The Case of the Flying Donkey: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  “But why not? A man of business, like this M. Braque, wishes naturally that his private address should be private.”

  “And what do you advise me to do?” asked Travers, rather puzzled at the indifferent way in which Gallois was taking things.

  Gallois shrugged his shoulders. “For the moment—nothing. You have seen M. Larne?”

  “Not yet,” Travers said. “I tried to get hold of him last night, and couldn’t, and then I did get him at his studio this morning. I’m seeing him this afternoon at three o’clock.”

  “That is excellent. You will tell your story to M. Larne, perhaps, and if you think necessary you will tell me what M. Larne will say. For my part, I think he will be interested, and annoyed. Not with you, my friend. With this M. Braque who pretends to know so much and knows so little. But we forget our coffee, which is doubtless already cold.”

  They began talking about things in general, and Gallois had something interesting to say about Travers’s picture.

  “I have often wondered,” he said, “why it was that M. Larne sells you that picture for what was really so little money.” He smiled disarmingly. “You, my friend, thought perhaps it was an expression of friendship, because his mother was English.”

  “Irish.”

  “You will pardon, but in some ways it is the same thing.”

  “Perhaps you’re right. But why do you think he let me have it so cheaply?”

  “Who knows?” Gallois shrugged his shoulders with a veritable despair. “Perhaps it was that he needs the money. M. Larne is a genius—”

  He broke off as if suddenly seized with some profound idea. Then he leaned forward, his lean fingers feeling the air as if to find the words he wanted.

  “M. Larne is the counterpart of myself. You permit that egoism, my friend, because it is also a profound truth. M. Larne is a genius, and there are those who have also said that I, Laurin Gallois, am a genius. But I cannot work unless I have the mood. Everything is trivial, and it stifles the brain, and then—voilà—the moment arrives. It is inspiration, perhaps, and it urges me, and I work. I make perhaps what one calls a grand success, and behold I am a genius. And M. Larne, what does he do? People say he paints very little, and, my friend, I tell you why. Like me he hates the trivialities. He awaits the grand moment, and then he is inspired. Four times a year it comes perhaps, or less, and each time he produces a work of genius.”

  “And the rest of the time he does—what?”

  “Ah!” said Gallois, “there once more you have the resemblance. When I do not work, I have my interests. I write, perhaps, or I mix myself with men of intelligence. Women, food, gambling— those interest me not. But M. Larne, he is different because all geniuses are different. You perhaps understand?”

  “I think I do,” Travers said. “Larne lives a pretty gay life in his intervals of painting. He spends as fast as he earns, and when he sold me that picture, he happened to be hard up.”

  “Precisely. And you are not annoyed?”

  Travers laughed. “My dear Gallois, why should I be? It does us all the good in the world to have the conceit knocked out of us. All the same, I think Larne is an extraordinarily good fellow, and I like him very much.”

  Gallois had to smile at that. “But it is agreed,” he said. “All the world admires M. Larne, and were I of sufficient importance, I should like also that he should be my friend.”

  There was a tap at the door and Charles once more entered. Travers had had the idea that Gallois had been talking merely to mark time, and now there was some confirmation, for there was an unusual alertness about him when he had glanced at the slip of paper that was handed to him. The door closed again and he got to his feet. Travers rose too.

  “And now, my friend, about this strange affair of yours. You wish still that I advise?”

  “Most decidedly.”

  “Then you will see these pictures that M. Braque keeps at his private house.”

  “You mean, if they’re indecent pictures?”

  Gallois shrugged his shoulders. “You will see whatever it is that you are shown. There will be no danger, no blackmail—nothing at all. I also have my ideas about M. Braque.”

  “Just as you say,” Travers told him. “And when am I to go?”

  “For a day or so you will wait. If there is no communication from M. Braque, then you will go to his shop in the Boulevard Bastide, and say perhaps that you have forgotten his address. After that, one will see.”

