation with Mme Dubois, no demanding an alibi for that vital time when the circus ticket had actually been given—nothing, in fact, but a calm and almost grateful acceptance of each lame and unsupported statement.
And then Travers paused in the act of pushing the starter of his car, and his fingers went to his glasses instead. There were those last words of Gallois that things were shortly about to happen. His conduct, then, had been premeditated guile, and he was contemplating some coup. Then what was the new information he had secured and the facts he had deduced? Travers shook his head. Something there certainly was, and it was something which Gallois obviously thought Travers had seen for himself, and as he drove slowly back to town, Travers was puzzling his wits to find what that something was and achieving nothing at all.
Perhaps he might have been even more puzzled if he had been with Gallois at that moment. It was to the box office of the circus which was outside the main entrance that Gallois made his way. He noted the telephone wire, undoubtedly rigged up by local engineers so that patrons in the town could book their seats. The woman who sat in the bureau informed him that such arrangements were made at every town of consequence.
“This M. Helmont is a man of a suspicious mind,” Gallois remarked with his sad romantic smile.
She gave a quick interrogative look.
“When he was speaking on the telephone just now didn’t he ask you to go out for a moment or two?”
“You saw him then?” she said.
Gallois smiled apologetically. “I am naturally a curious individual,” he said. “Not that it matters about M. Helmont, and I don’t really know why I mentioned it. Perhaps it was because I wished to continue speaking to yourself.”
A minute or two and he was making his leisurely way to the road. Once out of sight of the bureau he strode on at speed. Then he was lucky enough to find a taxi and in a couple of minutes was at the main post office. From there he rang the Sûreté, and when at last he arrived at telephone headquarters Travers had been waiting for some minutes. He also had news. The telephone message had come from Gevrol.
Gallois seemed pleased, yet disappointed.
“Then the story of this Helmont agrees,” he said. “There are mountains at Gevrol, and there, at a café perhaps, or a garage, he doubtless sees those who are to be witnesses for his alibi. Also it was on the way to Gevrol that, you saw him that Monday afternoon.”
“And what do we do now?” asked Travers and felt as if the bottom had rather fallen out of things.
“Now we return to Carliens,” Gallois said. “We do not wish a second accident or stitches in the skull like those of Charles, but it seems to me that we should go to Carliens with speed. For my part, I shall not distract your attention with words, and I have what you call the nerve. Drive fast then, my friend.”
So Gallois withdrew into his thoughts. Travers concentrated on the car, and while he took no chances he drove as fast as he had ever driven. Just short of Carliens, Gallois was asking for the car to be slowed up.
“Perhaps it would be best if we do not go direct to Gevrol,” he said. “First we go to the hotel where perhaps you will have the goodness to obtain quickly a cold meal and a bottle which we will take with us. And request the confidence of M. Velot that Charles is not informed. For me, it will be necessary to borrow, if possible, from M. Velot a pair of glasses.”
Charles was back from Lizou and having lunch, and while Velot was cleaning the field-glasses Gallois had a word with him. The stitches had been removed, but he thought both the doctor and Gabrielle had been hurt at the news that the three had been so near all the time, and yet had never even troubled to telephone.
“Then you did not make our excuses, as I asked,” said Gallois annoyedly.
“But I did,” Charles told him. “I told them all about the murder and how M. Aumade insisted on your help. I said you would have accompanied me this morning, if you had not had to go to Nice on the same business.”
“There was no necessity to tell the whole world about the inquiries,” Gallois said, with what Charles rightly considered an unreasonableness. “It isn’t a topic that one discusses with friends.”
“But why shouldn’t I discuss it?” demanded Charles, hands already vibrating impatiently. “Even if you do not know it yourself, I assure you that the Debrans are people of discretion and they are my friends, and as a matter of fact they were very interested in everything.”
Never had the smile of Gallois been so tender and disarming. His hand fell and gently patted the head of Charles.
“Pardon. It is you who are right and I who am wrong. Now I will leave you to get on with your lunch. M. Travers and I have one little matter of business to conclude.”
“You’re going to the Hôtel de Ville?” Charles asked. “M. Aumade seemed to think it was rather urgent.”
