The Case of the Climbing Rat: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  At the hotel Velot had a message. Once more M. Aumade had sent word that he would be grateful for the presence of Gallois and Travers. Ten minutes later, the two were on their way to the Hôtel de Ville.

  CHAPTER XVI

  AUMADE CONCLUDES

  WHAT Aumade had to say was promising enough for a final solution of the mystery. Unknown to any one, a man had been searching the vicinity of the Villa Sablons and at last he had discovered the gun. It had been rushed to Toulon, and tests had proved it was the same gun that had been used by the murderer of Letoque. When he escaped through the back of the house, the murderer had undoubtedly hidden it under the pine needles at the foot of the tree, where it had been found. It was a Mark 27—short barrel—issue of which had ceased in 1926.

  “Colonel Brassier might possibly have been issued with such a revolver,” Aumade said, and there was something questioning in his tone.

  “He owned a revolver?” asked Gallois.

  “Ah!” said Aumade, and pounced on the question at once. “Listen to what happened. I decided to act warily and invited the Colonel here for an informal talk on revolvers, and in the meanwhile I arranged that Mme Brassier should be interrogated at her house. She admitted there had been an affair with Letoque and his passion had cooled, and that Wednesday afternoon she had determined to see him. She knew where her husband’s revolver was kept, but when she went to get it, it was gone. What she had wanted it for was not to shoot Letoque. What she was going to do was to threaten suicide in his presence; to induce him in fact to begin the affair all over again! But, as she said, the revolver was not there, though that was not the reason why she kept in her own garden, and went no farther than the gap in the hedge. This was the reason: From the glasses she saw that her husband was not with his daughter on the beach.”

  The eyes of Gallois narrowed.

  “Yes,” he said. “And she knew of his jealousy.”

  “Undoubtedly,” said Aumade. “But wait a minute. We did not interrogate the daughter for fear of arousing too much suspicion, but Mine Brassier said she had questioned her carefully herself as soon as she suspected it was her husband who had done the murder. She even accused her husband of the murder and he swore he had been all the time on the beach with Lucille.

  “But as she triumphantly and doubtless venomously assured him, Lucille had already admitted that no sooner had she arrived with her father on the beach than he was saying that there was something he had forgotten and she might sunbathe perhaps till he came back. In fact,” said Aumade, “my opinion is that Mme Brassier has him absolutely in her clutches and was threatening she would come to us and tell all she knew.”

  “And what did Brassier say?” asked Travers.

  “Ah!” said Aumade. “I lengthened out this informal talk I was having about revolvers, in the course of which, by the way, the Colonel admitted he had a revolver himself though it had been lost for some weeks. He suspected a theft by some workmen who had been in the house. Then as soon as word came through to me here of the information that had just been obtained from his wife, I changed my tone.”

  He paused to give a smile of a man who has pulled off an exceedingly lucky deal.

  “Naturally I requested explanations. His statements were too conflicting to be reconciled. Mind you, I did not mention the source of my information and I also admit that I tried a bluff. I said I could prove he was not on the beach, and furthermore that he had been seen in the vicinity of the Villa Sablons just before the shots. I requested an immediate confession.”

  He was shaking his head and the story was left like that, in the air.

  “But the good Colonel decided to say nothing?” asked Gallois dryly.

  “Admitted. He took refuge in silence. I said to him, ’Colonel Brassier, you are a man of honour and you prefer to say nothing which would damage the good name of yourself and your family. Very well then, go back to your house, but be prepared at any moment to be recalled here and to admit the truth. If not, I shall have no compunction whatever in ordering your immediate arrest, which will call down on your head the very scandal you wish to avoid.’ Then he went and naturally I took steps to keep his house under close observation.”

  “And now you are about to interrogate him in earnest,” said Gallois.

  “Precisely,” said Aumade, and was making for the desk, but as his fingers went out there was the sound of the buzzer. He took up the receiver and his eyes were goggling at once.

  “Mon dieu—non!”

