He made a sign for Travers to remain. In a minute he was back and two men with him. Cointeau was ironically assured that everything would be done without fuss and with discretion.
“And now,” Gallois said, when he and Travers came out to the pavement again, “it is still not ten o’clock. You are hungry?”
“I could eat a horse,” Travers said.
Gallois turned back at once to the rue Gévrance.
“There is a restaurant that I know where one supplies everything. I also could devour a horse.”
Almost at once he was stopping and entering an inconspicuous restaurant where he seemed to be well known. Within five minutes they were at a corner table by themselves and Gallois was serving the soup.
“You had your men ready to search the shop, then?” Travers said.
“Yes,” Gallois said, “but it was necessary first to see the reactions of this Cointeau. You observe that he made objections to the search?”
“That was all in his favour,” Travers said. “If he’d fallen in with your original suggestion that your men should arrive in the morning, then you might have assumed he was going to have a good look to-night for himself and remove anything incriminating.”
“You also are a thought-reader,” Gallois told him admiringly. “But about this Cointeau, I do not know. A man of his type, so naive, so candid, so patient with his colleague, does not probably exist.”
“I rather liked him. It struck me that Braque was the flashy oily-tongued partner, always on the lookout for quick money. Cointeau was the honest drudge who kept things together.”
“Nevertheless,” Gallois said, “I should prefer to meet that client who will establish the alibi of our good Cointeau for a quarter to six to-night. That Cointeau confesses he saw the notes which the assassin took to-night from the pocket of Braque, that convinces me little. It is always best to admit what one knows will be discovered. It was natural also that Cointeau should admit that the firm suffers from the holidays of Braque, but what I think always is that Cointeau knows also the flat of Braque, and that there is a way by which one enters unperceived.”
It was the quickest of meals they were eating, with a couple of soles to follow and omelettes sucrées to conclude. Gallois talked as quickly as he ate.
“Now, my friend,” he said, “I explain to you things perhaps that you do not understand. When you come to me with your story of Braque, I receive what one calls a shock. There is a certain matter which already brings him to our notice, but we possess no evidence and we do nothing. All the same, we observe and we enquire.” He shrugged his shoulders. “But there appears nothing wrong with the admirable Braque, and we disregard, and it is at that moment, my friend, that you arrive.”
“What did you suspect him of?” asked Travers quickly.
“That he smuggles pictures,” Gallois said. “This affair so terrible in Spain, it lends itself to thieving, does it not? One destroys a town, but is it sure that one destroys also the objets d’art? In the churches there are pictures of enormous value. There are the private collections which are also pillaged. We receive applications from the authorities, and this man Braque, who pays a visit to Spain, is under suspicion. But, as I tell you, we discover nothing.”
Travers had taken off his glasses and now he was slowly polishing them.
“I’m beginning to see things. Braque came to England to get into contact with private collectors. He summed up their characters, and, when he thought it would be safe, he gave a hint that he had things they might like to see. What he’d have shown me to-night was some stolen masterpiece, but the murderer was aware that he was bringing it to the flat, and he killed him and got away with the picture.”
“And the money?”
“The murderer naturally went through his pockets to remove anything incriminating,” Travers said.
“And that interest in the pictures of Henri Larne?”
“There,” said Travers dryly, “I am also of the opinion of yourself. One of the pictures which Braque acquired from Spain was a Larne. It puzzled him to place its value. Hence the enquiries in England. In England, in fact, Braque was killing two birds with one stone.”
“That is superb,” Gallois said, and reached across the table to give his hand a complimentary pat. “Braque sells to some client who prefers to ask no questions. He vaunts his money to Cointeau this afternoon. He also has spent money—but not too much—on the woman Deschamps, whose real name, I should also inform you, is Elise Moulins. All that is simple, but there is a difficulty which remains. There were, if you remember, two goldmines, It is the second gold-mine with which we occupy ourselves. What, then, was the first?”
“There you have me beaten,” Travers said. “It was doubtless some swindle or other. But, need we worry ourselves about it? Would it be more profitable to stick to what we know? To try to discover what pictures Braque did get from Spain, for instance?”
“But the pictures are sold,” Gallois reminded him. “It was thousands and thousands of francs that he flourished before the eyes of the simple Cointeau.”
“There remains the picture which the murderer took,” Travers said. “The picture which I should have seen, and didn’t.”
“There, perhaps, it will be you who make the enquiries,” Gallois said. “M. Larne will give us a record of all the pictures which pass from his possession, and one can also enquire from the dealers. To-morrow, at breakfast, you will receive papers of authorization and identity. The whole of Paris is at your disposal, as it is at mine.”
He was waving impatiently for his omelette to be brought, and then at once he went on.
“What you should also know is this. This evening I take precautions, as you know. One keeps you under observation from the time you arrive at the rue Jourdoise. At a quarter to six one had under observation the flat of Braque, and five minutes later I arrive. There is a light beneath the door and we know then that Braque is already there.” Once more he shrugged his shoulders. “No one enters and no one leaves, which is simple. Braque was dead and his assassin had disappeared before we surround the flat.”
“But that wasn’t your fault.”
