Murder on French Leave

by Anne Morice

  ‘Because he’s screwy, that’s why,’ Jonathan said, making one of his rare contributions.

  ‘Wrong,’ I said haughtily. ‘There is a subtler explanation. The answer is that he did recognise me, straight off, when we were all queuing up at the check-in desk. I can’t say when he decided to use the knowledge for his own ends, but my guess is that it was when he heard our plane would be late. That’s when he made a beeline for Robin. Ellen and I were powdering our noses at the time, so it was the ideal set-up for him.’

  ‘Why was it?’ Toby demanded. ‘Why not just stumble up to you and say: “Oh, Miss Crichton, I’ve admired you all my life and you’re so very, very wonderful.” That usually breaks the ice, in my experience.’

  ‘Because the pretence of not knowing I was an actress was an essential part of the plan. His object was to get me to read his script and he realised that it was far more likely to succeed if everything appeared to happen by chance, without any design at all.’

  ‘Was the script any good?’ asked my agent, who has got where she has by cultivating a one-track mind.

  ‘Not very,’ I replied, ‘but he was obviously convinced that it was a work of genius and would be a smash hit, if only he could get the right people to read it. The point is that he was shrewd enough to know that a lot of people use the approach which Toby has just described and immediately follow it by saying it’s a funny thing, but they happen to have written a little something themselves, which they’d love to have your opinion about.’

  ‘Yes, there has been some of that in my life, too,’ he admitted.

  ‘So you probably know as well as I do what comes next? You put on a fatuous grin and mumble something about being a bit tied up at present, but it doesn’t deter them for an instant. By the very next post along comes a ton of manuscript, with a polite little reminder, and sometimes you dutifully wade through a few pages and sometimes you don’t; and after a decent interval you post it back, with a little note of your own, to the effect that it’s absolutely brilliant, etcetera, but perhaps a little more time should be spent on mastering the technical side, etcetera.’

  ‘Why are you telling me all this?’ he grumbled. ‘If you think I know it already?’

  ‘Simply because it is one of those hazards of life to which people like Sven are peculiarly prone. I bet he’d tried the formula half a dozen times and got exactly the same brush-off. However, being incurably optimistic, self-deluding and conceited, he had convinced himself that it was not the script that was at fault, but the attitude of the people who had been bludgeoned into reading it. And, let’s face it, there could be a grain of truth in that.’

  ‘He could have sent it to me,’ my agent said. ‘I’d have read it like a shot. Or got one of the girls to.’

  ‘I expect he has sent it to you,’ I retorted. ‘I should never be surprised if there were a copy mouldering away at this very minute among those dusty old piles in your office. Anyway, when he learnt that you’d given me some scripts, he saw his opportunity and decided to insert his own among them. It was a trick which appealed to his devious mind and he could at least be sure that any prejudices I might start with would all be in his favour.’

  ‘Very crazy,’ Robin said. ‘And afterwards, I suppose he had to steal our keys, so that he could pop in from time to time and see how far you’d got with it?’

  I laughed: ‘No, I don’t think he was as sneaky as all that. I’m almost sure the keys fell out of your pocket by accident, but I daresay that when he went back to fetch the macintosh and found them on the floor the temptation was irresistible. Pêche said that he was out at a meeting that afternoon, but if he was I wouldn’t mind betting that he called at a locksmith on his way.’

  ‘That’s rather a fine distinction, and personally I would call it as near stealing as makes no difference. On the other hand, we could be doing him an injustice. We have no proof that he even handled the keys.’

  ‘Oh yes, we have,’ I replied. ‘Or as near proof as makes no difference, to coin one of your phrases. I’m sure he had duplicates made and later on, when it became essential to get the script back, I think he used them. Not he, personally, because he was in prison by then, but he gave them to old Pêche, with clear instructions as to what she was to look for. That’s when she took to haunting the café opposite.’

