The Case of Naomi Clynes

by Basil Thomson

  Richardson smiled. “I think that I prefer my own job. But what do these men do in ordinary times?”

  “Oh, they scratch up a living as hangers-on at the Stock Exchange—running errands for outside brokers and so on. This is their harvest-time. Look, we’re coming down.”

  It was true. The giant plane was circling over the dreary field at Le Bourget, where they came to rest on the muddy ground. The party let the Jews struggle with the Customs officers before them and take their seats in the crowded omnibus, while they followed to Mr. Hudson’s roomy car, which carried them swiftly through the hideous suburb that lay between the air-station and Paris. Mr. Hudson, who liked his creature comforts, directed his chauffeur to drive to the Crillon, the hotel which catered for Americans, and Richardson found himself lapped in a luxury of which he had never dreamed, and at which his simple tastes almost revolted. At dinner that evening he broached the subject of their immediate plans.

  “I suppose that we’ll start to-morrow for the place of the accident,” he began tentatively.

  Mr. Hudson looked at him with boiled eyes and continued to munch. With him the dinner-rite was too serious a business to be desecrated by idle talk. “You British detective folks seem always to be in a hurry. You’ve never had a look round old Paris yet.”

  “There’s no time to lose, Mr. Hudson,” said Richardson stoutly. “I feel that every day will cost us a piece of valuable evidence. The railway men who were on the spot at the time of the accident may have been moved away to another part of the line.”

  “He’s quite right, Uncle Jim. We don’t want to go chasing witnesses all over Europe. We must back our luck. All the sight-seeing can well be left until we are on our way back.”

  “Have it your own way, then. I told my man to have the automobile around between nine and ten and he can take us wherever you want to go.”

  “I see he’s a new man, Uncle Jim.”

  “Yeah; the last man got to sparring with my English butler, Potts, and as one of them had to go I kept Potts because he knows my ways. This man, Adolphe, speaks French and English both.”

  Richardson had been wondering whether he dared broach the subject of an interpreter. This conversation greatly relieved his mind. “I suppose that you speak French fluently, Mr. Hudson?”

  “What’s that? I speak French? Not a damn word of the lingo. I thought that you folks at Scotland Yard did your talking in all the languages on earth.”

  “I wish I did, Mr. Hudson. I can make out the sense of an article in a French newspaper, but that’s all: I can’t trust myself to speak it.”

  “Well, Jim here will have to do the talking. He’s a Canadian and so, of course, he knows French.”

  Jim Milsom drew himself up proudly. “Of course I speak French, but the trouble is that my French is the lingo they talked in the time of Louis the Fifteenth, and these people over here don’t know their own language. When I talk French to them they just wrinkle their brows and shrug their shoulders. But don’t let that worry you. Adolphe’s English pronunciation may not quite be described as one of the marvels of the age, but it will do for all we want. I vote that to-morrow morning Mr. Richardson goes down to the car when it comes round and puts Adolphe through his paces. If he gets through with only half marks it will save us having to get an interpreter. What do you say, Inspector?”

  “I was thinking of going round to police head-quarters and asking them to lend us one of their men who speaks English, sir.”

  “One of those guys who wears a brassard on his arm with ‘speaks English’ embroidered on it? Never on your life! It would fly round that we’d got a Paris Bobby with us and every self-respecting Frenchman would shut up like an oyster.”

  They parted for the night with their plans settled. They were to motor out to Lagny station, the scene of the accident on Christmas Eve, and question all the railway servants who had been among the eye-witnesses. Jim Milsom was inclined to think that their quest was a waste of time, unless, of course, it should produce some new piece of evidence against the Bryants, but Richardson pointed out that if a police inquiry was to be complete it must cover every possible point.

  Richardson was waiting on the steps of the hotel when Mr. Hudson’s car drove up next morning. He noticed that the vehicle was spick and span, and that Adolphe wore the detached and self-satisfied look of the chauffeur who takes pride in his car and does not spare the chamois leather. He greeted him in English:

  “Your car looks well this morning,” he said.

  “You think so, sare?” The man’s face beamed with pleasure. “I am very glad. She is a fine car.” He spoke carefully, but quite intelligibly.

  “Where did you learn English? You speak it very well.”

  “I have been three years in England, sare. I was chauffeur to Mr. Singer. I suppose that I learn English from the other chauffeur. A very nice young feller. ’E give me lessons in the evenings.”

  “We are going to Lagny this morning. I suppose you know the road?”

  “Lagny. Ah, you mean Lagny.” He pulled from a little cupboard on the dashboard a plan of Paris and its suburbs and studied it. “Yes, sare; I find my way. Lagny is about twenty kilometres from the Gare de l’Est.”

  “We shall want you to drive first to Lagny station.”

  “Very good, sare.”

  “We have to ask them some questions at the station, and we don’t want to take an interpreter with us from Paris. Do you think that you could act as our interpreter?”

  “Yes, sare, I think that I could.” It was clear from his demeanour that the proposal appealed to him.

  “Well, then, the sooner we start the better. I will go in and call Mr. Hudson.”

