by John Creasey
Papa Mulle said: “You may know, I suppose. It is an old, old business now, the first of the many affaires of M. le Comte de Vignolles. You are not surprised?”
“No,” said Rollison softly. “Not at all surprised. Are you strong enough to be given a shock?”
Mulle looked startled. “Strong enough to—” He broke off, and chuckled. “It will take much more than a shock to harm me, my friend. Try it.”
“Simon Leclair is in grave danger,” Rollison said abruptly. “So are other friends of mine. I can’t be sure; but I think M. le Comte de Vignolles could help to remove the danger.”
Papa Mulle did not speak.
“One way to find out is to talk to M. le Comte,” went on Rollison dryly, “but on my ground, not his. Can you find me some helpers, lend me two cars, and also find me a place where I can talk to him?”
The coldness faded from Mulle’s eyes; they grew warm until eventually they glowed. “Yes, my friend, I can,” he said.
M. le Comte de Vignolles was in the library of his villa, which was built on the hills overlooking the sea, between the middle and upper corniche from Monte Carlo to Nice. He was alone. The room was large, but the most striking feature was the huge window, stretching the whole width of one wall, and overlooking the promontory which jutted into the sea at Cap Mirabeau and the He de Seblec. It was often said that his villa had the finest views in France.
He was writing.
Some movement caught his eye, and he saw a car turn into the drive off the corniche road. It made him frown, for it was a gleaming cream-coloured car, and he did not recognise it. He was not expecting strangers. He shrugged his shoulders and tried to put it out of his mind, but it would not go. When a tap came at the door, he said at once: “Yes, come in.”
A middle-aged man dressed in black entered.
“M. le Comte, an English gentleman, one M. Rollison, asks if you will be good enough to see him.”
“Who?”
“An English gentleman, M.—”
“Beautifully said,” said Rollison, and startled the flunkey by appearing behind him. He put him gently to one side, and entered the room. “Good morning, good morning. My, what a view!” He moved across to the window and stood looking out, marvelling. “Wonderful! What a lucky man you are.”
“M. le Comte,” said the servant tautly, “is it your wish to have M. Rollison shown out?”
“Shown or thrown, they scan at home,” said Rollison brightly. “But I don’t think that my host will be as unkind as that. Circumstances have changed. Will you leave us to talk together?”
The servant said: “In one moment, M. le Comte, I can call Charles and Paul. Together they—”
“Wait outside,” de Vignolles said abruptly.
“As you wish, m’sieu.”
“But they can come and throw you out at the touch of a switch,” de Vignolles said to Rollison. The anger in his eyes might have been there since the previous night. There was disquiet, too; a sense of fear. “What do you want?”
“Some friends of mine,” said Rollison promptly. “Simon Leclair, known as the natural successor to the original Chicot; Daphne Myall, just the daughter of an unhappy woman, and a few other daughters. Not very much, after all.”
“You must be mad! To come here and talk to me and—”
“Burble,” said Rollison brightly. “I agree with you. In your position I would be angry, too. But there isn’t anything you can do about it now, for you’re in trouble. You’re in big trouble. You see, I think you know who Chicot is. I think he blackmails you into helping him, perhaps into providing these pretty girls. You hoped I would trace and kill Chicot. You dare not name him, but you thought a thousand pounds would make me keener to find out who he is. Well, you’re going to name him, M. le Comte.”
“I do not know him!”
“I don’t believe you. Send him a message, will you? That I’m prepared to keep away from the police and give him time to get away, provided Simon Leclair and the girls are freed.”
“It isn’t true,” de Vignolles said shrilly. “I do not know who Chicot is!”
Rollison grinned.
