Her voice was level and emotionless. It was as though she was reciting a well-rehearsed lesson.
‘Did you see your brother?’
‘No. I didn’t see anyone. I didn’t realize,’ she added, ‘that anyone had seen me.’
‘How long were you out?’
‘I’m not sure. Perhaps a quarter of an hour, perhaps twenty minutes. I didn’t notice.’ Her dark eyes met Colinet’s grey ones. ‘Nothing important happened. I didn’t think it would have any bearing on the case. That’s why I didn’t trouble to mention it before. I’m sorry if I’ve made things difficult.’
‘It certainly doesn’t help when people forget essential pieces of information,’ Colinet said. Deliberately he emphasized the word forget and Tremaine thought he saw her flinch. ‘Is there anything further you would like to add now, Miss Latinam?’
‘No, I don’t think so. I’ve told you all I can.’
‘Very well.’
There was a pause. She looked at him innocuously.
‘Does that mean you’ve finished with me? I can go?’
‘Yes,’ Colinet said. ‘You can go.’
Her face was a little white but she moved quietly and without haste to the door. It closed behind her.
‘Very cool,’ Marchant observed. ‘Very cool indeed.’
The Chief Officer leaned back in his chair. He was frowning.
‘I don’t like it,’ he said. ‘I don’t like it at all.’
Tremaine pushed back his pince-nez. He glanced at his companions. He didn’t like it very much either.
16
THE FRIGHTENED MAN
INSPECTOR MARCHANT HAD evidently been busy. It was the morning after the unsatisfactory interview with Ruth Latinam. Watching the road leading to the headland Mordecai Tremaine had seen the Chief Officer’s car making for the Rohane hotel and had set off in the same direction himself. The inspector had arrived shortly afterwards and the three of them were now seated in the familiar office.
Colinet had settled himself in the swivel chair behind the desk but he had the air of a man who had not come to stay.
‘I’ll be leaving you to it, Marchant,’ he observed. ‘I’m in for a pretty full day back in town. The arrears have been piling up. But you’ll know where to find me if anything turns up.’ He glanced at Tremaine. ‘Any news since yesterday?’
Tremaine shook his head.
‘Nothing fresh.’
‘Miss Latinam not decided to take us into her confidence?’
‘No, I’m afraid not.’
‘I’ve been sorting out Le Mazon’s alibi, sir,’ Marchant said. ‘It isn’t looking too healthy.’
‘You mean for Le Mazon? His wife isn’t backing him up?’
‘I didn’t start with his wife,’ the inspector returned. ‘I thought she mightn’t be inclined to be helpful, so I made a few enquiries in the village. When I’d found a couple of witnesses who were prepared to swear that they’d seen Le Mazon round about eleven o’clock on the night of the murder I went along and tackled both of them.’
‘Any results?’
‘Le Mazon tried to bluff it out at first. Swore he hadn’t been out of his cottage after ten and that the witnesses must have been mistaken. But it didn’t take long to make him change his tune. Funny thing, sir,’ the inspector went on, ‘I wouldn’t have expected him to break up as he did. He seemed to go right to pieces.’
‘He admitted his alibi was a fake?’
‘Not directly. He didn’t say straight out that he had been out. But he started in on a lot of wild talk about how he was always being persecuted and how we wouldn’t leave him alone. I’ve never seen him in such a state before. He was practically on his knees and that’s a sight I didn’t imagine I’d see.’
‘It sounds as though you’ve got something,’ Colinet said thoughtfully. ‘So Le Mazon’s alibi isn’t worth a bean and he’s really scared. Maybe you’d better keep working in that quarter. Find out if anybody in the village can throw any light on what he was up to with Latinam. Let him see what you’re after. Fear’s a great loosener of tongues; you may force him into the open.’
He was lifting himself to his feet when there was an urgent knock on the door.
‘It’s Gaston Le Mazon, sir,’ said the constable who came in. ‘He’s here asking if he can see you. Seems in a bit of a panic, sir.’