  ‘Waiting and watching until everyone was out and she could nip upstairs and let herself into the flat?’

  ‘Exactly; and I think she tried it, but of course you’d had the locks changed. So then she must have gone into conference with Sven and they hatched another plot. She came to us with a pathetic little tale about his languishing in jail with nothing to read. Frightfully feeble, really, because apart from their own bookshelves being crammed with stuff, you can buy all the English books you want in Paris. So when that didn’t work she tried two more dodges. I left her alone in my bedroom and she went snooping through the desk to see if she could find the script there. As it happened, Ellen had borrowed it, as I very well knew, so that was a washout, too. As a last resort, she told me that Sven really needed some scenarios, so that he could copy the technique. In fact, she absolutely played into my hands and gave the show away completely.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ my agent said plaintively, ‘but I’m not sure I follow this. Why, after all this trouble, was he so stuck on getting it back?’

  ‘I wasn’t sure that I followed it, either,’ Toby admitted, ‘though, thank goodness, I wasn’t the one to say so.’

  ‘It was the crux,’ I told them. ‘There is no other word for it. The script carried a full description of how Mrs Baker was murdered; written, I need hardly add, months in advance.’

  ‘What you might call a dead give-away?’

  ‘Yes, although I soon realised that if it was his own skin he was worried about, he’d have owned up about being in the cinema that night. I knew he was there and had heard his named called, however much they kept telling me it was impossible. So I guessed he was shielding someone else; and who but the real murderer?’

  ‘And why should he want to do that?’

  ‘Because he was dotty about her; and there’s a pun there, for those of us who are sharp enough to see it.’

  My agent looked rather put out, but after a while Toby said,

  ‘A terrible one. You mean Dotty, short for Dorothea?’

  ‘Alias Thea, alias Delphine. All those characters were very thinly disguised. Felix Marcus was the maniac doctor, and the hero was called Simon Charrington. Did you notice that, Ellen?’

  She nodded, but still did not speak.

  ‘So, having grasped that he was doing his Sydney Carton act and taking another’s place at the guillotine, it only remained to discover who.’

  ‘A mere bagatelle?’

  ‘A process of elimination, to put it grandly. Naturally, I considered Adela first. Although the idea of her being a murderess was quite ludicrous,’ I added hastily, for Jonathan’s benefit. ‘Then there was old Pêche, but she seemed rather an improbable person to be laying down one’s life for. Also I doubt if she’d read the script. I’m certain she didn’t type it because it was so untidily done, which is not her style at all. Probably he typed it himself. I expect that’s what he was up to half the time, when he gave it out that he was working late on reports. So then I took another look at Thea. In some ways, she was the likeliest candidate of all; a proper femme fatale type and, allowing for the fact that he went through life in rose-coloured blinkers, she was a logical Delphine. Unfortunately, Robin and I had ruled her out.’

  ‘How fascinating! Do tell us how you came to rule her in again.’

  ‘It was Tessa’s finest hour,’ Robin said, ‘and, paradoxically, the one she is least willing to talk about.’

  ‘Paradox is the word. I can hardly credit it.’

  ‘It was hard to accept, after all the struggle, that I didn’t know as much French as I thought,’ I said. ‘Or to be precise, what a lot of words there are which sound roughly the same in both lan
guages but have different meanings. Madame Stéfane was a great one for that. When she was stumped for an English word she just used a French one and anglicised the pronunciation a bit. For instance, she said ignore, when she meant “not knowing”, and there was a much more vital slip which sailed right over me.’

