Murder on French Leave

by Anne Morice

  ‘Precisely. If he’d gone down to the lower basement as soon as his secretary had dumped her parcels, he could have walked up the ramp to the street, crossed over and entered the Champ de Mars all in the space of about five minutes. Allow another five to get to the spot where he’s presumed to have had an appointment with Leila Baker, and what have you got? All he had to do was clout her over the head, finish the job by strangling her and return to IDEAS by the same route, having picked up the necklace, which had got broken in the struggle, and stuffed it into his pocket, along with the weapon. All that remained was to get back into the lift and bring it up to the ground floor.’

  ‘Where he came face to face with Mrs Müller?’

  ‘Who naturally assumed that he had come down from his office. And it was sheer fluke that she was there at all. She’s not even sure that he noticed her.’

  ‘Incidentally, didn’t it strike Baker as peculiar that Sven should be in the car park at all, since he was known to travel by Metro?’

  ‘I don’t think so. If he’s speaking the truth, I suppose he assumed that he was getting a lift with someone else. Probably that did happen from time to time.’

  ‘But Sven denies that he had made any such arrangement on this particular evening?’

  ‘He denies everything. He says he left his office when the report was finished, took the lift to the ground floor, walked out of the building and went straight home.’

  ‘And there’s only Baker’s word for it that he didn’t do just that. It’s pretty flimsy, because he admits that they didn’t exchange any words. I realise that Carlsen’s appearance is fairly distinctive, but the light down there is very dim and surely there’s a strong possibility that he could have been mistaken?’

  ‘There is worse to come,’ I admitted.

  ‘I thought there must be. Like forgetting to dispose of the weapon, for instance?’

  ‘Oh, Robin! How on earth did you guess?’

  ‘But I didn’t, honestly. I was just being funny. You can’t seriously mean . . . ?’

  ‘Not quite as bad as that, but they’ve found the spanner they think was used to knock her out and he admits that it’s one from his own tool kit. Furthermore, it had been dumped on the exact spot where Reg Baker claims to have seen him, in the car park.’

  ‘That’s right. I suppose, to a simple person, it might have seemed a natural place for it.’

  ‘And do you consider Carlsen to be as simple as all that?’

  ‘No,’ I agreed, ‘but my opinion isn’t going to help him very much.’

  ‘Specially if this spanner was covered with his prints, which I suppose is the next bit of news you’ve got for me?’

  ‘No, it had been wiped, although not very efficiently. There were traces of blood and hair. I gather that the police haven’t actually stated that these came from the scalp of Mrs Baker, but I expect they want to keep a few surprises up their sleeve.’

  Robin was silent for a while, and then he said: ‘Do you know, I can hardly recall a case of murder where the principal suspect appears to have behaved in a more moronic fashion? He must either be an arrogant fool, or else . . .’

  ‘Or else someone is perjuring himself, knowing that for some reason Sven will keep quiet.’

  ‘How did you interpret Baker’s reactions this evening? On the face of it, he has the best motive of anyone. That is, if we’re right about there being something between him and Adela. Although, you know, Tessa, we haven’t really much to go on there. One overlooked conversation is hardly evidence of adultery. They could have been talking quite innocently.’

  ‘Except that you and I both gained a quite different impression.’

  ‘All the same, it would be nice to have a little more substance for it.’

  ‘There’s always Milly Carpenter,’ I suggested.

  ‘Milly Carpenter? Who’s she?’

  ‘Adela’s dear friend in London, who she used to go and stay with so regularly, but doesn’t any more. Adela couldn’t wait to find out if I knew her, so she could have been the one to provide the alibi on all those London trips.’

  ‘I don’t see the connection.’

  ‘Neither did I, until I discovered that her white-haired boy friend was Reg Baker, but there’s a funny coincidence about that, because he used to work in London. Adela says she had to cut out her cross-Channel trips when they got the dogs, but it coincided very neatly with Reg being posted to Paris.’

  ‘I see!’