Colinet glanced significantly at his companions. Slowly he levered himself back into his seat.
‘Maybe we’d better have him in and find out what’s troubling him. All right, Constable, bring him along.’
It was clear from his appearance and the shambling, hurried manner of his entrance—as though he could not get in quickly enough and yet feared to come—that Gaston Le Mazon’s nerves were under a severe strain. He seemed unable to control his hands, and he looked like a man who had not slept for some time.
He made straight for Colinet.
‘I want to know what it is you have against me.’
‘Sit down,’ the Chief Officer said coldly. He glanced at his watch significantly. ‘I can spare you exactly five minutes.’
His disinterested, deliberately hostile tone sobered Le Mazon. The burly fisherman lost something of his air of impetuous aggression; he sat down obediently; he was still agitated but he was obviously trying now to control himself.
‘You think that it was Le Mazon who killed Latinam,’ he muttered.
‘You mean,’ Colinet said, ‘that you think that is what I believe.’
‘Then why do the police come to me? Why do they keep asking me questions?’
‘Maybe it’s because we’re not satisfied with your answers. For instance, we’re not satisfied with the reason you’ve given for your connection with Latinam. And we’re not satisfied that you were safely indoors at the time of the murder.’
Le Mazon did not reply for a second or two. His eyes flickered towards Inspector Marchant. A cunning look settled upon his sullen features.
‘Always it is Le Mazon you suspect. You do not trouble to look anywhere else. It is too easy to say that it is Le Mazon who is guilty. But there are things you do not know—things that would make you change your mind.’
Colinet studied him thoughtfully.
‘In that case,’ he observed, ‘perhaps you could tell us about them.’
Le Mazon drew a deep breath, as though he was about to embark upon some laborious task.
‘I was to have taken my boat,’ he said, ‘with Mr. Bendall and Mrs. Paston. It was Latinam who told them that I would arrange it for them.’
‘So much we know already,’ Colinet remarked. ‘It was for a fishing trip,’ he added, making his irony plain. ‘For you it was good business. The money was to have been good.’
‘The money was to have been good,’ Le Mazon agreed. ‘But it was not for a fishing trip.’
There was a different note in his voice now; it held a strange mixture of triumph and reluctance. His burly figure leaned towards the Chief Officer.
‘There would have been an—accident. Mr. Bendall and Mrs. Paston would have been drowned.’
Colinet brought his hands down upon the desk. His grey eyes were hard and stern.
‘And who was it who desired this—accident?’
‘It was Latinam. He said that I knew the currents; that I could see to it that no one suspected that anything was wrong. People have been drowned here before; it is a very dangerous coast for those who do not know. He said that he would pay me well if I would do what he asked.’
‘In other words you’re telling me that Latinam wanted you to murder Mr. Bendall and Mrs. Paston in such a way that it would look like an accident?’
‘That is what he wanted.’
‘And just why was he suggesting that you should murder two of his guests?’
‘I do not know. He did not tell me and he was not a man you would ask questions.’
Colinet frowned. He gave Le Mazon a long, reflective stare.
‘And did you agree to do thi
s thing?’
The fisherman shifted in his seat. He raised his big hands in a deprecating gesture. There was almost a note of hurt in his voice.
‘But no,’ he said virtuously. ‘Gaston Le Mazon has done many wrong things. I admit it. But murder is not one of them. Gaston Le Mazon does not kill. I told him that I would have none of it.’
‘How did Latinam take that?’
‘He did not like it. He wanted it done, you understand. But what was there he could do? He could not tell people that Gaston Le Mazon would not kill for him.’
Colinet coughed behind a massive hand, concealing his quick smile at the man’s assumption of rectitude.
‘Why did you not tell the police that this offer had been made to you?’
‘Would the police have believed Gaston Le Mazon? Would they have taken his word against that of the respectable Mr. Latinam? It was best that nothing should be said.’
‘What made you decide to talk about it now?’
The cunning expression deepened in Le Mazon’s face. Watching him closely Tremaine was aware that this was the crux of the matter; this was the reason for the man’s visit.