“It was what one calls the bad luck,” Gallois said, and spread his hands resignedly. “We anticipate no danger to yourself. We surround the flat so that there is no means of removing the stolen picture which he shows you.”
He drank the last of his wine and was waiting for Travers to finish his hasty meal.
“And what for to-morrow?” Travers said.
“In the morning you shall be informed. This affair intrigues you?”
“More than a case ever did before.”
“And myself also,” Gallois said. “It is a case that is worthy of our attention. Not an affair of routine where one wastes one’s talent.” He got to his feet. “Now I drive you to your hotel, and then I return to the rue Jourdoise.”
Outside the hotel be shook Travers warmly by the hand, and smiled with a melancholy approval.
“The disagreeable I shall perform for myself,” he said. “To-morrow it is possible that Cointeau and the woman Deschamps will be asked to identify the dead Braque.”
“Why didn’t you take her in to see him at the flat?”
“There one is too much at one’s ease,” Gallois remarked sadly. “It is at the Morgue that one studies best the reactions.”
A wave of the hand and he was off. Travers was still wincing at the thought of the Morgue, and as he stood there in the cold drizzle, he felt a quick depression that was remarkably akin to fear. Suavity and finesse there might be in the methods of Gallois, but there was also a ruthlessness and a grim directness of purpose that were terrifying; and as a car drew up across the road with a squeak of its brakes, he thought of the darkness of the rue Jourdoise, and the shriek of the woman Deschamps, and the hand clapped over her mouth.
CHAPTER VII
TRAVERS HAS IDEAS
BERNICE would have been alarmed if her husband had not so dexterously cast a kind of matter-of-factn
ess over that affair in the rue Jourdoise. He had happened to discover a body and that was all. Braque had turned out to be some kind of rascal, and it was only the particular kind of rascal that the police, with the naturally necessary help of himself, were wanting to find out.
Bernice pretended a grievance.
“So I’m to be a widow once more.”
“That was a golfing widow,” he told her. “This is a—well, a widowhood of convenience. Two or three days and it should be all over. As it is, I can’t get out of it.”
“Poor darling,” she said. “All the same, I expect you’re enjoying it already; you and M. Gallois.” She sighed. “While you’re enjoying yourself this morning, I’m having my hair done, and that’s always so trying.”
She caught his look, and they laughed.
“Ah, well,” said Travers. “If absences make hearts fonder, then widowhood ought to cement them for life.”
She was away and gone soon after nine o’clock, and then who should appear but Charles, bringing the papers that Gallois had mentioned. There was also a note to the effect that Gallois hoped to call not later than ten o’clock.
“You do speak some English?” Travers asked Charles.
Charles smiled apologetically. He spoke very little indeed, he said, but he was studying hard. It was M. Gallois’ idea that he should equip himself with a perfect English. M. Gallois had always taken an interest in his career. But if Mr. Travers could put up with his imperfect English, he would try it.
“You’re a fortunate young fellow,” Travers said. “By the way, Charles, how old are you?”
“Twenty-four, monsieur.”
“You look younger,” Travers said. “It is permitted that you and I talk about the case?”
“But certainly,” Charles said. “You are a collaborator.”
His snub nose lent a roguishness to his smile, and he certainly seemed much more relaxed now he was out of the company of his Inspector.
“Then wasn’t there an affair of gallantry on your hands this morning?”
“Ah, that,” he said, and grinned. “That is already over. This morning I happened to be near the rue Vagnolles, and it is she who recognizes me. As I am still afraid of the flics, we go inside a restaurant and take coffee. This evening we go to a cinema.”
“You’ve learnt anything?”
Charles shook his head. “In these affairs it is necessary that one moves slowly. But she is a type that is sympathetic and I have hopes.”
“Hopes to learn, what?”
“Who knows? Who are the associates of Braque, perhaps. Something he lets fall about this fortune that he is about to make.”
“Exactly. And you recognize in this affair also a danger for yourself?”
“A danger?”
Travers smiled. “When one wins the confidence of someone who is also sympathetic, there is the danger that one may fall in love.”
“Ne vous inquietez pas, monsieur,” Charles told him confidently. “She is not a type so sympathetic as that.”
Gallois accepted Travers’s offer of coffee in a corner of the deserted lounge. He had snatched an hour or two’s sleep he said and had eaten early. Travers told him how he had attempted to pull the leg of his protégé Charles.
“Love,” said Gallois with a smile of dismissal. “One learns not to mix that with one’s serious affairs.”
“But what about your own young days?”
For a moment the eyes of Gallois lifted reflectively to the ceiling.
“Youth has its frivolities,” he said, “but for my part I had neither the money nor the leisure. When one adopts my profession, one ceases at once to be young. The blood dries in the veins, which is why I direct myself in my—hobbies, is it not that you call them?—to the intellectual and not the frivolous. That is also perhaps why I achieve a certain success. But about this affair with which we occupy ourselves. You have perhaps some ideas?”
“One thing only I’ve been thinking,” Travers said. “Braque was killed at the front door, though the murderer doubtless escaped by the back.”
“You mean, because his body lay at that front door?”