  Toby and my agent were watching me with suitably riveted expressions, so I paused long enough to give it the maximum effect, before saying:

  ‘She translated “bague” into bag. It was such a trivial mistake, but it confused everything. You see, the reason for dismissing old Thea was that I’d got this entirely false impression that she’d walked through the Champ de Mars without any kind of bag. So, by only slightly bending the truth about the time of her arrival at IDEAS, she would have had the opportunity, but it was still inconceivable that she could have had the weapon. She would not only have to carry a whacking great spanner to the scene of the crime, where we now know she had a rendezvous with Leila Baker; she had then to use it for bloody murder and carry it quite openly all the way to IDEAS, so as to dump it in the basement car park. But of course it wasn’t like that at all. The missing article was her ring, her “bague”, if you prefer. I suppose she’d taken it off for a manicure or something, or maybe she made up the whole story about mislaying it, in order to impress on everyone what time she left the shop, in case the need arose. But I’ve got into the habit now of translating everything as I go along. The other day I was sitting in a café and I noticed the waiter was wearing a flashy great signet ring. That’s when the truth began to dawn, and just to ram it home he reminded me, as I was leaving, that my sac was ouvert.’

  ‘But she surely wouldn’t have wished the time of her leaving the shop to be remembered?’ Toby asked. ‘Wouldn’t it have been wiser to pretend that she left later than she did and hope to get away with it?’

  ‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you, but it was the other way round. The first part of her alibi had to be accurate, so that she could fake the second part. That’s when she’s sitting demurely in the hall at IDEAS, waiting for her husband to come down. The time is now ten to eight and the lift door opens, but instead of her husband out steps Sven. At least, that was her story, but of course it was pure fabrication. At a quarter to eight she was down in the basement, impersonating him, in the knowledge that he was already safely on his way to meet her at the cinema. It was her bad luck that Ellen and I picked the same film. I think I can safely say.’ I concluded smugly, ‘that, but for that unlucky accident, she would have got away with it.’

  ‘Although this male impersonation act must have carried a certain risk?’

  ‘Not so much as you might think. She and Sven are about the same height, for one thing, and Robin had already pointed out two other circumstances in her favour. One was the basement being so dimly lit and the other that, superficially, he was awfully easy to imitate. She could have fooled anyone at twenty yards, provided she’d had the forethought to put his hat and overcoat in the boot of her car. I expect he had more than one of those terrible outfits. In fact, I’d meant to check on that very point with Adela, but then Ellen got herself kidnapped and there were other matters to be dealt with.’

  ‘She was pretty sure of herself, wasn’t she?’ my agent remarked critically. ‘And of her loved one, too. What made her so confident he’d keep his silly mouth shut?’

  ‘I’ve told you one reason, but she hadn’t left him much choice, had she? All he could say was that she was the only single individual who’d read his script and therefore only she would have used that particular method of murdering someone. But it still wouldn’t preclude his having done it, himself, and she only had to deny having read it. In the meantime, she’d practically pickled him in brine by contriving to get him in two places at once, believing that he could never prove that the cinema was the true one. That was what made her so scared of me, specially after she’d seen us walking down the road when she was shopping in Assy-les-Cygnes last Sunday with Adela. But the first and greatest risk was her poor old husband. I think it was when the police started raking up the past history of his T.B. clinic that she became afraid of his giving something away which would uncover what really happened there. So she ran up a fake suicide note and gave him a strong dose in his bedtime drink. Being a nurse, she’d have known exactly the right mixture. You may be interested to know that I got the idea of her being a nurse a long, long while ago. It was when I was bitten by the poodle and she made such a neat job of binding me up. You never saw anything so professional. When I read “The Waiting Room”, that bit fell into place, too.’

  ‘And what was her place?’ Toby asked. ‘I think that may well be my last question.’

  ‘The place of one who loved money and would do anything to get it, including espionage. Here was a patient in that hospital, a young man who was due to die of his illness, so she may have been a bit careless where he was concerned, blithely believing that any secrets he may have unearthed would shortly be carried with him to the grave. However, against all the odds, he recovered and was about to be discharged. Naturally, she couldn’t have that, so he got his in the hot milk, too. It was written off as criminal negligence and Dr Müller took full responsibility, but we’ll never know whether he suspected her or not; probably not, since he married her when he came out of jail. Sven’s first wife was a patient, too, and that’s how he met and fell for Dorothea/Delphine.’