‘Now it is different. You are accusing Gaston Le Mazon, but all the time it is to this Mr. Bendall you should look. Maybe he knew that Latinam wanted him killed. Maybe he thought that he would do something about it first.’
The fisherman stopped, breathing heavily, his face flushed. He faced Colinet challengingly.
The Chief Officer gave no sign of having been impressed by what he had heard.
‘Is that all you came for?’
Le Mazon looked discomfited. Slowly the elation drained away from his eyes; fear and uncertainty took its place. His glance went to Inspector Marchant and then came back to Colinet.
‘You do not believe me! You think that I have lied! It is the truth I have told you!’
‘Your five minutes are up,’ Colinet said. He nodded to the constable. ‘All right, see that he leaves.’
Reluctantly Le Mazon came to his feet. He looked like a man who had played what he had imagined to be a winning card and had seen it make no difference to the game. There was a hint of desperation in his voice.
‘There were other things, too. You will see. I will find them out and I will tell you!’
The constable closed the door firmly upon his protests. Colinet raised an eyebrow in Marchant’s direction.
‘Did you say you’d scared him?’
‘Sounds like an understatement now, sir,’ Marchant said. ‘Do you think Latinam really wanted him to get rid of Mr. Bendall and Mrs. Paston?’
The Chief Officer looked at Tremaine.
‘What about it?’ he said significantly.
‘There was certainly something odd going on between Bendall and Latinam,’ Tremaine admitted. ‘I don’t know that it was big enough for murder.’
‘It isn’t going to be easy to make sure,’ Colinet said. ‘Maybe that’s what Le Mazon’s depending on.’
‘You mean he made up the story because he wanted to throw suspicion on Bendall in order to save his own skin?’
‘If ever I’ve seen a man in a state of panic it was Le Mazon just now. That means he must have good reason to be scared. Is it because he’s afraid we’re trying to pin Latinam’s murder on him? If it is then he thinks there’s a case against him.’
‘Either he’s guilty,’ Tremaine said slowly, ‘or he knows we’re liable to discover something that will make it look as though he might be. So he’s trying to confuse the trail. If Bendall and Nicola Paston knew that Latinam was likely to make an attempt to kill them they aren’t likely to say so now because that would mean admitting he must have had a reason. And the reason might work in reverse. It might give us a motive to explain why they might have killed Latinam.’
‘Exactly. Le Mazon’s succeeding in creating a reasonable doubt. Even if we confront Bendall with the story and Bendall tells us it’s nonsense we can’t be sure.’
Walking down from the hotel after the Chief Officer had gone back to St. Julian Harbour and Inspector Marchant had proceeded about his business, Tremaine thought the matter over. Was Gaston Le Mazon merely a badly frightened man casting about for some way of diverting suspicion from himself? Or was he a very clever rogue deliberately trying to obscure the issue?
He was in no hurry and he allowed his stroll to follow a devious route which brought him eventually into the straggling village which was the heart of Moulin d’Or. Occupied with his thoughts, he almost collided with Ralph Exenley at the entrance to the small general stores.
Exenley was carrying a shopping basket. He noticed Tremaine’s glance.
‘Just been replenishing supplies,’ he explained. ‘I’ve been chary about moving very far with so many people all coming to gaze on the scene of the crime. Been a bit embarrassing. Interest seems to be slackening a bit now, though. I don’t feel quite so much like a prize exhibit when I walk down the road.’
He nodded to an elderly man who was sitting smoking on the lawn of the house they were just passing. Tremaine regarded his companion speculatively.
‘You’re one of the locals, Ralph. What’s the gossip?’
‘It’s all on one topic,’ Exenley returned. ‘But that’s what you mean, isn’t it?’
‘It isn’t often,’ Tremaine said, ‘that a place like this has a murder to talk about. You’d expect people to make the most of it.’
