Without Lawful Authority

by Manning Coles

  There was no doubt about her surprise; she gasped and stared like any schoolgirl. Then, “When was it dated?”

  “Last June. Here is a letter to you.” Houys passed it over unread, and she took it eagerly. “This is dated last Monday night,” she said, read it through, and handed it back to Houys. It began, “Très chère Yvonne,” and said that though it tore his heart into fragments to leave her, the time had come when the anxieties of his life were becoming more than he could bear, and he was sailing the next day for South America. His prospects there were too vague for him to take the risk of involving a woman in his uncertain future, and he had therefore made over the business to her as it stood, to ensure her well-being. He thanked her in flowery and passionate terms for her kindness to him and devotion to his interests and added his sincere good wishes for her happiness and prosperity. At the end was a brief postscript, “Beware of R. I do not think he will return; if he does, refuse to admit him.”

  “It is evident, madame,” said Houys, taking off his gold-rimmed spectacles and scratching his nose thoughtfully with the earpiece, “that he foresaw this might happen and prepared in advance as long ago as last June. Who is R.?”

  “Richten,” she murmured, still being overcome. “Oh, the kindness, the thoughtfulness, the——”

  “Something happened on Monday, madame, which made him decide to leave on Tuesday morning. Have you any idea what it was?”

  “No, m’sieu, I have not; if I had I would tell you. That Richten, he could tell you, I think. We have been so busy of late, crowded out with people, and food a difficulty; we have had no leisure to talk together, you understand. I did not see him at all on Monday night; I shall never forgive myself——”

  “What do you know about him—the manager, I mean, not Richten?”

  “He was frightened of something, I am sure, but he never told me about it. Men used to come and see him in private, Richten and others, and then he would be afraid. I could tell it, I who knew him so well, but he always said it was nothing.”

  “But you had your own opinion, madame,” said Hambledon. “What did you think?”

  “I think he was a German, m’sieu, though he had lived long in Belgium. He did not much like the Nazis—that I know—but I think they made him work for them. Then they put the screw on too tight and phut! He escaped.” She sobbed.

  “Accept, madame,” said Houys gracefully, “the assurances of my sincere condolences in this sudden and unexpected shock. To have the burden of this business thrown suddenly upon your unaided hands at the same moment, it is hard.”

  “As for the business,” she said crisply, “that will be as it has always been. It is I, Yvonne Elise Perigoux, who am the Hotel Malplaquet, m’sieu. The poor Raoul—he was too sensitive, too gentle——” She wept again.

  “Console yourself, madame,” said Houys. “Hotels at least do not run away to South America. Now, if I might have a word with my colleague—— Have you the keys of M’sieu Richten’s safe also?”

  “No, m’sieu, no. He kept them himself, naturally. I have never even seen it opened. If Messieurs will excuse me, I have duties.” She drifted gracefully away.

  “About this fellow Richten,” said Hambledon when the door was shut, “we had a hint that such a man as she describes was having a very undesirable influence on our young friend who is missing.”

  “They seem to have gone away on the same day,” agreed Houys. “Together, possibly? I think a glance inside that safe might assist our enquiries.” He tried Richten’s safe door but without result. “I have an employe in Brussels who will open it for us; I will telephone for him; he will be here in two hours. In the meantime I will call on the police headquarters here. Will you accompany me?”

  “I think perhaps if I talked to the people in the hotel I might not be wasting my time,” said Hambledon. “I am not the distinguished and famous M’sieu Houys; I shall not alarm them.” He left the Belgian issuing orders into the telephone and drifted into the bar. Almost invariably in hotels there is at least one resident whose interest in life is the affairs of his neighbours, and Hambledon was looking for the Malplaquet’s specimen. The bar, however, was almost empty, and the few people there were English or American with only one interest in life, a place on a boat bound for England as soon as possible. Hambledon drank a glass of light wine and drifted into the lounge which was filling up for tea. Here were women of all shapes, sizes, and ages, harassed women, excited women, calm women, cross women, hopeful or disappointed women, and here and there one or two captured-looking men; a babble of talk filled the air. “I went down to the shipping office this morning and spoke firmly to the man. I said, ‘My good man, my husband is a vice-consul and I MUST have a place.’ ” . . . “I asked for Du Maurier cigarettes, and the wretched man had sold out of everything except those awful Caporals.” . . . “She told me her children’s nurse was absolutely useless travelling; she’s always sick in the train.” . . . “A most extraordinary man, my dear; I simply fled!” . . . “Five drops on a lump of sugar——” . . . “—four days ago, and she hasn’t had a word from him.” . . . “—my dear, simply too devastating.”

