The Case of the Flying Donkey: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  “But all the time they have what you call the guilty conscience. They observe that they are followed but they contrive to lose the man who follows. Then they quarrel and say it is dangerous to go to Fécamp. Then at last they must go somewhere, and they agree to arrive here when it is dusk. But they will stay only a short time perhaps, and then they agree that Bertrand shall depart with Hortense in the car—”

  Then suddenly he broke off. His lean fingers clawed the air and in a moment he had the solution he sought.

  “But, no. All that I have said is wrong. We commence once more at the beginning and this is what arrives. Bertrand comes to the bedroom to regard from the window if there is still anyone who has followed, and when he is not watching he rests on the bed. But soon be has a suspicion. Then the light from the torch of François reveals that there is someone who watches. Imagine to yourself, my friend, what happens here in this house. There are no lights and they watch this torch of François and they expect every minute that the police will arrive. It is necessary that they make an escape but it is impossible. Then Pierre has his idea. It is he who surprises François, and then it is possible that they all escape. It is Pierre, I think, who takes the motor-boat, and it is the Gurlots who take the car.”

  “And where are they now?”

  Gallois shrugged his shoulders.

  “This Pierre, I do not think he is drowned, I think he arranges a rendezvous in Belgium, perhaps, and he makes his way along the coast. The car it takes the third-class roads, and it also arrives at the rendezvous.”

  “Then it may take days before you lay your hands on them!” said the stupefied Travers.

  “Arrest them, you would say?” He smiled sadly. “At the moment it is not our affair if they go to Belgium. That is not a crime. It would be wise, perhaps, that we should discover where it is that they hide themselves, but there is something of an importance still greater that we must do.”

  He leaned across to pat Travers on the arm.

  “You and I, my friend, we make some theories that are excellent, but it remains that these theories should be changed to facts. We have yet to prove that these people commit a crime. It is to Paris therefore that we return.”

  “To-night?”

  “In the morning,” Gallois said. “Soon one may discover this Pierre and these Gurlots, and they will be interrogated.” He smiled with something of amusement. “If there are questions which one can have the ingenuity to find. But doubtless already they have for us a story that is of the most plausible, and once more we arrive at nothing. Therefore in the morning we go to Paris. There, perhaps, we discover what is this gold-mine of the dead Braque, and what it is that M. Larne suspects about his brother. Out of that will arise perhaps some questions to which this Pierre and these Gurlots have not already arranged the answers.”

  “And in the meanwhile, what?”

  Gallois got to his feet.

  “Now we go to find the owner of this house. With that you agree?”

  Travers was only too pleased. For one thing, he was thinking to himself as they made their way down to the car, he would at least hear something at first hand. Before Francois had hardly opened his mouth, Gallois had hurried him away, and had later related his own version of the attack. All the time, in fact, Travers had had that feeling that Gallois was holding back evidence, or arranging it to suit some extraordinary private end. All that night the Inspector had been like two men: one who is in a hopeless fog, and another who is gifted with second sight, plus the most uncanny luck.

  At the car Gallois had a word with the driver and then announced that the owner of the house had been found. He was a M. Archon of Fécamp, and he proposed to interview him at once.

  It was a short, stout man who opened the door.

  “M. Archon?” said Gallois.

  “Yes, and you are M. Gallois?” he said, and at once was showing the two in. Gallois was producing his credentials, but Archon insisted that it was unnecessary.

  “Everyone knows the famous Inspector Gallois,” he said. “We are provincial here, but we read our papers.”

  The gratified Gallois introduced Travers, who, he said, spoke an excellent French, but who needed a slowness and a carefulness in order to follow it well.

  Archon showed them into an old-fashioned parlour of a room that was stuffy with the heat from a monstrous stove, He was a chatty soul, full of self-possession and quite a likeable importance. He insisted that they should drink, and produced a very fine cognac.

  “It is this affaire Braque that brings you to Fécamp?” he suggested to Gallois.

  “The affaire Braque?” One would have thought he had never heard of it. Then he was making a gesture of indifference. “But there are other affaires than that of this Braque. At the moment we occupy ourselves with a gang of swindlers.”

  Archon stared.

  “Yes,” said Gallois. “A gang of swindlers who arranged, one assumes, to operate from your house.”

  “He was a swindler, that M. Foulange!”

  “So he called himself Foulange,” said Gallois. “Tell us, if you please, everything you know, and above all about this M. Foulange.”

  Archon said that the previous Sunday a M. Foulange had called to see him. He had evidently inspected the house on the dunes and had taken a fancy to it. Provided it was made ready for immediate occupation, he would hire it for three months, with an option of renewal, and he would pay in advance. Archon was only too ready to agree. That house was usually let in the season only, and rarely before May, so he was that much money to the good. Foulange paid down a small deposit, and it was arranged that the beds should be aired and everything ready by the Wednesday.

  “Describe to me this M. Foulange,” Gallois said.

  The description fitted Pierre Larne to the life, so Travers privately hinted.