“Yes,” said Travers. “Therefore Braque admitted the murderer at the front door and was at once stabbed. One gathers that, because the murderer had to work quickly. But the idea that came to me was this. Did Braque overstep himself? Did he think he had found someone—like myself, for instance—who would be likely to buy a fine picture and ask no questions, but was that somebody as big a rascal as himself?”
Gallois made a note in his book. “What you think is this. Braque have two strings to his bow. He arranges to see this rascal, this assassin, before he arranges to see you. If he sell the picture before he sees you, then to you he will be most apologetic. If he do not, then there is, as you say,no harm done.” He nodded to himself. “That is an idea which is worthy of consideration. But first I ask a question which surprises you, my friend.” He leaned forward, coffee cup balanced precariously. “Was it Braque that arranged the visit with you?”
Travers stared, then his fingers were at his glasses.
“I wonder,” he said. “I took it for granted it was Braque. But, now I remember, there was something different, and the phone was very bad.” Then he, too, was leaning forward. “If it was not Braque who rang me, who was it?”
“It was not Braque,” Gallois told him confidently. “Braque did not prepare as he would have prepared for you. He did not shave, and his hands were dirty and his linen was not clean. It was the assassin who rang you in the name of Braque, and arranged that you should go to the rue Jourdoise at six o’clock. Then in your name he doubtless rang Braque and said that you would arrive at—shall we say?—half-past five. Perhaps he was unable to find Braque till it was almost the time, and therefore Braque have not the time to shave. He opens the door to admit you and he prepares to make the apologies, but it is the assassin that he admits. Before he can exclaim, he is dead.”
“Then this assassin is someone who knew my affairs very intimately,” Travers said. “That’s a very disturbing thought.”
Gallois smiled patiently. “For us it is not disturbing. The assassin plays, as you say, into our hands. Tiens, mon ami.”
He tore a page from his notebook.
“Let us write the things at which we arrive. This assassin, what does he know? That Braque speaks English very badly, and therefore, as he cannot imitate the bad English of Braque, he requests that he speak to you in French. This assassin knows also that you have dealings with Braque who wishes that you should come to his apartment, and he knows also your address in Paris. What then remains to do? Only, my friend, that we write down all those to whom you impart such things—and, you will pardon?—to whom madame, your wife, perhaps, impart such things, and whose English is so bad that he cannot even speak it badly. Then without doubt we write the name of the assassin.”
But Travers was all at once frowning away, and his fingers went to his glasses.
“You discover something?” Gallois asked anxiously.
“I don’t know,” Travers said slowly. “But there’s someone who seems to me to fulfil most of the conditions. Pierre Larne!”
“Ah!” said Gallois, and his eyes suddenly narrowed. “He is the attendant of his famous brother, but what you call in England, hanger-on. His brother tells him about yourself. What is it that you know yourself already about this Pierre?”
Travers told him everything he knew, and gave his own impressions.
“Now I also tell something,” Gallois said. “Already you have mentioned to me this Pierre, and it is necessary that I make enquiries. This Pierre Larne, the half-brother, he is one who spends much money. He is a parasite, and I explain. Henri Larne is not the type that has need of a secretary. He is not what one calls fashionable, with a salon, and domestics and everything that is necessary. He is simply a painter and he is also a Bohemian. He paints also, as I already say, only when he feels a spiritual force. I do not express myself very wel
l, but you understand. For his pictures he receives sums that are considerable, but when one paints little and one is a genius, there is no need that one should employ a secretary or an agent to manage the affairs. Also he himself spends the money that he gains. You commence, my friend, to have ideas?”
“I think perhaps I do,” Travers told him. “Pierre is a parasite and Henri is too good-natured to shake him off. But two people can’t burn the same candle, and at both its ends. Suppose, then, that Henri has had to call a halt; to tell Pierre that he can’t support him any longer, then Pierre might have tried making easy money in other ways. In association with Braque, for instance.”
“My friend, you have a perception that is miraculous. This Pierre perhaps conceives the idea of selling the pictures of his brother. It is Braque who sells and one divides what one makes.”
He caught sight of his coffee, grimaced as he tasted its coldness, then set down the empty cup.
“You will pardon me? It is necessary to change the arrangements, and that I should telephone.”
It was a quarter of an hour before he came back and he seemed very pleased with himself.
“I speak to M. Larne,” he said, “and I say that you arrive with news which you will explain. It is necessary also to see the brother. That also he arranges.”
“But what am I to do?”
“In half an hour you arrive,” Gallois told him, “so we have the time to make our preparations. But what I suggest myself is this . . .”
It was a woman who opened the door: a gaunt, hard-featured woman of fifty who was evidently cleaning up the lower rooms. Almost before Travers could say a word, Henri Larne was coming quickly down the stairs.
“Merci, Hortense,” he said, and motioned for her to go.
“I’m not disturbing you?” Travers said.
“Not at all,” Larne said. “The work is finished. I began again at five o’clock this morning. The American collector should arrive here at noon.”
Travers glanced at his watch.
“I oughtn’t to keep you for more than a few minutes. I think you’ll be very interested, by the way. Your brother’s here?”
The Case of the Flying Donkey: A Ludovic Travers Mystery Page 8