He had been careless and he had only himself to blame. But it was a pity about Ruth Latinam. The situation didn’t look at all promising.
He propped himself on one elbow and cautiously explored the site of the pain. There didn’t seem to be any blood; he had been dealt an unpleasant blow but the damage wasn’t serious. The night air would soon revive him completely.
In a few minutes he was able to stand. He was, however, decidedly shaky. Clearly, the sooner he got back to the bungalow the better.
He looked at his watch. It was past midnight. Janet and Mark might be wondering what had happened to him and thinking all kinds of things. Mark had said that they’d probably be gone to bed when he got back but there was nothing certain about it; they might still be sitting up for him, trying to make up their minds whether they should send for the police.
He walked briskly along the road at the side of the bay. He was feeling much better now, but he was in no condition to face a second encounter with whoever had delivered the blow which had knocked him out. He kept a sharp watch for Gaston Le Mazon or any other nocturnal prowler.
The bungalow was in darkness when he reached it. He was relieved that Janet and Mark did not seem to have been disturbed by his long absence.
He let himself in quietly and bathed the side of his head in the bathroom. The skin was scraped and there were the discoloured beginnings of a promising bruise.
He and Ivan Holt would make a pair . . .
His brain worked busily upon the sudden thought. That story about slipping on the rocks had been very thin. Could it be that Holt’s bruise and his own possessed a common origin?
He knew now what it was Ruth Latinam had been carrying. A picnic basket. A basket which was probably the identical article he had seen on the desk in Latinam’s office on the night of the dance at the hotel.
Holt might well have been on the track of some mystery in which Latinam had been implicated and have been surprised and knocked out just as he himself had been. And Ruth Latinam might be continuing the task upon which her brother had been engaged.
Was that the reason for her strained relationship with Holt? Was that what had lain behind the impassioned appeal he had heard Holt making to her?
When he went into breakfast the next morning Mark Belmore gave him a thoughtful stare.
‘Investigations?’ he asked.
Tremaine endeavoured to look puzzled and Belmore elaborated.
‘The bruise,’ he explained. ‘And your belated return last night.’
‘Oh.’ Tremaine dealt carefully with one of the tomatoes on his plate. ‘So you weren’t asleep?’
‘We couldn’t settle down until we knew you were safely indoors,’ Janet put in. ‘Especially after some of the things that have been going on around here lately.’
‘You don’t have to tell us, of course,’ Mark said. ‘But we’re interested, you know. Can’t help it. We feel it’s partly our murder, so naturally we want to keep abreast with what’s taking place.’
‘There isn’t much to tell. Just that somebody seemed to take exception to my going up to look at the old gun emplacements on one side of the bay. Well, maybe not merely the gun emplacements.’
Tremaine recounted his night’s adventure. Mark looked grave.
‘I don’t like the sound of it. You might have been lying out there all night. Have you any idea who hit you?’
‘No. It happened too quickly.’
‘There’s someone who knows, anyway,’ Janet observed. ‘Unless Ruth Latinam didn’t see what happened.’
‘I think she did,’ Tremaine returned soberly. ‘In fact, I can’t see how she could have failed to do so.’
Immediately after breakfast he walked up towards the Rohane hotel. He did not anticipate that the Chief Officer would be there so early—the murder investigation, although obviously of particular importance, was only one of the matters with which he was called upon to deal, and he was tending to leave the affair more and more in Inspector Marchant’s hands—but to his surprise Colinet’s car was already in the drive.
A great deal of activity seemed to be going on. There were more policemen in evidence than he had noticed the previous day.
He found the Chief Officer standing in the entrance to the hotel in conversation with Inspector Marchant. Colinet saw him approaching and nodded.
‘Good morning. Let’s go inside, shall we?’
The big man led the way into the office. Tremaine thought that he seemed tense; Inspector Marchant, too, seemed to have something on his mind.
When the three of them were seated Colinet gave his visitor a thoughtful glance.