  “And he arrived on the Wednesday?” Gallois said.

  “But, no,” Archon told him. “it was not till the Thursday afternoon that he arrived, which is yesterday. Together we inspected the house and he was very satisfied. Then here in this house he paid me the three months’ rent in advance. You would wish to see the agreement?”

  “Not at the moment,” Gallois said. “But how did he pay you? In cash?”

  “In cash,” echoed Archon. “He had to me the air of a rich man. From his pocket he produced a bundle of notes, as big as this.”

  Once more Gallois and Travers exchanged glances.

  “And what reasons did he give you for coming here?” Gallois asked.

  “It is not my business to question clients,” Archon said with dignity. “But of his own accord he told me this. He had a brother who was ill and to whom the doctors had ordered the sea air. He also had a housekeeper. For himself he said he was a writer, and a bit of a recluse. He also was fond of fishing, which was why he was so gratified at the excellent condition of the motor-boat. He said he would use it for fishing, and I should charge a supplementary let. Generally he would use the rowing-boat, which was free, or the dinghy.”

  “What dinghy?” asked Gallois.

  “The dinghy attached to the motor-boat,” Archon explained. “It is a big motor-boat that will, if necessary, accommodate four or five.”

  There was some technical talk which Travers could not altogether gather, but Gallois explained that the boat was turtle-decked and was really a tiny converted yacht. When Archon said it would hold four or five, he was not meaning that they could sleep in it, but could sail in it. There was the most cramped cabin accommodation for one only.

  “One could cross the Channel with such a boat?” asked Travers.

  “To England? But certainly,” he said. “Naturally it depends on the weather.”

  His consternation was considerable when Gallois told him the boat and dinghy were missing, and on such a night. They might be recovered, of course, but that particular affair was one for the local police, to whom Archon must make his complaint. Then, with many thanks, Gallois was rising to go.

  “
Though you have for the moment lost your boat,” he told Archon consolingly, “you have at least the money of this Foulange in your pocket. And now, M. Archon, good night and good sleep. It is possible that in a day or two I may see you again. In the meantime, if there is anything that you remember, communicate it to me direct.”

  “And where now?” asked Travers, as Gallois made for the car again.

  “Back to the house,” Gallois said. “There are doubtless finger-prints which I must take, and later I must return here to telephone. You, my friend, shall provide yourself with blankets from upstairs and rest before the fire. If I am absent, there is that imbecile of a François who remains on guard.”

  As for the evidence that Archon had just provided, it seemed, as he said, overwhelmingly in support of those theories at which he and Travers had arrived. The murder had been planned in conjunction with the hiring of the house, and most damning had been the disclosure that Foulange had not paid till after the murder of Braque. Then he had been able to flourish under the eyes of Archon perhaps the very wad of notes that Braque had waved beneath the nose of Cointeau.

  It had rained in the night, but the morning dawned cold and grey, and it was a silent and thoughtful party who returned to Paris in the car. On the way there were no halts, and the car did not stop till Larne was being set down at his hotel.

  Gallois must have had some private talk with him, so Travers gathered from the last words that were said.

  “I regret to acknowledge it, but you have convinced me that Pierre is deeply involved,” he told Gallois. “All the same, you must eliminate from your mind any idea that he was concerned in the murder. As for me, I now wash my hands of him. He has dishonoured a name, and all I can most humbly request is that there should be no publicity. I owe that much to myself.”

  Gallois drew himself up with a dignity.

  “You forget, M. Larne, that I also have the soul of a poet. Your name is not only your own; it is the honoured possession of all France. Nothing to the detriment of that name, I assure you, shall ever emerge.”

  The two clasped hands, and then Larne was sadly shaking his head.

  “My mind is made up. In two days or three, as soon as I can arrange my affairs, I sail for America. There is an aunt, and an uncle, I have not seen for years—the sister and brother of my mother. But I shall naturally communicate to you an address.”

  “You are right,” Gallois told him with conviction. “It is annoyances like these that prevent work and clog the brain. In the meanwhile, a thousand thanks, and an infinity of regrets.”

  Bernice had been warned by phone that Travers was arriving at about ten o’clock. It was still short of that hour, and Gallois had a few words with Travers in the lobby of the hotel. The case seemed as good as over, he admitted. Nothing remained to do but to lay hands on all or even one of the three, and submit them to a severe interrogation. The matter of the loss of the motor-boat would be a pretext.

  “So there’s nothing more for me to do?” asked Travers.

  Gallois frowned. “There is this matter of Charles, who pretends to be your valet—an idea which doubtless seems to you to have at times an air of the ridiculous. But it is necessary that he should convince the woman Moulins. Pierre, or the Gurlots, may return to Paris, where it is the most easy to conceal one’s self and where perhaps they have friends. The woman Moulins may possibly remember some other associate of Braque, who is their friend, and thus one arrives at an arrest.”

  He was smiling sympathetically as he held out his hand.