  “That’s clear enough,” Travers said. “And I’ll let you know what happens.”

  “All that you must inform us is when you go to that private address,” Gallois said, and with a peculiar earnestness. “You see me, or you telephone, and you say, ‘At such and such a time I call on M. Braque at his private house.’ That is all, but it is important.”

  “Wait a minute,” Travers said. “My wife and I both want you to dine with us. What about to-morrow night? We can decide on things then.”

  Gallois said he was enchanted. Seven o’clock at the Hotel Mirande, and if Braque had not got into touch with Travers by then, a definite course of action could be agreed on.

  Half-way back to the hotel, Travers remembered something. He had not told Braque his Paris address, so how could the picture dealer get in touch with him? A telephone kiosk caught his eye and he was just about to ring up Gallois and mention the matter, when he saw that the kiosk was occupied. A Gallic shrug of the shoulders and Travers passed on. After all, it made no real difference, and he would in any case be seeing Gallois again the following night.

  The rue Calignot has no reason to call itself a street at all. In England it would he labelled Private or Unadopted, to signify that the local council had no interest in the state of its surface, which was a matter for the owners of the property which fronted it.

  In it you would scarcely think you were three minutes’ walk from a Metro station, and only a couple of miles from St. Sulpice. To all appearances it is open country, so backed is it to the east by the trees that border the river, and by marsh and nursery gardens to the west. It has perhaps a dozen villas in all, each a separate property well shielded by trees from the observation of its neighbours. The Villa Claire, which was used as a studio and a Paris pied-à-terre by Henry Larne, had its own particular advantages. It was quiet, secluded, and yet accessible; it had a tiny cottage of its own which was occupied by the woman responsible for the care of the house, and almost opposite it was a road that led direct to the route nationale to Melun and the south-east.

  Travers arrived promptly to time at the Villa Claire, and he was admitted by a man who was obviously not a servant. He was wearing a grey lounge suit and Travers seemed to detect in him some resemblance to Henri Larne.

  “Monsieur Travers?” he said. “Monsieur Larne vous attend.”

  “You speak English?” Travers asked him smilingly.

  “An English very bad,” he said haltingly. “My brother he speak very well—you think?”

  “You are Mr. Larne’s brother?”

  “Yes,” he said, and gave another little bow. There was something too deferential about him that Travers found uncomfortable. And apparently he was none too comfortable either, for he said no other word till the stairs were mounted and he was opening the studio door.

  “You will find my brother here, I think.”

  He had evidently been thinking out that sentence all the way up the stairs, and now was about to bolt. But a voice called him.

  “Un moment, Pierre.”

  It was Henri Larne, rising from his chair by the far window with a smile of welcome on his face. Travers thought he had aged considerably since he had seen him last. He had run slightly to fat and there was a puffiness that told of burning candles at both ends. But it was still the old likeable Larne, and the smile was as attractive as ever.

  “Well, well,” he said, and ran a quick eye over his guest. “Delighted to see you again, my dear fellow. You’re looking remarkably well?”

  �
�I’m feeling well,” smiled Travers. “And you? You’re browner than when I saw you last.”

  “I’ve just got back from the South,” he said. “This is my half-brother, Pierre Larne. He acts as my secretary and general agent. Tu pars toute de strife, Pierre?”

  “Oui,je pars,” Pierre said, and smiled a somewhat awkward an revoir at Travers.

  “Pierre is younger than myself, as you saw,” Henri said. He listened for a moment, and there was the sound of the car in which his brother was evidently driving away. “And now may I make you some tea? Or is it too early?”

  “A bit too early, I think,” said Travers, and then shook his head. “It always puzzles me when you speak such perfect English. You look so French.”

  “But I am French,” smiled Larne.

  “Perhaps I shouldn’t have said I was puzzled. It’s more like a pleasurable surprise.” He shook his head again. “Everything is a pleasant surprise here. Everything so simple and direct. I know men without a tenth of your reputation who’re riddled with affectation and hedged in with secretaries and the lord knows what. You don’t mind my saying that?”