  Against the background of the blurred voice that spoke, there were grunting from Aumade and quick gestures of impatience. A moment and the receiver was thrust back in place. Aumade got to his feet and there was tragedy in his tone.

  “Gentlemen, the affair is over. This Brassier has shot himself!”

  A superb dramatic gesture and then without comment he was making for the door. The two must have been supposed to follow, for he stopped abruptly and ushered them through. A car was waiting and the three got in. Not a word was said till the Villa Sablons was neared, for Gallois had no wish to intrude on the disappointment and chagrin of Aumade. Then it was Aumade himself who spoke.

  “It was not Fournal but myself who was the fool,” he said. “I wished to be clever and finish everything at once, and now see what has happened.”

  The car was stopping and Fournal himself was waiting outside the Villa Sablons. With no more than a salute he led the way round to the back and up the rough steps to the path behind, and beyond it to the wood. Fifty yards up the slope there was an old stone wall, and by it lay the body of Brassier, a gun in his hand.

  “And now, what happened?” demanded Aumade.

  Fournal said that according to instructions he and his two men had watched the house, both back and front. There had been the sound of violent voices and half an hour previously Mme Brassier had left the house by the front gate carrying a small bag, as if she were going away. Fournal sent one of his men to follow her, but she went no farther than the Hôtel Mirande where she was at that moment. Shortly afterwards Colonel Brassier suddenly appeared at the back of the house and Fournal kept him under observation. He strode up and down like a man in the depth of despair, then all at once was striding away up the slope.

  “What I thought,” said Fournal, “was that he was not aware that we had removed the gun and was going to get it, but he didn’t go that way at all. He went this way and before I could get here there was a sound of a shot and—voilà!”

  “He knew the gun had been removed,” Aumade said exasperatedly. “He must have deduced the fact to-day, even if he didn’t find out days ago.”

  “Then he had two guns,” said Fournal.

  “You make your deductions too late,” Aumade told him bitterly. “Obviously he had two guns and with this one he shot himself. But it was his wife who killed him. Even if he had not been guilty of the death of Letoque, her evidence would have been enough. She would have told any lies to send him to the guillotine, and he knew it.”

  There followed a quick reconstruction of the events of that fatal Wednesday afternoon. Brassier had guessed from his wife’s manner that she was intending to visit Letoque, and he planned accordingly. He intended to enter the Villa Sablons and confront the guilty pair, but he found Letoque alone. There was a brief but violent scene. Brassier threatened Letoque with the gun and Letoque was killed. Out went Brassier by the back way and his wife just caught a glimpse of him. He paused only to conceal the gun, then made a rapid way back to the beach where doubtless he exhibited to his daughter whatever it was he had been to fetch.

  The affaire Letoque was over. The thanks of M. Aumade had been uttered once more, the compliments exchanged and the farewells said. Travers and Gallois were making a slow way back to the hotel.

  “What is it that amuses you?” Gallois asked suddenly, and he was looking somewhat amused himself.

  “The whole thing is so grotesque", Travers told him. “It is absurd the case ending like this. You’re surely not satisfied,
are you?”

  “On the contrary,” Gallois told him blandly. “I am satisfied and M. Aumade is satisfied and the whole world will be satisfied. M. Aumade returns with a good conscience to his vines from which he tore himself with much difficulty, and I return to Paris with the dossier of Bariche, which, by the morning, will be completed.”

  Travers smiled “Splendid. The only person who isn’t satisfied seems to be me. But honestly, mon ami, and strictly between ourselves, aren’t there also a lot of things that are not so satisfying? By the wall was lying a stone that came out of the hole where Brassier had hidden the gun with which he shot himself. He didn’t know anything about the other gun, but went to get the one he had hidden there and he shot himself because he thought his wife had given the actual one that did the killing to the police, and he knew he’d never prove it wasn’t he who had shot Letoque.”

  “Brassier was an imbecile,” Gallois said. “It was the brains of his wife he should have blown out and not his own.”