  Once clear of the traffic in the Paris streets the big Delage ate up the kilometres and came to a stop outside Lagny station. Jim Milsom led the way into the booking-office as if the place belonged to him and, finding his way on to the platform barred by an official who demanded his ticket, he turned to Richardson and asked him to call Adolphe.

  Richardson found the car neatly parked a little beyond the entrance to the station; he beckoned and Adolphe jumped down. To him it was explained that they were held up by a ticket-collector, who would not let them pass to the station-master’s office. Adolphe went swiftly to the barrier. They could not understand what he was saying, but the result of his intervention was startling. The Cerberus bared his head, threw open both halves of the door and directed them to the third door to the left. Adolphe had taken liberties with the truth in representing that the foreigners had come from their respective embassies to inquire about the sufferers from the accident and that a complaint of obstruction conveyed to the Minister of Transport in Paris might cost him his job. What Adolphe said in a low voice to the station-master—a stout little pink-faced official—was un-heard by the English-speaking party, but it was assumed to be flattering, if untruthful, since they were invited to sit down. A list of the victims of the accident? Yes, he had a copy of it. He himself had not witnessed the accident, but he had assumed control of the rescue work. Ah, it was terrible! He pulled out a list of many pages from a drawer.

  “These gentlemen must understand that this list is not complete because it was impossible to identify some of the bodies.”

  Adolphe interpreted. “Tell him,” said Richardson, “that we are interested in tracing what became of the foreign victims of the accident.”

  “That should be easy, messieurs. There were but few foreigners on either of the trains.” He turned over the pages. “Ah! Here are two—a Monsieur Bryant and his wife—not seriously injured—removed to a clinic in the town.”

  Jim Milsom became excited. “Ask him whether any of his men saw them after the accident and what clinic they went to.”

  The station-master flicked over the pages with his thick fingers.” Here it is, messieurs! They were seen by the signalman, Jean Herbette, who took them to the only clinic in the town—that of Dr. Jules Colin in the rue de la République. Herbette is no longe
r on my staff.”

  Richardson noted down the address of the clinic.

  “Tell him,” he said to Adolphe, “that those are the people we are interested in.”

  “Ah!” replied the station-master, “Dr. Colin could tell you more about them than I can. If it had been that other Englishman I could have told you much.”

  “What other Englishman?”

  “The English names are difficult for me to say, but I have the name here.” He ran his finger down the column and held up the book.

  “Maze,” exclaimed Richardson; “ah, yes, he lost his nephew in the accident.”

  “Quite right, monsieur, and the nephew was buried here. You would like me to tell you all I know about him no doubt, messieurs. He was left lying among the wreckage on the ballast for some time. When he came to himself he got up and spoke to one of my goods’ porters, asking him where he could find the children. He said that he had lost his little nephew. I will send for the man if you would like to see him.”

  “Please do so.”

  The station-master used his desk telephone. “He will be here in a minute. You shall hear what he has to say from his own lips, and then I will tell you how the body of the nephew was identified.” They heard the tread of heavy boots approaching along the platform: knuckles rapped on the door.

  “Ah, it is you, Albert,” grunted his chief. “These gentlemen have some questions to ask you about that foreigner you found on the line after the accident.”

  “Bon, monsieur.” The speaker was a powerful-looking man in his working-kit. He had the puffy, bloodshot eyes of a hard drinker, but a kindly smile redeemed his face.

  “Do you remember the English gentleman, Albert?”

  “Yes, I remember him. It was when I was coming down with a lantern. He was staggering about. He asked me where the wounded had been taken to. He spoke French so well that at first I did not take him for a foreigner. I took him back with me to the goods-shed because he said that he wanted to find a boy—his nephew. It was dark in the shed-there was only one lantern—and the wounded were moaning and groaning. I don’t know whether he found the boy or not, because I had to get down the line with my lantern, but I did not see him again that night…”

  “And that is all you know?”

  “Yes, that is all.”

  “Thank you, Albert.”

  It was now the station-master’s turn. “This Monsieur Maze returned here next day to search for the body of his nephew. He came to this office and I had to go with him, the station being all in confusion, you understand. I had had the bodies of the unidentified children brought into the lamp-room, laid out on planks, and decently covered with sheets borrowed from the clinic and from the families of the staff. I assure you that it was necessary to cover them. They were a more dreadful spectacle than any that I saw in the trenches during the war—indeed, some of the women who were taken into the lamp-room to look for a missing child, shrieked and fainted when they saw it.”

  “The bodies were mutilated?”

  “Mutilated is not the word, messieurs. Some of them were in little fragments. I had got Dr. Maurras to come down to the station to help us fit some of the bodies together—an arm here, a leg there, a head crushed out of all recognition. There had been four identifications when the English gentleman came, but bodies were still being brought in as the workmen were clearing away the wreckage. It was terrible.”

  “Some of the children were never identified?”

  “What will you, messieurs? The fathers and the mothers had perished too. Who was left to identify them? Those that were identified were taken away by the undertaker, but a number remained…”

  Richardson had taken out a notebook. “Ask him how many bodies were lying in the lamp-room when the Englishman went into it.”

  “Thirteen, monsieur—children of all ages up to twelve.”