Travers, already waiting at the car, explained that allusion to the Hôtel de Ville and Aumade, for Velot had told him that Fournal had been round twice that morning with an urgent message. Apparently there had been new developments. But Gallois was dismissing Aumade with a gesture of indifference, and no sooner was he in the car than he was once more requesting speed. As the Rolls climbed steadily up from the town he began to explain. Helmont would be off to Gevrol to find those witnesses, but it was just as well to be there before him and keep him under observation. If an alibi was in the process of being manufactured then in the morning Helmont would receive a very great surprise.
As far as Gallois was concerned there was one annoying ep
isode as they drew near Lizou. Three cows suddenly emerged from the road that turned from Cannes into their own road and the car had to pull up dead. The road was narrow and the man who drove the cows was either deaf or obstinate, for he made little effort to keep the animals to one side, and it was only with difficulty that at last the car edged through. Gallois was looking impatiently back for fear that Helmont’s car should come into sight.
“Well,” said Travers cheerfully when at last they were through, “there is one consolation. If Helmont is close behind us, those cows are going to hold him up now, so that we haven’t really lost anything.” Then he was chuckling. “Charles would have been amused; he seems to have a perfect horror of animals nowadays. We passed a couple of cows on the road to Cannes the other day and he said he’d never hear a cow moo again without thinking he was still in bed and his cars buzzing.”
“Slowly now, if you please,” Gallois was saying. “It might perhaps be better if we did not go all the way to Gevrol.”
Just as they were entering the tiny town, his hand went out and he was indicating a narrow lane that ran down to a little farm. Travers drew the car in and reversed in order to be able to move off again at once. The farmer appeared and Gallois asked permission for the car to remain there for a few minutes. Then, carrying the lunch, he set off down the meadow that fell steeply to the valley bottom. Then he turned right till the little stream narrowed and he could jump across. There was a straggly grove of olives that made shelter and shade and when he had climbed for a minute or two he looked across the valley through his glasses, then passed them to Travers and suggested lunch.
From where they sat, as Travers could see, the road out of Lizou was plainly visible, bends and all, and there was something he thought he recognized. Gallois had another look through the glasses and confirmed that it was the house of the Debrans. Just along to the left was the little cottage of the cantonnier, and through the glasses one could see the very gap in the brick wall through which Charles’s car had toppled after the accident.
The two began their lunch with an eye always on the road. Travers knew that Gallois must have stayed behind that morning at the circus to familiarize himself with the car that Helmont would use, for when a car did pass from the direction of Lizou, a quick look through the glasses was enough to satisfy him that their own man had not yet appeared. Lunch was over, a cigarette had been smoked and then another, and it was after two o’clock when something happened.
Travers had been daydreaming for a moment, but was suddenly aware that Gallois was looking through the glasses across the valley. He seemed to have seen something himself, and then he knew he had been deceived, for when he looked along the road towards Gevrol there was never a car moving. But Gallois must have seen something unusual, for he was getting to his feet.
“You’ve seen him?” Travers said.
“I think so.”
With no more words he was making his way down from the olives. The little stream was crossed again and then he was not making for the farm and the car, but straight across the valley. From the bottom the road had been hidden, and as they drew near to the opposite slope he was motioning Travers back and crawling up on hands and knees and taking a precautionary peep. Then still keeping out of sight of the road, he moved on some distance to the right, and when at last they came through the broken-down wall they were half-way between the doctor’s house and the scene of Charles’s accident.
With never a word Gallois turned towards the village. Just short of the wall that formed the boundary for the garden of the doctor’s house, he halted and motioned for Travers to look.
“There’s a car there,” Travers said. “It’s Helmont’s car! What on earth’s he doing there?”
Gallois frowned and his own voice lowered.
“That is something I also wish to discover,” he said. “You, my friend, remain here and observe the car. If Helmont appears, then you call loudly to him and you stop him. If he escapes without the car then you follow and you call all the time to attract help.”
At once he was moving on. His feet made no sound on the grass, and he was keeping to the screening shelter of the trees. Travers, peering cautiously round, saw him make a quick movement towards the door and heard the sound of his knock.
Ten minutes went by, and Travers’s heart, which had been beating so violently, was now almost normal. Then all at once Gallois appeared and was calling to him from the porch. Travers went down the path and it seemed that Gallois himself was in charge of the house, for there was no one else at the door.
“Come in,” Gallois said. “There are explanations which are delayed until you arrive.”
He led the way into the dining-room. The doctor was there and Gabrielle, and seated apart in an attitude of some dejection was Helmont. It was at Gabrielle that Travers ventured first to look and it was her eyes that fell.
