Ellery Queen's Crime Cruise Round the World

by Ellery Queen

  He fished, he fitted out his boat and his house. He played cards. Each time anyone, in the eucalyptus shade of the square, called out to him, “Hi, Boussus,” he thought he recognized Jules’s voice.

  He half stood up to draw in one of the boulter lines that he had not payed out in his sleep.

  “Mimile!”

  The voice was not coming from the sea, but from the land, from the Mèdes headland that was only a bare rock in the sun.

  “It’s your turn now, Mimile, you son of a—”

  That was all. He heard a shot. He toppled over. His body felt both cool and warm and for an instant, coming nearer, he saw the bluish sea floor where the girellas were swimming. . .

  “I always said his mirrored armoire would end like that!” declared Grimaud, while they were raising the boat, keel-up.

  “He must have become dizzy—staring at the sea.”

  A fisher of sea urchins found the body at mid-depth.

  It was not until evening that the doctor found a small round hole in Boussus’ temple.

  “This man has been killed by a bullet from a revolver.”

  There was an inquiry by the police from Hyères and Toulon. It was learned that a stranger had disembarked from the Cormorant—a nasty-looking stranger with a squint, the ship’s captain asserted.

  The stranger set out again by boat in three hours and seemed to be laughing to himself.

  He had been seen passing the Notre Dame farm.

  He had, in fact, asked a boy where Mr. Boussus lived.

  “He’s fishing,” the answer had been.

  “Where?”

  “At his place.”

  “And where is his place?”

  “Near Mèdes point—right at the foot of the rock. You’ll recognize his boat for sure. They call it The Mirrored Armoire.”

  The squint-eyed stranger had recognized it.

  That matters little. What is important is that, from the shore, he must have shouted to Boussus in his sleep: “Mimile!”

  And did that “Mimile” reach the fisherman at the bottom of his sleep and release a dream that lasted a few seconds, perhaps only a few tenths of a second?

  When the eyes of the sleeper opened, still full of the vision of a Jules all sugar and honey who evoked the past without rancor, he found before him a man who hurled at him, bursting with the bitterness of 25 years of Guyana:

  “It’s your turn now, Mimile, you son of a—”

  A small sharp report in the calm of a Mediterranean morning, a fat body toppling over. The girellas, the hogfish, the sérans, the hermit crabs, and all the gear of abandoned fishing. . .

  The Royal Girella had sunk like a stone and turned over.

  So much the worse, if anyone tells you differently at Maurice’s.

  Jacques Catalan

  The Prisoners

  (translated by Suzie deSurvilliers and Bolton Melliss)

  The May 1975 French edition of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, called Mystère Magazine, ran a short-story contest (le jeu des nouvelles de l’été) for new writers. First prize was awarded to Jacques Catalan’s “Les Prisonniers,” which appeared in the February 1976 issue of Mystère. This prizewinning story is an unusual nouvelle—not a police procedural, rather a police psychological. It raises an interesting and thought-provoking question: Who are the real victims in the world of crime and punishment?. . .

  For an instant, the motorcycle cop remains at my eye level as his peremptory hand waves me to slow down. He passes me in a short burst, stops in front of me, and points to the grassy side of the road. I obey, pull over, jolting, and stop my car.

  The cop has stopped his machine at the road edge and comes toward me, taking off his white gloves. In the rear-view mirror I see the second cop, still straddling his machine in a slow-motion swagger. The first one, approaching, mechanically slaps his dark trousers with his gloves. He leans over the door and salutes me correctly.

  “Yes?” I ask.

  “Your papers, please.”

  Without a word I hand over the car papers and my license which, for occupation, states only “Civil Servant.” He examines everything, and it is when he seems to lean toward my companion that I hand him my card.

  “Ah!”

  He straightens up and gives me a formal salute.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Commissioner.”

  “It’s all right. But I don’t think I was exceeding the speed limit. Was I?”

  “No. Just a routine inspection. A prisoner has escaped from Gradignan and—”

  “A recent one? I have been on vacation for two days and am avoiding all contact with the Department.”