‘That’s an expressive-looking bruise,’ he commented. ‘Mind telling me how you came to collect it?’
‘Suppose,’ Tremaine countered, ‘I said that I’d slipped and banged my head on a rock—just like Ivan Holt?’
‘I’d be interested. So interested that I’d like to hear who was holding the rock!’
There was a sudden twinkle in the big man’s eyes. He settled his big frame more comfortably in his chair.
Tremaine recounted his story, feeling that the repetition was becoming monotonous.
‘H’m.’ Colinet placed the tips of his fingers together. He was looking graver again. ‘Are you sure it was Miss Latinam?’
‘Quite sure.’
‘H’m,’ said the big man again. ‘What do you want me to do?’ he added surprisingly. ‘Arrest her? Bring her in and ask her all about it? Or what?’
‘I certainly don’t want you to arrest her. She could say that she didn’t have anything to do with the attack on me; that whoever knocked me out, in fact, scared her away from the place immediately afterwards.’
‘And scared her from telling anybody about it, although you might have been dead for all she knew?’
‘Yes, it looks bad. But I’m not sure that it would be a good thing to make an open accusation against her. Not at this stage.’
Tremaine regarded the Chief Officer dubiously, wondering how he would take it. Colinet had to be practical. He couldn’t afford to allow himself to be swayed in his duty by any sentimental considerations.
But the big man seemed in no hurry to challenge Ruth Latinam. He remained silent for a few moments, and when at length he did speak it was apparently not the girl who had been on his mind at all.
‘About how long was it,’ he asked, ‘between the time you saw Gaston Le Mazon and the time you were attacked?’
‘At a guess,’ Tremaine said, ‘about twenty minutes.’
‘You say that Le Mazon didn’t see you and that he went on in this direction?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Suppose,’ Colinet said slowly, as though he was trying to convince himself as he spoke, ‘that he did see you and only pretended he was going towards the hotel. Suppose he turned back on his tracks and followed you to the gun emplacement and that it was Le Mazon who gave you that knock on the head.’
So that was what Colinet was after. Well, it wasn’t so wild a possibility. After all, Latinam and Le Mazon had been hand-in-glove, and it looked as though Ruth Latinam was carrying on with what her brother had begun.
Tremaine frowned, thinking back over the previous night’s events.
‘It could have happened like that, although I didn’t see any sign of Le Mazon following me. Maybe I was too busy trying to keep Miss Latinam in sight.’
‘Le Mazon wouldn’t have had any difficulty in trailing you unobserved,’ Inspector Marchant said. ‘Not with his experience of moving about at night.’
Tremaine nodded.
‘Well, it won’t take long to get at the truth. All you need do is to bring him in for questioning.’
‘That,’ Colinet said, ‘is just what we can’t do.’
Tremaine stared at him.
‘He’s given you the slip?’
‘He’s given us the slip all right. But not in the way I think you mean.’
There was an odd note in his voice that brou
ght a sudden suspicion into Tremaine’s mind. In an intuitive moment of awareness he knew what was coming.
‘Le Mazon,’ he said. ‘Something’s—happened to him?’
‘Something’s happened all right,’ Colinet said grimly. ‘Early this morning he was found lying dead at the foot of the cliffs in front of the hotel.’
‘Dead!’ Tremaine echoed the word. Only a few hours before he had passed Le Mazon near this very place; it was not easy to assimilate the knowledge that the burly figure which had given him a sense of uneasiness with its almost animal menace was now no more than an inanimate shell. He returned the Chief Officer’s steady gaze. ‘What was the cause?’
‘Broken neck, head injuries,’ the big man returned briefly. ‘Looked as though he’d jumped over.’
‘Who found the body?’
‘Crevicher. He’s in the habit of going for an early swim when the tide’s right. When he got down to the beach this morning just after six he found Le Mazon lying among the rocks. He was sensible enough to get in touch with us right away without saying anything to anybody else.’
‘There’s no question of Crevicher knowing anything about it?’