  “You are dispirited, my friend, but all I say is— patience and always patience; for what you have done there is nothing to say, because we are friends. To-day you will rest. To-morrow, perhaps, there will be other news. Meanwhile continue, I ask you, your co-operation in the matter of this Moulins. It is necessary that Charles devours her thoughts as one devours the flesh of an orange. And after that—”

  A shrug of the shoulders conveyed the rest, but it left a curious foreboding in Travers’s mind. As for the background of disappointment which had given such a dispirited look to his face, Bernice took it for tiredness. She had been very worried about him, she said, and was glad he was having little more to do with the wretched business.

  “I don’t think widowhood agrees with me,” she told him. “This afternoon you shall rest, and then if you feel like it, we can go to a cinema and dine out. That will brighten you up. And we’ll think of something really nice to do to-morrow.”

  But Travers’s rest was disturbed soon after lunch. Charles arrived with a request. Would it be possible for him to drive Travers somewhere in the car so that the two could be observed by Elise?

  Travers told him the arrangements that had been made for the evening, and added that he was damned if he would alter them, or turn out that afternoon, for anyone short of the President of the Republic.

  Charles grinned. The evening’s arrangements would suit him to perfection, he said. He would drive the car and might even arrange that he and Elise should go to the same cinema.

  “And how do you continue to find her—this Elise?” Travers asked ironically.

  “One cannot tell,” said Charles, and his face took on a seriousness. “In these affairs it is necessary to act with patience and finesse.”

  “I seem to have heard that somewhere before,” Travers remarked with a certain dryness. “But in herself, how do you find her?”

  Charles lost all his glibness and was stammering this and that. Travers gathered that one might have been deceived, that she had a good heart, and that there are those whose misfortunes are not their faults. And so much for Charles.

  That night Travers returned, as he assured himself, for the very last time to a consideration of the case, and soon he was once more realizing the one thing. If the case was as good as over, and the theories of Gallois and himself were correct, then he himself was hopelessly disappointed.

  That led him as usual to a search for flaws that might demolish the theories that only a few hours before had seemed so fool-proof, and, indeed, attractive. But all he could find were certain things that puzzled him.

  In the first place, if Pierre had stolen some of those studies of his brother, or even a finished picture, how could Braque have disposed of them? It would not have been like selling the work of a dead painter. However plausible the tongue of Braque, and however fanatical the buyer, and indifferent as to how he acquired possession of a Larne, yet the fact remained that Braque would be running too colossal a risk. The buyer would be bound to suspect some swindle, and it would be to the painter—the living painter—that he would apply, however surreptitiously, for information. Then the whole swindle would become public.

  Then there was that attempt that had been made on the life of Larne, and how he had hushed it up. Was it Pierre who had tried to kill his brother in the south of France? And if so, what connection was there with the killing of Braque? Had Larne discovered something, and was that attempt on his life also a hint that he had better keep his eyes shut and his mouth closed?

  And lastly, Travers had discovered another lie that Gallois had perpetrated and had not confessed. He had said that it was only at Rouen—the time then being about a quarter-past eight—that he knew the house where Pierre and the Gurlots were occupying. Yet Gallois had also said before, that the party had come to the house and then had cut the telephone wire and bolted soon after dusk. In other words, two hours after the party had come and gone, Gallois had discovered they were arriving. Involved, perhaps, but not nearly so involved as the whole story of Gallois and the explanations he had dished out from time to time about Fécamp, and the house, and all those nightmare experiences of the previous night.

  And then Travers had to smile to himself. There he was, being annoyed with Gallois, just as Gallois himself had prophesied. Something uncanny about that foresight of Gallois, and then Travels was remembering something else: the grimness and even the callousness with which Gallois had mentioned that devouring the very
thoughts of Elise Moulins as one devours the pulp of an orange and throws away the skin. Yes, thought Travers, and shook his head, there was also about Gallois a something that was frightening, and he could tell himself that in some ways he was glad he was having little more to do with the case.

  CHAPTER XIII

  THE AMAZING NIGHT

  THE morning was fine and cold, the kind of morning, in fact, to make the blood run cheerfully through the veins. Travers felt himself again, and after breakfast he could once more turn his thoughts to the case.

  But not for long. When, for instance, he tried to work out all those movements of Pierre at Fécamp, and fit the times in, and make all coincide with those voluble explanations that had been given by Gallois, he could achieve nothing but the most amazing muddle. If one took those explanations for gospel, then Pierre and the Gurlots were in the house when they should have been out, and most certainly out when they should have been in, and altogether when Travers reviewed things in the cold light of that February morning, there was such a hotch-potch of conflicting times and movements that would have done no disgrace to a first-class nightmare.

  As for Gallois, Travers could not help but feel that he had been behaving with such finesse that he had come very near to being ridiculous. A hard thing to think but Travers was forced to it. The art of successful co-operation was surely a perfect confidence. Gallois, who had been the first to insist on the merits, and to prophesy the success, of the co-operation, was apparently disposed to regard the mystifying of his partner as the first essential, and to excuse it by ambiguous hints about deceiving Henri Larne was only to add chicanery to obscurity.