“M. Travers and I have been wrong,” Gallois said. “But as I explained to you it was not altogether our own fault. When you are the servants of the law, as we are, you have to obey orders, and if your brother persists in acting as though he has something to conceal, he mustn’t grumble if he throws suspicion on himself.”
Travers already knew. Until that day at the fork he had never clapped eyes on Helmont, but he had seen Gabrielle and she had remained as a near and most charming memory, and now between the brother and the sister he was seeing again the overwhelming likeness.
“My apologies,” Travers said lamely. “I feel I have repaid very badly all your kindnesses.”
“No, no!” Debran said hastily. “As M. Gallois has said, the fault is entirely our own.”
“Nevertheless,” said Gallois, “there is one matter in which I do most earnestly ask for the corroboration of M. Travers. He will assure you, as I did, that Charles arrived here this morning with no thought but friendliness and gratitude. He, at the moment, is not concerned with the police. It was not till we actually saw your brother this morning that we noticed the remarkable likeness to yourselves. Then your brother said he had been with friends near Gevrol and M. Travers recalled that he had seen your brother one afternoon in his car and he had asked the way to Lizou. That is why we came here to inquire, and the first thing we saw was your brother’s car, which M. Travers recognized.”
“I assure you there is no need for apologies,” the doctor said. “As for Charles, it is impossible that he should ever act with duplicity. We always knew he came here this morning in good faith. And now will you permit me to explain?”
The story was simple and lucid. Jules Debran was a gymnast of superb agility with a post at the army training-school at Nancy. Then he received an offer from someone who wished to turn his talents to account, and the offer was so lucrative that he abandoned his army career and formed the Helmont Troupe. This his family naturally considered a disgrace. Their father had been an army surgeon of considerable repute—Gallois himself had heard of him and knew at least one of his books—and Jules was warned that if he persisted in adopting the new career he would cease to be a member of his family.
Then the Grand Cirque Pertini arrived at Carliens, and Jules at once had a kind of homesickness and a longing to see Gabrielle. He did see her on that Monday afternoon when Rionne was stabbed and he found her alone. But the doctor came back unexpectedly from Gevrol and caught him there. There was a scene, but thanks to Gabrielle it ended in reconciliation. As soon as the present contract expired Jules was abandoning his career, but during the short stay of the circus at Carliens he left his work to his understudy and saw as much of his brother and sister as possible. The reason why he had lied that morning was that the main thing he wished was for it not to be known that the brother of Dr. Debran and Gabrielle was a performer in a circus.
Then that morning, Charles, in that very room, had told the doctor and Gabrielle, in all good faith and in strict confidence, about the inquiries Gallois and Travers were making. And he had chanced to add that a trapezist at the circus was under suspicion.
“It was I who rang,” Gabrielle said. “I went specially to Gertol so that Jules should not think we were incriminating him in any way. I implored him to tell us what it was he had been doing and to explain. He assured me that he had done nothing, but I made him promise to come here at once.”
“It is I who have caused all this disturbance and worry,” Jules said humbly. “As for the alibi about which you were inquiring this morning, it must have been someone who was either blind or mad who said I was seen in Carliens that Wednesday afternoon.”
“He was here, as we have told you,” Gabrielle said.
“It is of no consequence,” began Gallois. “I assure you—”
“Even Charles himself knew he was here,” Debran said.
“I do not know,” Jules pointed out. “I saw him, but he didn’t see me. Gabrielle called to me when he awoke, because she thought you were asleep and she didn’t want to disturb you, but you woke and told me to stay where I was. You remember, when you were putting on your dressing-gown just before you went in.”
As Travers and Gallois returned to Carliens each was uneasy and somehow ashamed. It was not because a mistake had been made, as Gallois said, for the very mistake had arisen out of a series of acute deductions of which he was very far from being ashamed. But what the two could not rid themselves of was the feeling that there had been left in the house of the Debrans something of under-handedness. Kindness and hospitality had been ill repaid and in spite of all protestations to the contrary, there had been a difference and even something of pain in the eyes of both Gabrielle and the doctor. All the old warmth of feeling had been swept away in one unlucky moment; something fine had been tarnished and could never be the same again. From Debran and Gabrielle there might be a welcome—innate courtesy would ensure that—and yet both Gallois and Travers knew that never could they set foot in Lizou again.