‘None,’ Colinet said decisively. ‘I’ve talked to him myself, and I haven’t any doubts on that point. He was badly scared over that little episode with the girl a few days ago and he’s anxious to get in our good books. Couldn’t hand over enough information.’
‘Didn’t you have a man watching Le Mazon?’
‘It isn’t easy to keep an eye on a man in the dark and Le Mazon knew this district better than most people. He managed to slip away from his cottage after the light had gone out and he was supposed to have been safely in bed. Our man was still there this morning waiting for him to get up when Crevicher contacted us.’
‘It looks,’ Tremaine said quietly, ‘as though I was the last known person to see Le Mazon alive.’
‘You seem to have a flair for it,’ Colinet agreed. ‘First Latinam and now Le Mazon. Unless, of course, it was Le Mazon who gave you that bruise. In which case it puts Miss Latinam in the limelight.’
‘You said that it appeared that Le Mazon had jumped. Does that mean it was suicide?’
‘Not necessarily. But the signs certainly point that way.’
Colinet opened the drawer of the desk. Carefully he took out an object which had been inside it and passed it to Tremaine.
‘This was found on him. It didn’t seem to be the kind of thing I’d have expected him to carry around so I took charge of it. I’m wondering whether you can tell me anything about it.’
With a look of surprise Tremaine took the object from the edge of the desk. It was a cardboard box. Inside it, lying on cotton wool, was a cigarette-lighter. It was a flamboyant piece of work in silver, intricately designed and with an elaborate cap in the shape of a standing lion.
Memory stirred as he gazed at it.
‘Mean anything to you?’ Colinet asked.
‘This was found on Le Mazon’s body?’
‘Yes.’
‘But I’m sure I’ve seen it before. It was Latinam’s.’
The Chief Officer stirred. He gave Inspector Marchant a glance in which there was something of triumph.
‘I rather thought it might have been. We’ve tested it but his prints aren’t on it. That’s why I tried it out on you. If it belonged to Latinam it makes the whole thing hang together.’
‘I see.’ Tremaine pushed back his pince-nez. ‘Le Mazon killed Latinam, realized that you were after him and that the game was up, and committed suicide by jumping over the cliff. That’s the theory?’
‘It’s a theory. We’re not banking on it—yet. But it looks reasonable. You saw him for yourself. You know what kind of state he was in. And if we can prove that Latinam had his lighter in his possession when he left here on the night he was murdered we’ll be that much nearer home.’
Colinet sounded confident but not triumphant. He also seemed a little relieved, as though an unpleasant duty he had been expecting had not fallen to his lot after all.
‘There’s still the motive,’ Tremaine said. ‘For the murder if not for the suicide. Just why should Le Mazon have killed Latinam?’
The big man shrugged.
‘Finding the solution is just the beginning. Now we’ve got the job of making all the pieces match up. There’s a long way to go yet but once we know where we’re going the rest is just plodding routine. We’ll get the answers in good time. Is that bruise of yours troubling you?’ he added, apparently going off at a tangent.
‘No, I hardly know it’s there.’
‘That’s fine. Because I don’t want to see the cat among the pigeons. I’ve put through several enquiries and until the reactions come in and I’m in a better position to know what I’m talking about I’d like the atmosphere to stay as tranquil as possible. If you see what I mean.’
‘Yes,’ Tremaine said, ‘I see what you mean.’
Colinet might feel that he had a pretty shrewd idea about who had killed Hedley Latinam but he wasn’t going to allow matters to rest there. If he hadn’t had a great deal to say to Geoffrey Bendall and Ruth Latinam it didn’t mean that he wasn’t bothering about them. He intended to get the whole picture.
Tremaine eyed the Chief Officer with respect. Despite his great bulk that sometimes gave him a deceptive air of lethargy there wasn’t much he allowed to escape him.
19
THE TRUTH IS PLAIN
‘AND WHAT,’ RALPH Exenley said curiously, ‘have you been up to?’
Passing the bungalow Tremaine had seen Exenley coming out of his greenhouses and had waited for him to walk over to the entrance gate. Self-consciously he put up a hand to the side of his head.