  ‘What’s more, those two mixed-up poodles are supposed to rule her life and she certainly makes them an excuse for being away from home for long stretches; but when you see her with them she doesn’t show any particular affection for them, nor they for her. It’s other people, even strangers like myself, that they pester. So I should never be surprised if the dogs had become the Milly Carpenter of Paris.’

  ‘Well, well! I wonder if you’re right?’

  ‘Unfortunately, even if I am, she can’t have conspired with her Reginald to dispose of his wife, because he’s completely in the clear. When he left his office he had a drink in the top floor bar with two other men, and they both remember what time he left.’

  ‘Yes, no doubt; but what’s ten minutes here or there between colleagues drinking together?’

  ‘Nothing in the ordinary way, but he was fidgeting about collecting his wife from the swami, so the time was impressed on them.’

  ‘Which isn’t necessarily as innocent as it sounds. However, one thing begins to be clear.’

  ‘I’m so glad. Do tell me what it is.’

  ‘If Adela is speaking the truth, one can see why she was so bent on getting your evidence about the necklace. So far as I can see, no one has come up with Sven’s motive, so if his story about the necklace turns out to be genuine, the whole case against him might begin to topple. Can’t you shut your eyes and do some total recall?’

  ‘No, it’s no use. In the ordinary way, I think I might have noticed, but I was watching out for the car and I hardly looked at her. Also, you know, Robin, there was something faintly repellent about that way she had of touching one and pushing her face up so close. One tended to avert one’s eyes and pretend it wasn’t happening. Anyway, I still say it’s irrelevant. I don’t know how Sven came to have the necklace in his pocket, but I do know that he couldn’t have been anywhere near the Champ de Mars between seven-thirty and eight.’

  ‘And, if you’re as positive as all that, I’d be inclined to go along with you. Let’s hope, for Sven’s sake, that we can manage to persuade a few other people as well. I’ll drop the word, but that’s about all I can do; and you, Tessa, must now pipe down and shut up about it.’

  ‘Oh, why do you say that?’

  ‘Because, my love, if there is a conspiracy, or if one of these people is giving false evidence to cover his own tracks, we all know who might be in a position to trip him up. It would be safer all round if you would allow them to believe that you’re now quite satisfied that you were mistaken about seeing Sven in the cinema. I hope you didn’t press the point too much?’

  ‘No, I felt too dazed and buffeted to utter a word.’

  ‘That’s good, because we don’t want anyone to get the idea that you might be a danger to him. You know what they say about murderers in this part of the world?’

  ‘No, what?’

  ‘Il n’y a que le premier pas qui coûte.’

  Eight

  (i)

  True to life’s inexorable pattern, I woke early the next morning and, having no need to get up, found myself unable to slide back to sleep again.

  It was too early for Figaro, so I decided to glance through the scripts which my agent had thrust into my hands at Heathrow. Moving stealthily, so as not to disturb Robin, I took down the red suitcase, eased out a pillow which he wasn’t really using, and propped myself up for a comfortable and constructive period of study.

  There were three typescripts and two were by authors whose names were familiar. Both these had been clippe
d into the regulation orange cover, which was my agent’s trade mark, with the name and address of her offices prominently featured, along with stern injunctions relating to copyright, etcetera. The third one was much shorter, more of an outline scenario than a full-scale script. It consisted of about fifty rather carelessly typed pages, enclosed in an ordinary brown folder, and it occurred to me that it might have arrived too late to be put through the usual mill, but had nevertheless been considered promising enough to warrant immediate attention. I therefore started with this one.

  Page One was headed: ‘The Waiting Room’, By Henry Fitzgerald, who was a new one on me, and in the pleasurable anticipation of setting some undiscovered genius on the first, or at any rate second rung to fame, I began to read.

  It is tempting to pretend that the excitement of discovery grew dizzier with every word and that I very soon became lost in the imaginary world of H. Fitzgerald, Esq., but it would not be true. It was a spy story, not without merit, but melodramatic beyond all bounds. The setting was a remote, mountainous region of Southern Europe and the Waiting Room of the title was attached to a high-class private nut-house, most of whose patients suffered from delusions of having been wrongfully incarcerated.