  “Maybe,” said Travers. “But I am absolutely positive he didn’t kill Letoque.”

  “Gently, my friend,” said Gallois with a humorous reproof. “What a tragedy if a promenader should overhear and repeat to our good Aumade something that might even keep him from his vines.” His face straightened somewhat. “And you think that that afternoon Brassier knew Letoque was dead?”

  Again Travers was smiling. “I think precisely the same as you do. Brassier had heard the sounds and he went to investigate and found Letoque dead. At once he hid his own gun in the stone wall and was making for the beach again as hard as he could go.”

  “But if Brassier was not the murderer, why did he not see the real murderer depart?”

  “Perhaps he did, from a distance,” Travers said. “And he thought it was Mme Brassier. Perhaps therefore he did not actually hear the shots, but only saw someone leave the villa, and he took that someone for his wife. At once he went in to confront Letoque and found him dead.”

  Then it was Gallois who was smiling. “My friend, let us not concern ourselves with these problems. They are, as I say, for the excellent Aumade.”

  They were passing a café and he was taking Travers by the arm and directing him to a chair.

  “You and I,” he said, “will drink to the termination of this affair. By the morning I shall possess some more information for the convincing of certain people that the affaire of Auteuil was not all that they regarded it. We drink also to M. Aumade, who will never know that he has occupied himself not with the affaire Letoque, but the affaire Bariche. For the last thing these certain gentlemen in Paris will do is to acknowledge to the world that they were wrong. And we will drink to ourselves, also, for to-morrow at this time I shall be in the train for Paris.”

  “But we shall be meeting again there later,” Travers reminded him.

  He drank the toast nevertheless and then Gallois was saying something which he did rather hope to hear.

  “There is perhaps a regret that the affair does not end itself with a perfection, even though it is not the concern of ourselves to announce the things which M. Aumade fails to observe. There is, for example, the problem of that man who gave to Mme Dubois the circus ticket.” His lip drooped. “But doubtless if we mention the matter to our good Aumade, he will prefer to regard this giver of free tickets as an agent of Colonel Brassier, employed to ensure that Mme Brassier should compromise herself at the right moment.”

  “Yes,” said Travers. “But the really difficult problem to my mind is still this, X gave Mme Dubois the circus ticket to get her out of the house. X was not Brassier, that’s certain, though Aumade might claim that he was employed by Brassier as part of a trap to catch his wife in flagrante delictobut the fact remains that Letoque himself made all this superfluous by giving Mme Dubois a holiday,and that not to see Mme Perthus, because he hadn’t the faintest idea where she was. Nor was it to see Mme Brassier, because he had no plans arranged with her and that particular passion had cooled off. Then who was Letoque expecting at the Villa Sablons? Was it X or was it some person we have never even heard of?”

  Gallois leaned across the table and patted him on the shoulder.

  “My friend, if it had been you and I in charge of this affair we should not have been satisfied with a solution so facile and which arrives at so fortunate a moment for our friend Aumade. Nevertheless I am at your service. If you insist, we remain here a day or two, unknown to Aumade, and we will try to find the answer to the questions which you have so admirably put,”

  “Heavens, no!” said Travers. “I’m not prepared to be that kind of a nuisance, and I do see your point of view. You’ve achieved an ambition and I’m twenty times more pleased about it than if it was something I’d done myself.” He shook his head. “No. The fact is I have a far too tidy mind that hates loose ends and—well, that’s sometimes my misfortune.”

  “But no,” protested Gallois. “It is this tidy mind than makes you the superb artist that you are.”

  Travers smiled.

  “Nonsense, my dear fellow, nonsense. But I also should tell you that I have some very undetective-like prejudices. I am quite satisfied to call the case over, and for this reason. You remember the little argument with Charles the other day? I didn’t support him against you, but I’ll own up to you now that I was very much on his side. I’d hate to see any one guillotined for the sake of Bariche. Whoever killed him did something that was very long overdue.”

  Gallois smiled a grave reproof.