  ‘I can’t help it,’ my agent said, ‘I know one ought to let Toby have the last question, but why did Dorothea/Delphine want to murder this Baker woman?’

  ‘And Robin shall have the last answer,’ I said, bowing to him graciously.

  ‘Has he been holding out on us?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Robin replied, ‘I’ve been involved on the fringes of that part of the affair which concerned the leakage of information; and that, of course, is what eventually led to the murder.’

  ‘Indeed? You mean this Baker lady was working for the counterspy brigade?’

  ‘No, on the contrary, she had nothing whatever to do with it, as I could have told Thea Müller, if she’d taken the trouble to ask me. Unfortunately, she followed her own instinct, which let her down quite badly. I admit she had some excuse. The Bakers had switched around from country to country for the last few years and their last posting was in London, where Thea and her chum also had their contact. It may have been this which first gave her the idea that Leila Baker was something a little more threatening than just an innocent member of the personnel department, but also the poor woman had acquired quite a reputation for poking her nose into other people’s business and generally making a nuisance of herself. Thea, who had quite a load on her conscience, put two and two together and made sixteen out of it. In other words, she came up with the answer that Mrs Baker had been planted at IDEAS for the specific purpose of nosing out the spies and was getting dangerously near to doing so. It was a very stupid mistake.’

  ‘And a very nasty one, too, in my opinion.’

  ‘But one has to remember that it wasn’t the first murder she’d committed, and it wasn’t to be the last. I suppose that killing the people who got in her way had become a natural reaction. In fact, Tessa and Ellen have a theory that it wasn’t the first go she’d had at Mrs Baker. It seems that the old sitar player drank down the contents of her carafe five minutes before he dropped dead, so that may have had a dose in it, too. There’s no way of proving it, but Thea could well have been in the vicinity on the night of the concert. There was so much confusion and so many people milling around that one more or less wouldn’t have stood out. Also she could have got into the hall from the other entrance before the proceedings even started. Her husband was working over at the main building at the time, so she had a perfect excuse if anyone had chanced to notice her. I don’t expect we’ll ever know the truth about that.’

  ‘It seems to me that we know quite enough already to form rather a low opinion of her,’ Toby remarked. ‘It is shattering to recall that she once had Ellen in her
clutches, however briefly. I suppose I shall have to be a terribly kind and indulgent father for the next ten years, to make up for it.’

  Epilogue

  ‘It wasn’t quite fair, you know,’ Ellen said reprovingly, winding her hair into a knot and tucking it inside the check cap.

  ‘What wasn’t?’

  ‘All that stuff about a ring being une bague and a bag being un sac. You’d need to know heaps of French to get the hang of it. Now, if it had been Spanish . . .’

  ‘You’d have caught on in a trice; I know. But there were lots of other signs to show which way the wind blew, and anyway there are things I am far less proud of than that.’

  In a sense, we were back where we came in, for this conversation took place in the cloakroom at Orly. My producers, having learnt all and forgiven all, had gallantly suggested my taking a few days holiday, to recover from the atrocious ordeals. To be frank, I think they hoped to gain on the roundabouts of publicity what they lost on the swings of working days, but I had gratefully accepted the offer and we were all on our way to London. Jonathan had taken a fancy to explore the King’s Road, and was also among the party.

  ‘Which?’ Ellen asked. ‘Which things aren’t you proud of?’

  ‘Well, underestimating Jonathan, for one. It was absolutely heroic, the way he handled your rescue. And staging that motor accident with neither of you getting a scratch was a sheer marvel. Tears come into my eyes whenever I think of it.’

  ‘Do they really?’

  ‘Yes, they do. That’s mainly why Robin and I have been tumbling over ourselves not to say nasty things about his old mum. And I take it all back about his being such a liar. I’m quite prepared to believe that his father has ice dispensers in every last Cadillac.’