Exenley stooped to throw her ball back to a small girl who had been on the point of running into the roadway after it. He was not wearing a jacket, but was dressed in an old pair of flannel trousers, obviously used for odd jobs about the village, sandals, and open-necked shirt. As he retrieved his shopping basket, which he had temporarily set down upon the path, Tremaine thought what a homely, reassuring figure he made, with his stocky form and broad, kindly features.
There was something solid about Ralph. He was part of Moulin d’Or. He represented the decencies of the place. The simple decencies which had been outraged by murder and the subsequent invasion by its camp followers.
‘Whether there’s any solid reason for it I wouldn’t like to say,’ Exenley remarked, ‘but there’s one person who’s an odds-on favourite as the murderer.’
‘Le Mazon?’
‘Yes. I suppose he’d have been a natural choice in any case on account of his reputation, and with all the other things added the opinion locally is that he’s the fellow the police are after.’
‘The other things?’
‘Well, he’s known to have had dealings with Latinam. And then there’s the way in which Inspector Marchant’s been working. Looking for people who might have seen him on the night of the murder and so on. It didn’t take long for that news to get around.’
‘What about you, Ralph. Do you think he might have done it?’
Exenley chuckled.
‘You’re the detective! But for what it’s worth my opinion is that it would be a very satisfactory solution if it turned out to be Le Mazon who killed Latinam. He’s been making himself a nuisance hereabouts for far too long.’
‘You mean getting the place a bad name by his activities?’
‘Not only that. You’ve had a chance to see Moulin d’Or now and you know what it’s like—a quiet little place, reasonably prosperous and everybody trying to live in the way they want. Some people making a living out of growing tomatoes, some by taking visitors, by a little fishing, one or two cottagers engaged on building or quarrying—it’s a sound little community. And Le Mazon’s been like a sort of maggot eating at the heart of it.’
‘You’re very attached to it, aren’t you, Ralph?’
‘Yes, I am,’ Exenley admitted frankly. ‘I’ve made it my home and I’ve enjoyed watching it tick over. That’s why I’ve resented Le Mazon. Everybody knows that he plays the bully when he thinks he can get away with it and that the village is under his thumb. The trouble has been that he’s taken care not to come up against the law; the shopkeepers and the other people he�
��s terrorized have been scared to say anything against him and without putting oneself in the wrong and being the aggressor it hasn’t been possible to do much about it.’
‘So Le Mazon,’ Tremaine said, ‘wouldn’t be missed?’
‘I don’t think anybody would be sorry if the police took him off. Not that there’s a general desire to wish a murder on to his shoulders, but if somebody has to be guilty we’d prefer it to be Le Mazon. But there,’ Exenley finished, with a rueful grimace, ‘I’ve said enough to show you that I’m prejudiced. You’d better not attach too much weight to my opinion.’
‘It’s possible,’ Tremaine observed, ‘that your prejudice may turn out to be justice.’
‘You’ve found out something?’ Exenley put the question quickly and then looked a little embarrassed. ‘Sorry. I’m taking too much for granted. I don’t suppose you’ll want to give away any secrets.’
‘Judging by the way news seems to travel in this district, Ralph, I hardly imagine it will remain a secret for long! It’s just that Gaston Le Mazon is a very frightened man—or at least he’s giving the impression of being one.’
‘And a frightened man,’ Exenley said shrewdly, ‘is likely to do something rash. Is that it?’
‘Yes,’ Tremaine said, ‘that’s it.’
‘Well, I dare say Colinet will keep a close eye on him. Once the police have begun to suspect that they’ve got the right man they don’t let him out of their sight for long.’
Tremaine parted from his companion a few moments later—Exenley had several more purchases to make—and went on towards Janet’s and Mark’s bungalow.
Could it have been Le Mazon? It seemed that it was a solution which would satisfy all parties—except, of course, the man himself.
It would lift the shadow of suspicion from the other people concerned—people who must now be wondering uncomfortably whether the police had developed any ideas about them. It would dispose, for instance, of the unpleasant question mark which was now poised above Geoffrey Bendall following Le Mazon’s interview with the Chief Officer.
Behold a Fair Woman Page 16