  Hambledon hesitated just inside the doorway and was bumped into from behind by a worried lady with two daughters who had just seen an empty table and wanted to grab it. He apologized, tried to get out of her way, knocked down another lady’s umbrella, and apologized again, and a tall thin woman rose from an adjacent table and rescued him.

  “If M’sieu would come and sit down here, there really is room if that chair were turned a little sideways, and do forgive my thrusting myself on M’sieu like this, but you did look so lost. The poor m’sieu is a newcomer here, is he not? Such a bear garden this room is at this hour, but tea is not served anywhere else.”

  Hambledon sank down with a sigh of relief and thanked the lady gratefully. She went on to explain that the Hotel Malplaquet wasn’t generally like this; it was usually a quiet, orderly place where a poor lonely little woman could live in comfort and have all her poor little wants attended to, but, she added with a bright laugh, people like Hitler upset the lives of the most harmless people, and one just had to try to be brave. Hambledon nearly rose and fled; he had met lonely women before, but he restrained his natural terror and encouraged her. She was a resident and she had a roving eye; not much would escape that birdlike vigilance, especially if it happened to be a man so personally attractive as Charles Denton.

  She told him her life’s history. She was the only daughter of a serge manufacturer at Roubaix, a dear kind old man and so good to her, but trade, the atmosphere of trade—she shuddered. M’sieu would understand that to the artistic temperament it was torture. It was starvation; it was exile. In short, it bored her stiff.

  She asked him where he came from, and when he told her he was English she practically fell on his neck. English, ah! Once she had nearly been English herself. Quite at the end of the last war she had been engaged to an Englishman, “the dearest fellow; of course I was a mere child then.” Hambledon thought that she was now certainly turned fifty but merely mooed sympathetically and was told that they had been parted by unkind Fate. Nevertheless, she bore no malice; the name of England was music in her ears. “I have a gentle, forgiving nature, m’sieu; I cannot help it. It is weak, I know.” If she could do anything, small or great, to help anyone English it made her happy for weeks.

  Hambledon said that such behaviour was not weakness at all but the mark of a noble character and asked whether many English people came to the Hotel Malplaquet.

  She said there were usually several English families there during the season and added that though she had found it possible to forgive her Eustace, for that was his name, she found it harder to think kindly of the woman who took him from her.

  Hambledon said that in really noble characters a trace of human weakness was merely endearing and asked if she had made friends with any English people who had been there recently.

  The lady said that there had been
such a rush of visitors of late, not so much visitors as passing migrants, that she had had no opportunity to get to know any of them and asked him whether he knew Mr. Eustace d’Arcy Jones, who lived in London.

  Hambledon said he had not that felicity and asked her in turn whether she knew a certain Monsieur Richten who, he understood, often came there. She said at once that of course she knew him, a horrid German and most rude, and did he think it was really necessary to forgive everyone who had ever done one an injury?

  Hambledon abandoned the indirect method in despair and, after saying that he was sure impossible perfection was not demanded of fallible human nature, told her plainly that he had come there to meet a friend of his, a Mr. Charles Smith, but seemed to have missed him somehow; did she know him at all? A tall man with a lazy manner, brown hair, blue eyes, rather a good-looking fellow in his way.

  “Oh, but Mr. Smith! He and I were the greatest of friends. We would sit in a corner of the hall after dinner and comment upon the people as they went by, very naughty and unkind of us!”