  Larne took his arm affectionately. “My dear fellow, it’s one of the best compliments I’ve ever been paid. Now sit down, and let’s hear all about yourself.”

  “Heaven forbid!” said Travers. “But might I commit another impertinence?”

  “Another?”

  “Yes. I haven’t come here to buy anything, but would you honour me by showing me anything you have?”

  “The honour would be mine,” said Larne, and gave an apologetic shrug of the shoulders. “Unfortunately there is nothing. Five minutes ago I could have shown you something I did—something you might have liked, but an American collector saw it at Nice and Pierre is just delivering it at his hotel.” He shrugged his shoulders again. “Things to see? Yes, plenty. But only for me to see. There is nothing I would show to anybody else.”

  Travers had been casting an eye round that room. It was much as be bad remembered it: lofty, superbly lighted and sparsely furnished. A bare canvas, prepared with undercoating, stood on the large easel.

  “But you are going to work,” Travers said, nodding at the easel.

  Larne smiled whimsically. “Am I? I wonder. You see, it’s like this. I have another commission from that American collector, but his boat sails in two days. All I am waiting for is the urge to paint, and the idea. Without that, what should I produce? Something like a dozen and more things in that room there, that I wouldn’t let a living soul see but myself.”

  “I know,” said Travers. “That’s always the problem with the creative artist.”

  Then out of the simple friendliness of that room, there came an idea.

  “I wonder if I might ask you something?”

  “Why not?” smiled Larne.

  “It’s something my wife and I were talking about when she first saw your picture. You remember— the Pot au Feu. One can understand the punning allusion in that signature of yours, but why do you make the donkey fly?”

  “Why?” His lip dropped and the smile became something bitter and ironic. For a moment or two he said nothing, and his eyes were on some invisible something across the room. Then the smile changed to one of amusement, and he got to his feet.

  “Come with me and I will show you what I have never shown to anyone else.”

  Behind the far curtain was a door, and he ushered Travers in. It seemed a kind of kitchen, and there was a dressing-table and a washstand, as if for the use of a model. A small stove too, and against the wall a score of canvases. On the wall was a solitary picture, and looking at it for the first time, Travers saw at once that it was a portrait—and almost certainly a self-portrait—of Larne as a much younger man.

  “You recognize it?”

  “Most certainly,” said Travers.

  “And what do you think of it?”

  “I think it’s good work.” He smiled. “You want my honest opinion?”

  “But, of course.”

  “Then it’s good honest work, in the first class of its kind. But it’s as far removed from your real work—your latest work as can be.”

  “Exactly.” He was taking that portrait down and standing it face to the wall. “That was the kind of thing I did when I was a younger man, and it brought me nowhere. The critics ignored me and I was a nonentity. I left France and I travelled. Sometimes I was hungry and sometimes I almost starved. Then at last I came back. I painted a picture, and I was discovered to be a somebody. The donkey, my dear Travers, had suddenly taken wings.”

  Travers said nothing. Before the concentrated bitterness of that voice, nothing seemed apt but silence.

  “I was sought out,” Larne went on, “and they tried to make a lion of me. The critics fawned on me and tried to batten on me. I shook off the whole mob of them, and I lived my own way. To hell with their hypocrisy, and their cant and their jargon. My job is to paint, and I go my own way. If it takes me ultimately to the devil, the choice is my own.”

  He shook his head fiercely, and was silent for a moment or two. Then the shake of the head became somewhat puzzled and his hand went to Travers’s arm.

  “You will forgive me for talking like that. I oughtn’t to have troubled you with my own affairs.”

  “The fault, if any, was mine,” Travers told him. “But there’s nothing to apologize for. I see your point of view and I more than sympathize with it.”

  Larne smiled, and all the bitterness went from his tone.

  “Forget it, my dear Travers. As for these”—he waved at the canvases that stood with their faces to the wall—“these are my experiments. You would like to see one?”