“Chicot, son of Chicot,” he declared. “Bright idea, too. Lure the girls down here with bright lights, turn their heads, use them as decoys to fleece wealthy old fools, then keep them prisoner, use them as the bait in more big swindles. When they’re guilty of that, they’re in Chicot’s hands. Villa Seblec is kept as a kind of home from home for the young ladies until they can’t stand the confinement any longer, and ‘volunteer’ to go to the African coast. Wealthy sheiks like pretty white ladies, no? Violette Monet was an exception, because Chicot fell in love with her.”
He paused. Then: “Who is Chicot?”
“I do not know!” cried de Vignolles.
Rollison felt quite sure that he did; quite sure that he lived in terror of Chicot, and dared not name him.
“M. le Comte, what would happen if I were to tell Morency or Raoul, at the Villa Seblec, that you have named him?” Rollison inquired mildly.
“No!” cried de Vignolles.
“He wouldn’t be surprised, as we dined together.”
De Vignolles was sweating, and breathing in short gasps; a frightened man. A little more pressure, and he would crack; but Rollison did not want him to crack here.
The manservant was at the door.
The Toff relaxed, as the door opened, and touched his forehead lightly.
“Au revoir,” he beamed, and flicked a card towards the desk so dexterously that it lay on the blotting-pad on which de Vignolles had been writing. “My card.” He bowed, moved to the door, and went out.
De Vignolles saw him chuck the manservant under the chin.
De Vignolles did not close the door, but stared after the Englishman, who moved lightly as a ballet-dancer and who suddenly began to sing a risqué song in rich Paris argot.
Then he disappeared.
Ten minutes later, M. le Comte de Vignolles left his villa in a chauffeur-driven Cadillac, an exquisite sea-green in colour, and was taken safely to the drive and on to the main road. A few hundred yards along, round a corner, the driver was forced to slow down. Workmen were blocking half the road, and a car was coming towards them on the other half. De Vignolles glared at the driver of this, who looked a very old man in beret and blouse. The man was swearing at his engine, which was at least as venerable as he was himself.
His engine had stalled.
De Vignolles opened his mouth to say something excessively unpleasant; and closed it again. Two of the workmen had turned towards him and the Cadillac. A man suddenly appeared from the side of the road, and pulled open his door.
The chauffeur exclaimed: “Nom d’un nom, get away from here!”
Then he saw the gun in the other man’s hand.
“You can’t want to move more quickly than I do,” said Rollison earnestly. “Take off your hat and coat—and’ hurry!”
The chauffeur gulped, and de Vignolles started to speak, but bit on the words. He looked dreadful. The chauffeur took off his hat and coat, and one of the ‘workmen’ hurried towards him and put them on; the other forced the chauffeur to climb out.
Rollison got in next to de Vignolles.
“Drive on, my man,” said he grandiloquently; “you know our destination.” He turned to de Vignolles, and rested a hand lightly on his arm. “And don’t you wish you did?”
De Vignolles was trembling violently.
Obviously he didn’t like the knife in Rollison’s hand.
Chapter Twenty-One
Hostage
At a lonely spot on the road between Nice and Cannes, they reached some cross-roads, and slowed down. De Vignolles had hardly uttered a word on the journey. Rollison glanced round at him, and saw that his face was almost colourless, that hi
s eyes had the sick look which fear could give to a man.
Gérard had had the same kind of fear.
They drove towards the back of the towns, and turned off the main road. Soon the country was broken and untidy, and the grass was burned more yellow than green. A few fruit-trees looked listless in the sun. Big, circular haystacks cast huge shadows. Two oxen, pulling an ancient plough with a woman in a huge sun-bonnet behind it, plodded noisily through the sun-baked earth. Then they came to a hill and, on the other side, took another narrow lane which led to a small farmhouse.
A few chickens scratched; a pig grunted. Hanging on either side of the small doorway were three pairs of coloured sabots. Tobacco hung from the top of two barns, being cured in the sun. The farmyard smell was potent, and de Vignolles seemed to find his nostrils twitching without any command or effort of will.