  “He was here, then? When did he leave?”

  “He did not live here; he had a room somewhere near by and came in for meals. I haven’t seen him since Monday night when he rushed off suddenly; it was very strange.” She told Hambledon they were together in the hall after dinner when Richten came through with a suitcase in his hand, which seemed to remind Mr. Smith of something, for he excused himself and dashed out of the hotel. She was standing in the embrasure of one of the hall windows and looked out in time to see Monsieur Richten get into a taxi and drive away just as Mr. Smith jumped into another taxi which was drawn up just behind. He said something to the driver, and they went off in the same direction. It was strange he had not returned.

  “I expect something delayed him,” said Hambledon lightly, and made his escape as soon as possible. He went to look for Houys and found him in the manager’s office before Richten’s open safe, going through some papers which he had found inside it.

  “Sooner than get into a taxi which was waiting behind that of such a man as Richten,” said Houys, “especially in places where taxis do not normally wait, I would retire to my own bathroom and blow out my own brains. It would be tidier, quicker, and probably more comfortable. Besides, I might miss myself and I am sure Richten would not.” The Belgian paused and looked at Hambledon with one black eyebrow cocked. “Without venturing upon any indiscretion,” he went on, “may I admit that I have heard the name of Hambledon before? Would you like to see what I have found?”

  “I should be interested beyond all measure,” said Hambledon truthfully.

  “These—not even to you can I fully display them—are photostat copies of plans of the Belgian fortifications along the German frontier. The latest plans. These others here are similar copies of the frontier arrangements of our friends the Dutch.”

  “M’sieu Richten has an enquiring mind, evidently,” said Hambledon. “The sort of mind which shortens the life of the owner.”

  “It will if I can so arrange matters,” said Houys grimly. “These I will pass over to you, since they appear to concern England. No doubt you will hand them on to the appropriate authority.”

  “Certainly,” said Hambledon, and began to run his eye through them. One was a list of names. “I know some of these worthy people,” he went on. “Friedrich Dunck was killed in a motor accident in Kent last week, and Ludwig Haugen had his leg broken in the same crash. Johan Melcher is also in our care. I shall hope to meet some of the others before long.” He laid down the list and picked up another paper which contained notes in German; they seemed like memoranda of instructions. “George King, newspaper vendor, Comeragh Road, Hoxton. Becoming suspect; letters appear to have been tampered with. Find substitute,” was one. “Somebody’s been clumsy,” thought Hambledon. “Pity, King was useful. Now we shall have to trace out the substitute.” “Mrs. Ferne, Princes Square, Bayswater,” began another note. “Good. Increase financial allotment.” Hambledon remembered Warnford’s comments on the lady and smiled appreciatively. She had been under observation ever since but without result; here was confirmation. There were several other remarks which meant nothing to Hambledon at the moment, but he promised himself that they soon should, then a query. “? defend the Johnsons, P. & S., falsely accused.” In another hand was scribbled, “Only Jews, not worth while.” There were other documents also, one of which would be the subject of almost tearful interest to the Admiralty.

  “That’s all, is it?” said Hambledon.

  “My friend, I have shown you every one.”

  Hambledon nodded, folded up the papers, and put them away carefully in an inside pocket while the Belgian watched him with an amused expression.

  “How we fence with each other, we old ones, do we not?”

  “Fence, m’sieu?”

  “But yes. Me, I know nothing of M’sieu Richten until today, but you arrive by air from London, and in three hours or so his safe is open and there are the plans. The young man who is missing, he is also the harmless but embarrassing ingénu, is he not?” said Monsieur Houys with gentle irony. “They do not send men of the calibre of M’sieu Hambledon”—he pronounced it “Armbeeldo”—“to look for missing younger sons.”

  “Nor,” said Hambledon with a laugh, “do such men as M’sieu Houys of the Belgian police abandon all their affairs to help to look for him. We were, in point of fact, interested in this Richten, though we did not know his name or where he lived. Nor did I expect a haul like this, though I am anxious about my friend, Mr. Charles—Smith.”