  He smiles and nods understandingly.

  “This morning, Antoine Milan, the murderer of Neuve Street.”

  “Really! Well, good luck to you. You will excuse my not staying longer. I am on my way to my summer home and want to get there as soon as possible.”

  The cop salutes me again and moves off toward his machine. He casts a glance at the low November sky and calls out to me, “Nasty weather for Arcachon. Happy vacation just the same, Mr. Commissioner.”

  I incline my head with a vague, restrained smile, as if I shared the policeman’s opinion of winter vacations. I turn on my backup lights and let in the clutch gently.

  Yet I do like this season, even though it heightens my feeling of loneliness. All these years I have taken no holidays in the sun—ever since. . .

  My seniority entitles me to take the whole month of August, as before, if I want it. But I have learned to like the winter. The beach and the forest are mine alone. Mine, that is, with the true inhabitants of the place—the fishermen, the resin tappers, the oystermen, and the shopkeepers just getting over the summer-rush invasion.

  The one false note in this holiday, which was again to have been a solitary one, is the presence of the man beside me. Together with the fact that he hasn’t ceased to cover me, through his pocket, with a Colt .45.

  Antoine Milan, the murderer of Neuve Street. . .

  The man lets out a deep breath as if he has been holding it in up to now. I don’t so much as turn my head toward him, but continue to stare at the straight road lined with pine trees that are plunged into mourning by the oncoming darkness.

  “Why didn’t you show your card at once? We risked—”

  “You risked,” I cut in drily.

  “I would have fired,” growls Milan.

  “No, you wouldn’t. You didn’t shoot me at home, did you? You said you wanted to have it out with me calmly. I chiefly feared the motorcycle cop might make a connection between us. The Milan case is mine, Commissioner Bernier’s, right? But the cop is a youngster with little experience. He said ‘the murderer of Neuve Street’ because that’s what they told him. Nothing more. So take it easy. Even if you put your gun away, you’ll arrive with me tonight just the same.”

  “Not a chance,” says Milan. “I’ve promised myself too long to hold you at the end of a gun. The roles are reversed now, that’s for sure.”

  “The roles are exactly as they were. When I arrested you it was you who held the gun. My hands were empty.”

  “I did a ten-year stretch for that.”

  I don’t answer and continue to watch the road. In the fast fading light I check the road signs. The rain bursts suddenly, shrinking the darkened landscape and changing the horizon to a thin liquid curtain.

  I love driving in the rain. For me, the beat of the windshield wipers gives rhythm to a strange symphony and leads an orchestra that includes the elements. Rain drumming on the car, spurting wildly under the aggressive wheels, dancing a little ballet of luminous streaks in the sea-green light of the headlights. And the wind in the wet pines, bowing them down in a slow sway along our road, in a kind of proud salute, a renewed farewell, along the unfolding kilometers. . .

  Facture, the little country town drowned in the downpour, heaves lifeless into sight.

  With a glance in the rear-view mirror I turn sharp left onto the Mios road.
>
  “Where are you going, Commissioner?”

  Milan is thrown against me and I shove him back with my shoulder. I feel the naked gun at the end of his arm pressing savagely against my side. I switch to full headlights at the rail crossing, bumping over the rails.

  “Home. To Biscarrosse.”

  “I thought—well, get this. No tricks.”

  I shrug and shift gears. Not a car in sight and I know the road like my pocket.

  “It was the motorcycle cop who mentioned Arcachon, not I. Because at that time we were on the road to Arcachon.”

  We don’t exchange another word the rest of the way. We pass through Cazaux, Sanguinet. Sunk in his seat, Milan doesn’t take his eyes off me, his right hand clamped on the gun that covers me. Entering Biscarrosse, we pass a few stray vehicles and a military convoy.

  Then there are curves upward, a straight road, and finally the lights of the filling station. I turn right, in the direction of the lake, veer still more to the right, and here is the little square. Lifeless summer houses with shutters closed on deserted interiors.