The car turned through the open gateway and stopped in front of the house itself. It was narrow and tall, with plaster walls and a pink wash which hadn’t been renewed for several years.
“Home again,” said Rollison brightly. “Quite a change, isn’t it? Mind you step high when you get out; we didn’t think to bring your valet.”
“Rollison—”
“Out,” said Rollison, and took his wrist. “Now.” He pulled, and de Vignolles grunted, then stepped out quickly. “De Vignolles,” went on Rollison in a hard voice, “you may be a Count. You may be a millionaire. You may have powerful friends.” He paused, and then pointed to a pig-stye, where a huge sow was grunting and muzzling. “Do you see that pig?”
De Vignolles licked his lips.
“I’d give tomorrow’s bacon more consideration than you,” Rollison said, and he sounded as if he meant it. “The farm is owned by friends of mine. No one will hear any noise you make. You can scream from now until next Monday, and no one who matters will hear. Understand?”
“What is it—you want?”
“Chicot,” said Rollison. “Remember?”
He let de Vignolles go, and turned towards the open front door. Violette was just inside. He didn’t see Fifi, although he knew that she was here somewhere. Violette gave him a lazy smile, and looked at de Vignolles as if he were something that crawled.
The room into which Rollison stepped was large and poorly lit. Some big old-fashioned chairs stood about, a large table with a red chenille table-cloth on it, a sofa, two big oil-lamps. The floor was bare, but looked as if it had been recently scrubbed.
De Vignoles was thrust in, behind Rollison. He had hardly spoken a word. His pallor was greater, and green-tinged, now. His lips moved, and his tongue showed before he closed his mouth.
Violette looked at him with that same supercilious expression when he glanced at her, as if imploring help.
In the large fireplace there was a wooden rocking-chair.
“Sit down,” said Rollison, and when he Vignolles hesitated, he took his wrists and thrust him into it. The chair rocked backwards alarmingly; de Vignolles thought that it was going to tip over. He panicked and tried to get up, fell back, cried out; and gave his head a sickening bang on the back of the chair.
The chair steadied.
“The few that are brave,” said Rollison bleakly. “Listen to me, de Vignolles. You’re so scared of Chicot that you do what he tells you. You saw me because he told you to. You were to offer me a thousand pounds, and I was to tell you what I knew about Chicot.
“You probably want him dead.”
“You daren’t let him or his men realise that you do. You daren’t name him, but—you will. When I came to see you, you wanted to get help, and instructions. You could not telephone, so planned to see—whom?”
“No!” cried de Vignolles.
“Ask him first,” said Fifi from a doorway, “is Simon dead or alive?”
She moved towards the Frenchman. Her hands were empty, and her arms hung by her side. Her little plump body looked shrunken in a blue overall. Her hair was still untidy, and she hadn’t put on any lipstick or rouge. The deadliness which terrified the Frenchman was in her eyes. Rollison saw it, and knew that if ever a woman stepped towards him as she was moving towards de Vignolles, he would also feel afraid.
De Vignolles tried to get up. The chair rocked. He licked his lips again, grabbed the arms as if to steady himself, but only made it move more rapidly.
“Is he alive or dead?” asked Fifi very softly.
“I do not know!” de Vignolles sobbed. “That I swear to you.”
“If he is dead,” Fifi said, “I shall kill you, M. le Comte.” The sneer in the way she uttered that title must have made the Frenchman writhe. “Where is Simon?”
“He—I do not know!”
“Where is he?”
“If you know you’d better talk,” Rollison advised. “Fifi really wants to know. She was in the Resistance during the war, and learned a lot of tricks, especially on how to use scissors. You wouldn’t want that kind of face-lifting, would you?”
“Keep her away!” screeched de Vignolles.
“I could use a whip,” Rollison said musingly. There was one hanging by the fireplace, a bullock’s whip with several knotted ends to the leather thongs. He went towards it. “A very pretty thing. Who is Chicot?”
“I do not know!”