  “As for your friend, since we know now that he left in a taxi, we will talk again with the good police of Ostend. You will come with me, will you not?” The Belgian carefully shut up Richten’s empty safe.

  “If the manager knew what Richten kept in his safe,” said Hambledon in perfectly even tones, “one wonders why he did not expect him to come back, as he said in the letter to Madame here.”

  An expression of sympathy crossed the Belgian’s face. “You are justified in your anxiety about your friend,” he said gently, “but I do not think the poor manager would know much. He has for long been afraid, and frightened men believe the worst. Come now and we will enquire.”

  At the police station they told their story, and enquiries were at once set on foot to find out whether any Ostend taxis had picked up two gentlemen of the descriptions given from the door of the Hotel Malplaquet at about eight forty-five on the night of Monday last. While they were waiting for the information the Commissaire of the Ostend police, just by way of making polite conversation, told them that the only unusual happening in connection with taxis which had occurred lately was the case of the lunatic at Middelkirke. “That was on Monday night, too, as it happens,” he said.

  “Tell us about it, M’sieu le Commissaire,” urged Hambledon.

  It appeared that a taxi drew up outside the police station at Middelkirke, and the driver complained that he had had a lunatic as a fare. He had been told to drive out into the dunes, and when he stopped there in a lonely spot the fare got out and assaulted him with violence, calling him several horrid names. Whereat the taxi driver, who said he was a peace-loving man and no warrior, disengaged himself from the conflict and drove away, though he had not been paid. The fare was definitely a dangerous man, and the police ought to arrest him. While the taxi was being driven away the fare fired several shots after it but fortunately missed each time.

  “Was this one of the Ostend taxis?” asked Houys.

  “But no, m’sieu, he came from Brussels.”

  The Middelkirke police accordingly kept a lookout for this man, and in due course he came in from the dunes. When they attempted to detain him the accused became extremely violent, and it took five men to convey him inside the police station, three of the police suffering minor damage. He was accordingly charged with assaulting the police, resisting arrest, assaulting the taxi driver, discharging firearms to endanger life, and generally being a public nuisance.
Hambledon was not very interested. Denton had been known to assault people with great effect when there was good reason for it, but this wholesale melee did not sound like him at all, and if he had fired at a taxi at close range he would certainly have hit it. The Commissaire said that the taxi driver’s accusations had fallen to the ground since he had not returned to give evidence. Hambledon said, “Really,” in a rather bored tone, and the conversation dropped.

  It reawoke with a start half an hour later when the Ostend taxi drivers reported that none of them had taken a fare from or to the Malplaquet that night but that one of their number, driving down the Rue de la Chapelle at about that time, noticed two Brussels taxis standing outside the door.

  “Did he notice their numbers?” asked Houys.

  Yes, he had, and made a note of them. The Ostend taxi drivers were jealously on their guard against Brussels taxis trespassing on their ground; they could not be prevented from bringing fares from Brussels, but they were strictly forbidden to pick up fares in Ostend. The numbers were so-and-so.

  “And the number of the taxi involved in the Middelkirke affair?” snapped Houys.

  The Commissaire turned it up; it was one of them.

  “A car to take us to Middelkirke instantly, please. In the meantime, let enquiries be made regarding both taxis. I will ring up Brussels with the same instructions. Please get me police headquarters, Brussels.”

  An inspector leaned over the Commissaire’s shoulder and murmured something; the Commissaire said, “Indeed,” in a surprised tone, and turned over some papers. “You are quite right,” he added. “M’sieu Houys, the Middelkirke taxi was found on Tuesday morning abandoned outside the Kursaal here. As it had been reported stolen from Brussels, it was returned there.”

  “I will see the driver when I return to Brussels. Is that my call? Thank you.”

  The police car came to the door before Houys had finished his telephone call. At Middelkirke bolts flew back and doors opened before the face of Houys, to disclose a prisoner lounging three parts asleep in a cell. It was Charles Denton.