  An exception to this persecution mania was the hero, Simon Charrington. He, it soon became clear, really had been wrongfully incarcerated, through the machinations of an international spy group; and in order to outwit them he went into the full mad scene whenever a doctor or nurse hove in sight.

  The story contained some imaginative twists and one or two scenes which I could envisage being very suspensefully worked out in the shooting, but I was at a loss to know why my agent had included it. Whereas the leading man’s part provided unlimited scope for cat tearing, the only female role of any substance was that of a rather tiresomely mysterious nurse. This character, apart from prowling round the wards in a furtive manner when the patients were at lunch, was also the mistress of the head psychiatrist, one Felix Marcus, who was the villain of the piece and an important cog in the espionage machine. As the story developed, she gave indications of transferring her affections to the pseudo-demented hero, although whether because her feelings were engaged, or in order to engineer his downfall, remained in doubt.

  Moreover, before I had even reached the halfway mark a sense of déjà vu had begun to intrude. I could not pin it down, and yet it was strong enough to suggest that this might be a treatment based on some novel which I had long ago read, or even a film which I had long ago seen.

  I had half a mind to telephone my agent and interrogate her on these matters, but memories of my previous experience with the French telephone system stayed my hand. Furthermore, the craving for coffee and rolls had become so acute that I was prepared to make the supreme sacrifice of going in search of them, in person.

  I could have saved myself the trouble, because Ellen was already in the kitchen, surrounded by dainty trays.

  ‘Have we had enough spy stories?’ I asked her. ‘Or could we do with just one more?’

  ‘Depends who played the spy. How’s your hand?’

  ‘Fair. It’s God’s mercy that I’m not on call for the next few days. The continuity girl would resign on the spot if she saw this bandage. Come to think of it, it’s just as well I’m not the continuity girl. I daresay it will be weeks before I can hold a pen. How did your lunch go, by the way?’

  ‘Pretty dreary, actually.’

  ‘Oh why? Didn’t Lupe do a good job?’

  ‘She was okay, but Jono never stops talking about himself.’

  ‘That can happen,’ I admitted. ‘One trains oneself to take it as a compliment. They don’t all grow out of it.’

  ‘He’s got this fantastic Oedipus thing, too. I hope he grows out of that.’

  ‘Oh, bound to, but you do surprise me. The only time I saw them together they didn’t seem particularly chummy.’

  ‘It’s a love-hate relationship,’ she explained, tipping coffee beans into the electric grinder. ‘He’s thought of everything.’

  Some of the beans cascaded on to the floor and she scooped them up and flung them into the machine.

  ‘They say that ninety per cent of our coffee is dust nowadays,’ she explained.

  ‘Whereas ninety per cent of our dust is coffee, I suppose? How about the stepfather relationship?’

  ‘Oh, that’s hate-hate.’

  ‘Really? Jealousy and so forth?’

  ‘Yes, and he blames him for breaking up his parents’ marriage. And he says it’s having to live in Paris which has changed his mother. She used to be dead keen about the home and do lots of committees and things. She was about the best known woman in their entire neighbourhood.’

  ‘Where was that?’

  ‘In New York, somewhere. And they had a fabulous house at Cape Cod, too, with ice dispensers on every floor. Jono would much rather spend his vacations there than in Paris. He has his own car at home, too, but he’s not allowed to drive in France. They have four cars altogether. Imagine Mrs Carlsen giving all that up for silly old Sven!’

  ‘Perhaps she was secretly bored by the home and the committees and only did them from a sense of duty. No one has a sense of duty in France.’

  ‘Not Mr Carlsen, anyway. Jono says he’s madly unfaithful. Always having sordid little affairs.’

  ‘Now, how could he possibly know that?’

  ‘Because he keeps tabs on him.’

  ‘My goodness, that boy is a case, isn’t he? Is it all dreamville, or does he really know what he’s talking about?’