Fifi stood watching, but Violette had turned away, and was looking out of the window. No one stirred outside, except the old sow, which kept grunting and pushing against the rotting fence which surrounded her. Chickens scratched. The men who had come with Rollison Were at the back of the farm, out of sight and hearing.
Rollison had a strange feeling.
It was nearly over; this man would crack very soon. He must have been living on fear for months; perhaps for years. His bluster and his arrogance had been built on the shifting sands of fear, and they were crumbling fast. His hands would not keep still.
He almost squealed.
“I do not know Chicot, but I know what he does. Please take that woman away. I will tell you all I can.”
“Hurry, and never mind the woman.”
De Vignolles gulped.
“Years ago I—I killed a man, an accident, you under stand, but Chicot found out. I had—I had known his sister, he—”
“We know, you can skip that,” Rollison said.
The man’s face worked.
“So, Chicot blackmailed me, for many years. Then he went away, I became rich—until he returned. I had the Baccarat, much money, everything and—Chicot began again. I was to have—to have some girls come to the Baccarat, made drunk, and—and go to the Villa with certain men. You understand? Afterwards, I did not see them again. That—that is all I know!”
Rollison said stonily: “Who is Chicot?”
“I swear I do not know!”
“What happens to the girls?”
“How can I tell?”
“Must I use the whip?”
“I do not know Chicot,” babbled de Vignolles, “but I am told he will be at the Villa Seblec tonight. I am to see him there, but he will be disguised. And—and more things, I can tell you. I have threatened to tell the police, to confess all; and what does he say? If the Villa is raided, if the police go, then there will be a great explosion!” His eyes looked wild; glaring. “I do not lie to you. The girls are hidden deep in the cliff, and there is a powerful charge of dynamite under the place. They will be buried, no one will know how it happened. Already there are some pieces of an old bomb on the cliff; it will look like the explosion of a bomb dropped years ago by a crippled aircraft. Believe me, they will all be killed. That is how Chicot plans.”
De Vignolles stopped, and silence followed. It lasted, heavy and menacing, for a long time. Then Rollison said slowly: “Where is the dynamite?”
A sharp, explosive sound outside cut across his words. It made him break off, ma
de the others turn swiftly, even the Frenchman looked towards the window.
Fifi cried out.
Rollison saw one of Papa Mulle’s men fall full length in the muck of the yard.
A small, brown-clad, brown-skinned man appeared at the doorway, knife in hand.
The knife flashed.
De Vignolles’s scream was cut off when the blade entered his chest.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Word Of A Dying Man
The rocking-chair went to and fro, to and fro, while the echoes of the scream faded; the rockers of the chair scraped a little on the stone floor. The blade was buried in de Vignolles’ breast, on the left side; a little of the steel showed. His hands were cupped close to the handle, but did not touch it. His mouth was wide open.
The brown-skinned man moved from the doorway, swift as a flash of light.
Rollison moved after him, and saw one of Papa Mulle’s friends running. Rollison stopped, and swung round. Even if they caught the Arab there was no certainty that he could talk to help them. Somewhere under the cliff near the Villa Seblec were those helpless girls; and de Vignolles knew about them, and might know how to get them out.
Fifi was standing close to the Count, one hand raised, as if she could not believe that this had happened.
Violette was saying: “What can we do for him? What can we do.”
“Get water, towels. Hurry!” Fifi suddenly became a moving bundle, and swung round.
In fact, there wasn’t a thing they could do.
Rollison knew, and de Vignolles knew. For the first time since they had met they eyed each other as equals, and without any measure of pretence. The expression in de Vignolles’s eyes was different. He was not afraid. That was the startling thing: the fear had gone.
His lips moved.
“Get me—a priest,” he whispered. “As you are a man, send for a priest.”
Rollison said quietly: “Violette, talk to the men, find out where the nearest priest is, and send for him. Or go and fetch him. Hurry, please.”