  The headlights reveal my dripping entrance gate and the low white wall streaked with glistening cracks and stained with green moss, and, beyond, the cream-colored walls of my house, the veranda with its dark wood columns, and the long balcony on the second floor.

  “It looks large,” says Milan mechanically.

  “It is large. Shall I get out and open the gate?”

  He nods and in the buffeting rain I open the double gate. I rejoin Milan, getting in beside him, and move the car over sodden pine needles to the front of the garage. I shut off the motor and the frantic windshield wipers.

  “We go in by the back. The key is in the glove compartment.”

  Milan finds the key and throws a quick glance at the jumble inside—cards, sundry papers, rags, a flashlight. No gun and, above all, no gloves. He takes the flashlight.

  With me leading the way, we skirt the house in the fitful gleam of the flashlight until, spurred by the storm, we break into a run. I open the door while Milan shoves the gun in my back. I smile thinly. A long time ago I learned how to get rid of anyone who threatened me in this way. It’s really so simple.

  “The main switch. In the laundry room. Shut the door after you.”

  He still follows me, lighting the way. I switch on the lights. Milan blinks wildly in the sudden glare and I turn my attention to the boiler. Ignoring my unwelcome guest, I get it started; it begins to whir at once and I become a new man at the welcome sight of the flames roaring out of the burners.

  “Shall we go to the living room?”

  We pass through the kitchen and enter the large L-shaped room. I again enjoy seeing the great fireplace, which is waiting only for a lighted match, the dark tiling, the bright carpet, the deep armchairs, the African masks, and the Moroccan plates of burnished copper.

  Home.

  Mine.

  Milan heads for the telephone.

  Oh, no, not that. My one bridge to the outside world, to others, to the living.

  “If you cut the wires—My daughter is going to telephone me as she does every night. Especially tonight,” I add quickly. “She always calls to find out if I’ve arrived safe.”

  He eyes me sharply, and shrugs.

  “You have a daughter?”

  I take off my overcoat and sit down in one of the armchairs. Milan moves back to me and also sits down.

  “I have a daughter, Antoine. Twenty-one. And a grandson. Three.”

  He throws me a bitter glance and the gun in his hand begins to shake.

  “Some things you shouldn’t speak of, Commissioner. Especially to me.”

  I look up in surprise. “I’m not trying to appeal to you or provoke you. I’m answering your question, that’s all.”

  “You know why I’m in prison, don’t you?” Antoine asks caustically.

  “Yes, I know. . .Do you mind?”

  Taking the matchbox from the coffee table, I bend toward the fireplace and light the waiting logs.

  “I know, Antoine,” I say, watching the crackling wood. “You killed your wife, locked yourself in your apartment with her, badly beat up two cops when they broke in, and wounded three of the security police. An inspiring performance that got you a twenty-year sentence.”

  “And I was arrested by fearless Chief Inspector Bernier who, barehanded, prides himself on never carrying a gun when facing an opponent. Do you know why I killed my wife?”

  “We’re not going to start your trial all over again, Antoine. Your wife was deceiving you.”

  “I loved Anne!”

  “You killed your wife because you loved her. You’d never guess how often you made that statement during your trial.”

  “You’ve understood nothing, absolutely nothing! When I realized what I had done—don’t laugh!—I would have liked to be left alone with Anne. Just the two of us, alone. Perhaps, then, I would have had the courage—but, instead, that senseless raid when all I wanted—”

  “Exactly. Meditation, to be followed by suicide. Or surrender.”

  “That’s what I would have done! I’m too much of a coward to kill myself, Bernier. I’ve thought and thought about it—for years. And I’ve spent the last ten years of my life reproaching myself about Anne. Have you any idea what prison is like, Commissioner? I don’t mean the walls and bars you’re locked behind. I mean this one”—he strikes his forehead—“the worst prison of all, where thoughts upon thoughts never stop spinning, and in the end destroy you. . .”

  I take my pipe and reach toward the drawer of the table.

  “My tobacco,” I explain.

  He shrugs and I pull out one of my blue packets and carefully fill my pipe. He is staring at me thoughtfully.