  ‘A bit of both, I should think,’ she replied, pouring boiling water over the coffee.

  ‘Do you suppose he dislikes Sven enough to want to put a real spanner in the works?’

  ‘What kind of spanner?’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t mean that literally,’ I said hastily, ‘I just meant spreading tales around which weren’t strictly true.’

  ‘Could be. He doesn’t seem bothered about him being arrested. We plan to go skating today, by the way. Is that okay?’

  ‘Can either of you skate?’

  ‘Well, I’m not much good, but Jono’s bound to be. His father was in the Olympic team.’

  ‘Fancy that! Does Adela know that he takes you out?’

  ‘Oh sure. She doesn’t care. All she wants is not to have him around too much. She rang up his father last night and said he ought to go back to America, because it wasn’t suitable for him to be here with all this fuss going on. I think it was just an excuse to get rid of him, actually.’

  ‘And did it succeed?’

  ‘No. His father said he was going on a trip somewhere, so it wouldn’t be convenient. Jono says he’s really going to Washington to advise the President, but nobody’s supposed to know. Anyway, why are you so quizzy?’

  ‘I’ve told you; I feel responsible.’

  ‘Is that all? I thought maybe Robin was going to take a hand in the case, after all, and you thought it might be a good idea to find out a few things.’

  ‘Unfortunately not. It’s a pity, because then he could stay over for a bit, but he will keep insisting that it’s no concern of his.’

  Robin was not visible when I carried his tray in, but I could hear him splashing about under the shower. Since the bathroom had been designed to accommodate only one person, and then only when perpendicular, I swaddled the coffee pot in an eiderdown and began plastering my face with dewy moisturised démaquillage. In a few moments he emerged and studied the effect critically:

  ‘Very weird! How about getting your hair done this morning?’

  ‘Why would I bother to do that, when I can get it done for nothing at the studios?’

  ‘But you said you wouldn’t be going there until Tuesday, and if we mean to do the town this weekend you might want to look your best.’

  ‘If you really think it’s necessary . . .’ I said doubtfully.

  ‘You could telephone that well-turned-out Mrs Müller and ask her which one she goes to.’

 
; ‘It so happens that I know which one she goes to,’ I said, rounding on him in amazement. ‘She pointed it out when they drove us back from lunch.’

  ‘There you are, then! No trouble at all.’

  ‘And what about you, pray? Another round of courtesy calls?’

  ‘Among other things. Let’s meet back here, shall we? We may have some notes to compare.’

  One way and another, I was beginning to believe that if they handed me a stick labelled ‘This Way Up’ I should still grasp it by the wrong end.

  (ii)

  Mireille was the name of the assistant who ministered to Madame Müller and by some unprecedented miracle of chance she was disengaged and able to begin on me at once.

  I think this must have been bending the truth a little because, although they peeled off my jacket, tipped me backwards over the basin and doused my head with water, as though there was not a minute to lose, it was practically bone dry again by the time Mireille teetered up to begin on stage two.

  She upset a bottle of blue lotion over me and consulted my wishes as to the style of the coiffure. This presented no problems because, as I had foreseen, her English was remarkably good. When we had mapped out the design, I asked if Madame Müller had been coming to her for a long time. She scuffled about among the tools of her trade for a bit and then said:

  ‘Some months, I think. Do you prefer the big rollers?’

  ‘Yes, if you like. But she doesn’t live around here, does she?’

  ‘No. The sides coming forward? A little bit over the face, like this?’

  ‘Yes, that’s fine. I think they live in the seizième, so it must be quite a way for her to come.’

  ‘I don’t know. I think maybe her husband has his office somewhere in the quartier. That would make it convenient. It would be better to have some cut, next time.’

  ‘Yes, I will. And that reminds me. Could you give Mrs Müller a message when she comes this afternoon? I forgot to . . .’

  ‘She will not be here this afternoon. I am sorry, madame.’

  ‘Are you sure? I thought Saturday was her day?’