  “Among friends it is always good that there should be confidences, and I also will make a confession. For me there is the shame that here in my heart I know that this Brassier is not the assassin of Bariche. It is necessary that to-morrow I go to Paris. Nevertheless, even now, if there comes to me an idea which seems to arrive at this assassin, I am Gallois and I remain.”

  He was getting to his feet and his mournful eyes had in them an enormous affection.

  “You forgive, perhaps, what I say? There are all types, as one says, that make a world. You, my friend, are this and I am that. But it is enough that together as collaborators there is nothing which we cannot achieve. And now we go to find this Charles, who to-morrow also returns to Paris.”

  After dinner Gallois went up to his room and wrote his notes. Travers stayed with him for a few minutes and while he was there Gallois was called to the telephone. When he came back he handed to Travers, with quite a carelessness, the report that had just come in from the Sûreté, and explained how he had come to receive it.

  “At Nice this morning, when I was sure that Helmont was Debran, I telephoned to Paris and requested this information, which now arrives. Now it is of no importance except to tell us again what we already know.”

  He was settling to his notes once more and Travers went down to find Charles. Velot said that M. Rabaud had gone out for a walk in the cool evening, and so in the lounge Travers read the report on the Debran family, that had come from Paris.

  As Gallois had said, it gave no new information. It began at the father, Robert Hippolyte Debran, the famous surgeon and author. His wife, Henriette Paulet, a member of the wealthy Paulet family of Tours, had outlived her husband and had died, in fact, that last winter. The sons were Gaston, believed to be in Indo-China; Robert, army surgeon, retired; and Jules, officer in the gymnastic corps, also retired. The daughters were Gabrielle, nurse, in the hospital of St. Claire, Montmartre, now retired; and Denise, wife of the late Henri Lannes of Dijon, now married again and believed to be abroad.

  Charles came in then. It had been colder than he thought outside, and he was deciding to stay indoors instead. Then he invited Travers to play billiards, and ten o’clock came before they were aware of it. When Travers went up, he peeped into Gallois’s room, but he was not there.

  And so to the final morning of that curious, unexpected and somehow dramatic holiday that Travers had spent in Carliens. Gallois literally gulped down his coffee and said he had a hundred things to do but he would b
e back in ample time for the train.

  “What did he mean by train?” Travers asked Charles. “Surely I’m driving you both to Marseilles and you can catch the express there?”

  Charles shrugged his shoulders. “This morning he has a what you call—” He abandoned his English. “He has something on his mind. When he gets these queer fits I can always tell. He boasts sometimes that he can read me like a book, but it is I who can read him as easily as I read that advertisement on the wall.”

  “I expect he’s anxious to get all his notes from M. Aumade,” Travers said.

  “Perhaps,” said Charles. “All the same there is no reason why he should hurry back like this to Paris. When he told me this morning he would catch the ten o’clock train here and go to Marseilles to connect with the express, I told him that in your car we should arrive just as soon, and it would be much more pleasant. But for once he didn’t wish to argue, and that again is a sign that he’s got something on his mind.”

  Travers smiled. “Perhaps you’re right. All the same I think it’s just natural anxiety. What you’d expect on the last morning after a holiday.”

  “But it was last night too,” Charles said. “What do you think he did? Came into my room and woke me up after midnight. Wanted to know if that newspaper I’d seen at Lizou on the Wednesday afternoon had had anything in it about Rionne’s murder.”

  “Why not?” asked Travers amusedly. “Mightn’t that have been something to do with the notes he was writing. Perhaps he wanted some verification or other.”

  At half-past nine Gallois was back again, and as they sat for a last yarn before it was time for Travers to take them to the station, Travers himself was aware in half a dozen ways that Gallois did indeed have something on his mind, and he knew it not so much by what Gallois let fall as by what he was so obviously endeavouring to conceal. Then the time came. The car moved off and old Velot was waving farewells from the hotel door. Out came the luggage at the station and Gallois had a last request to make.