  “You have sad eyes, Commissioner. I look at you and try to read fear in your face, or find the calm you had ten years ago when—”

  I drop the blackened match that has started to burn my fingers and strike another.

  “But I see only sad eyes,” repeats Antoine.

  “We all change in ten years, old man.”

  “Did your wife die?”

  I start, in spite of myself. “Yes, my wife died. Two years ago.”

  It’s true. Mathilde died two years ago. Far from here. Far from me.

  “That may be the reason for the sadness in your eyes.”

  “Perhaps.”

  He puts the gun back in his pocket and starts playing with a long Arabian dagger he has just picked up near the fireplace.

  “Let’s not go soft, Antoine,” I say quietly. “While you’ve been looking me over so carefully I’ve also had a good look at you. It’s clear you didn’t come here to harm me; you could have done that ten years ago. I’ve seen you beside yourself with rage and despair, firing at my men—and I’ve seen you resigned as I came toward you, when you threatened to kill me but didn’t fire.”

  “Don’t be so sure. I may have come to regret it.”

  “Oh, no.”

  I lean toward him across the table.

  “Spain, Antoine—and from there to wherever you wish.”

  He looks at me dumfounded and bursts into joyless laughter.

  “This is too good! Are you so afraid, Commissioner—you, above all—that you offer me escape? Even help, perhaps?”

  “I can pass you along and take care of you all the way. Through fear, you think? My poor fool, I could have got rid of you twenty times. Even now, in this drawer you’ve so considerately let me open. . .”

  I turn the table toward him with its open drawer and he barely glances at the weapon lying among my packets of tobacco.

  “We change, Antoine. We all change.”

  “It’s too late, Commissioner.”

  He stands up and in a swift movement rests the sharp blade against my neck. I, too, get to my feet, jumping back. For a moment he remains facing me, the hilt low, the point of the dagger now aimed straight at my belly. He moves a few steps nearer and, in spite of myself, I grab my g
un from the table drawer and aim it at him.

  “I meant what I said, Antoine. Spain—anywhere in the world you want to go.”

  He comes closer still, then makes a stupid theatrical gesture—he raises the dagger above my head. Not a born killer, this murderer of Neuve Street.

  The telephone rings suddenly and its thin, sharp blast makes me start.

  “Your daughter!” he shouts. “You won’t have time to speak to her! Ever again!”

  He clings, suddenly close, and I see his arm coming down. In slow motion the dagger’s point enters my jacket, pierces my flesh. While the obsessive phone keeps ringing, ringing—

  I haven’t even heard my shot.

  Antoine Milan reels back and I see intense triumph in his pale eyes that are now dazed with pain. He opens his mouth wide and a stream of blood spurts out. He slowly sinks down, his eyes fixed on me.

  The ringing stops and I hear only the crackle of the flames and Antoine’s labored breathing and the light tapping of the closed shutters facing the muffled gusts.

  The phone resumes its clamor. . .

  “I’ve dialed your number twice. I thought I’d made a mistake the first time. Milan escaped this morning. I’m warning you because—”

  “He’s here. I’ve got him. . .yes, Chief.”

  I hang up wearily and put my gun by the telephone. Antoine’s breathing becomes shorter and a veil has come over his eyes which seem to stare at me with great difficulty.

  Antoine, don’t go. . .Please don’t die.

  So many things can happen in ten years. The ten years I’ve been coming to this empty house where I’ll never see Mathilde again. Or Jeannine. Or the grandson who doesn’t know me. A few moments more and I’d have spoken to you of my wife who left me ten years ago and of my daughter who hates me and who looks so much like her mother. And of my heart that has turned dry and of my spirit that has drowned in solitude.

  Stay with me, Antoine. . .I’ll listen to your story and to Anne’s, which humiliated you, and I’ll tell you Mathilde’s, of her leaving with another man near whom she died two years ago and of her blind hatred for me who loved her and Jeannine more than anything else in the world. . .I’ll tell you how I spent these last two days watching over my daughter’s life from a distance and that of my grandson whom I shall never hold in my arms. . .