‘You mean this?’
‘Of course that’s what I mean,’ Exenley said with a smile ‘What is it? One of the penalties of detection?’
‘Well, I suppose that’s a fair description, Ralph.’
Tremaine told his story. Exenley set down the basket of tomatoes he had been carrying, his face serious.
‘There’s no doubt that Ruth Latinam must have known about your being attacked?’
‘No doubt at all.’
The accustomed twinkle was missing from Exenley’s eyes. He rubbed his dark chin, obviously troubled.
‘Have you seen her since?’
‘Not to speak to, but I caught a glimpse of her when I was at the hotel just now and I think she must have noticed me.’
‘She didn’t say anything? About last night?’
‘No, I’m afraid she didn’t, Ralph.’
‘You’ve told the police, of course?’
‘Yes. I was talking to the Chief Officer a few moments ago.’
‘What’s he going to do?’
‘About Ruth Latinam? At the moment he doesn’t appear to be going to do anything. But I don’t think it’s a state of affairs which is likely to last.’
‘I see.’
Exenley frowned. Tremaine eyed him understandingly.
‘You’re concerned about her, are you, Ralph?’
‘Concerned?’ His companion shook his head. ‘I don’t know her well enough to go that far. But she strikes me as being a nice girl. I don’t like to think of her being mixed up in a bad business of this kind. I wonder where Le Mazon comes into it? You say he was about at the time?’
‘I rather gathered,’ Tremaine said, ‘that you hadn’t heard the news.’
‘What news?’
‘Gaston Le Mazon is dead.’
‘Dead!’ Exenley looked at him incredulously. ‘Le Mazon? But if you saw him last night—’
‘It must have happened not long afterwards. Crevicher, the barman at the hotel, found his body lying at the foot of the cliffs early this morning.’
Exenley rubbed his chin again.
‘That’s a new development if you like! I don’t mind telling you that Le Mazon was my bet for Latinam’s murderer, but who on earth could have wanted to kill Le Mazon?’
<
br /> ‘Maybe no one,’ Tremaine said. ‘Colinet said it looked like suicide.’
‘Suicide?’ Exenley repeated the word doubtfully. ‘Le Mazon wasn’t the type I would have expected to commit suicide. Are the police sure about it?’
‘Reasonably so. They know that he was in a bad state of nerves.’
‘I dare say. But there’s a long way to go from that to killing himself by jumping over a cliff!’
‘Witnesses were coming forward to say they’d seen him out on the night of the murder and that he’d had an argument with Latinam. He must have felt that the game was up.’
‘Even so, the police must have something else to go on.’
‘They have,’ Tremaine said quietly. ‘A cigarette-lighter that’s known to have belonged to Latinam was found on Le Mazon’s body.’
‘Well, that makes the whole thing sound a lot better,’ Exenley said, his face clearing. ‘Le Mazon did kill Latinam. It was a stupid thing to carry that lighter around with him but then he wasn’t particularly intelligent. He finished himself off because he knew he was guilty and that the police were catching up with him, If he’d been innocent he’d have stayed and faced things out.’
‘That’s the line Colinet seems to be taking,’ Tremaine agreed.
He left Exenley to his tasks—the constable who had been posted at the bungalow after the discovery of Latinam’s body had now been withdrawn and the flood of sightseers had subsided to a spasmodic trickle—and strolled towards the beach. On the way he saw Mrs. Burres. He would have passed her with no more than a nod of recognition, since she had shown no disposition to engage him in conversation on his visits to the hotel, but she stopped when she saw him approaching, barring his path with an air of challenge.
‘I suppose you know all about it?’ she said.
‘About what, Mrs. Burres?’
‘He’s up there again this morning,’ she went on, with a gesture in the direction of the hotel. ‘The Chief Officer, I mean.’
He did not think that it was Gaston Le Mazon who was in her mind although she must be aware what had happened. There was a more personal note in her voice.
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