  He turned one round. Travers polished his glasses, and peered hard for a good minute at what he saw. Frankly, it was a chaos of crude colour, and nothing else except vague spherical forms that seemed to be receding into some immense distance.

  “It’s beyond me,” he said. “What is it? An experiment in light?”

  “Exactly,” said Larne, and his smile had something impish in it as he turned the canvas round. “But you understand why I don’t exhibit the—shall we say?—the experiments? Our friends the critics are not quite ready for them yet.” He clicked his tongue. “Here am I talking all this nonsense and forgetting your tea. Do let me make you a cup.”

  “I’ll sit here and watch you,” Travers said. “There’s something rather interesting I’d like to talk over with you.”

  So while Larne began preparing tea, Travers told him the tale of the man in the Tate. Larne seemed interested enough, but as soon as Travers came to names, he looked puzzled.

  “Braque?” he said. “A picture dealer of the name of Braque? Never heard of him. What did he look like?”

  Travers described him, and went on with the story.

  “Most curious, as you say,” was Larne’s comment. “The man’s obviously a swindler of some sort. If so, where’s the swindle?”

  “That’s what I hoped you might know. As I said, I think it’s some blackmail scheme.”

  “Yes, but why an interest in my pictures?” said Larne, “What’s he thinking of doing? Putting fakes on the market? Absurd, my dear fellow. In the first place, I doubt if it could be done, and also everyone knows that my pictures never go through an agent’s hands.”

  The tea was made, a box of petit fours was opened, and the tray was taken to the comfort of the studio fire. Larne took a sip at his tea, then put the cup down.

  “I wonder if I might tell you something? Something that might possibly be connected with this man Braque?”

  “Do” said Travers quickly.

  “This is in strict confidence between ourselves, but about a month ago, in the South, I think someone tried to kill me.”

  Travers stared.

  “I had business inland at a little place called Tesceau, and I was driving there in my car. The steering gear went wrong and we found afterwards it had been tampered with. It happened on a fairly safe piece of ground,
but a couple of kilometres farther on I’d have dropped a sheer thousand metres or so.”

  “Good God! And you never had an idea who did it?”

  “No idea at all. I didn’t tell the police. Only the garage people and myself knew about it. But that isn’t all. I arrived here a few days ago, and what do you think I discovered? Nothing had been taken, but somebody had hunted through every inch of this house.”

  Travers raised his eyebrows.

  “There we are, then,” Larne said. “Why should anybody want to murder me, and what the devil was there to interest anybody in this house?” He shrugged his shoulders. “As a matter of fact, there are small things of value that could have been sold anywhere, but nothing at all was taken.”

  Travers was slowly polishing his glasses. For once in his life he was barren of theory.

  “It’s a mystery, as you say. The only tangible thing seems to be this man Braque.”

  “One moment,” said Larne. “Did you promise him you’d go round and see him?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  Larne’s eyes narrowed. “You’re interested in this as much as I am. I wonder if you could sound him in any way and—well, you know what I mean. This business has been worrying me, and this man Braque does seem something tangible, as you said.”

  “You bet your life I shall find out everything I can,” Travers told him. “Whatever happens, I’ll let you know.”

  “That’s enormously good of you,” Larne said. “Normally I’d tolerate no outside interference with my affairs—the police, I mean—but you’re quite different. One moment, though. I’ve thought of something. Could you possibly come here and see me to-morrow? I wouldn’t trouble you, but—”

  “What time?”

  “Well, at five o’clock?”

  “I’ll be here,” Travers said. Provided he was back at the hotel at six-thirty, he would be in ample time for Gallois.

  “The idea’s this,” Larne said. “I have my own methods of finding things out. I’ll do some enquiring to-morrow, and then we’ll compare notes.”

  Ten minutes later, Travers rose to go. Dusk was in the sky, and Larne switched on the light at the head of the stairs.