  “What did the Englishman do?”

  “He made me lift sheet after sheet until I came to the body of a young boy. It was terribly mangled. Then he made me lift other sheets. He stopped long over the twelfth boy and then he asked me to go back to the other. He began to search the bits of clothing that were caked to the body. Suddenly he spoke. ’This is my nephew,’ he said. ‘I know him by this little scar on his knee which he got by falling out of a tree on to the gravel. I know him too by this undervest which I bought for him in Paris the day before yesterday.’ Then he became very sad. ‘I must charge myself with his funeral,’ he said; ‘please give me the address of an undertaker.’ The undertaker, Monsieur Rollin, was actually in the station at the moment. I went out and called him to the door, and heard the gentleman give the instructions for a sumptuous funeral in the cemetery. He wrote out on a page torn from his diary the inscription which was to be carved on the stone.”

  “Was the stone erected?”

  “Yes, monsieur, it was. I have seen it myself. You will find it about the middle of the cemetery. The gardien will show it to you.”

  “Did the Englishman come back for the funeral?”

  “I have heard that he did, monsieur; not only did he come, but he gave a sum of money to the gardien to put flowers about the grave. This, for a little time, the gardien did, but I have heard it said that he does so no more, and people who know how much money he received, comment on this unfavourably.”

  Hudson and Milsom had risen. “Tell the station-master that we’re real glad to have seen him,” said the former, “and that it has been a shame to take up so much of his time.”

  The station-master made the usual polite response and bowed them out of his office.

  Not a word was said until the party reached the car. There they stopped to consult. As usual Jim Milsom was the first to speak. “Now what about going on to that clinic that the Bryants went to. You took down the address, Inspector.”

  “If you don’t mind, Mr. Milsom, I think that we should visit the cemetery first,” said Richardson quietly.

  “Good Lord! Have you gone crazy about that little boy?”

  “No,” laughed Richardson, “but as I’m always telling you it’s one of our maxims never to leave any loose ends in a story. Everything must be cleared up as one goes.”

  “He’s quite right, Jim,” interposed Hudson.

  Get to the bottom of every little thing if you want to be successful; and besides, I’d like to see the grave of that poor little youngster myself.”

  They entered the car, and as they drove, Milsom asked, “Wasn’t Maze the name of Miss Clynes’ employer in Liverpool? I thought so.”

  “Yes, I saw Mr. Maze when I was in Liverpool the other day,” said Richardson.

  “What gets me,” grumbled Hudson, “is that in Europe when a guy has made his pile, and his nephew has got killed in a railroad smash, he should want to have him buried out here in a foreign country instead of taking him home to bury.”

  “Mr. Maze didn’t strike me as a man of sentiment,” explained Richardson. “As a lawyer he may have thought that one country it as good as another for getting buried in.”

  “Did he tell you about having lost his nephew?”

  “I heard from other people in Liverpool that he was frightfully upset so I didn’t refer to it.”

  The cemetery at Lagny lay on rising ground a quarter of a mile outside the town. It was the local luncheon hour, and they found the guardian less communicative than he might have been at another hour of the day. But Adolphe would stand no nonsense. For foreigners of this distinction, backed by their embassies, all restrictions must give way. Rather sulkily the man unlocked the gate, pointed to a tall limestone cross and left the visitors to find their own way to it.

  The cross was well cut; a few withered flowers stood in a pot on the grave—a point that was not unnoticed by Adolphe. The others were bending over the inscription which Richardson was copying into his notebook. It was in English.

  SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF

  GODFREY MAZE

  WHO WAS KILLED IN A RAILWAY

  ACCIDENT AT LAG
NY ON 24TH

  DECEMBER, 1933

  Aged 9 years

  The gardien emerged from his lodge, wiping his mouth. Adolphe stopped to engage him in conversation, while his party went on to the car. They observed that the man was spreading his palms out in the gesture of self-justification. Adolphe came from the gate at a run.

  “What was it, Adolphe?” asked his master.

  “Excuse me, sir. I was asking the man what he meant by neglecting that grave when he had been paid for looking after it. I ventured to tell him that he would hear more of it.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  THE CLINIC in the rue de la République was kept by the most eccentric-looking doctor that any of them had seen. They were shown into the parlour; the door flew open and a bearded figure burst in and stopped short. They rose politely. He looked for all the world like an anthropoid ape, badly in need of washing and grooming. His face was hirsute; his clothing—riding-breeches, gaiters and all—was fit only to be thrown into the municipal destructor. His little eyes were bright and full of intelligence.

  “Well, gentlemen; your business, if you please? I, myself, am a very busy man.”

  “Tell him,” said Milsom, addressing Adolphe, “that we have come to inquire about two English people who were injured in the railway accident on Christmas Eve.”

  Adolphe put the question in French.

  “Ah! Then these gentlemen speak no French? They are English?—Countrymen of Monsieur Bryant. Doubtless they are come to tell me that he has done it at last.”

  “Done what?” asked Milsom, when the reply was translated.

  “Eh, bien! Swallowed the dose that he had always carried in his pocket—the cyanide of potassium. No? Then what poison did he use? It interests me to know.”

  “Tell him,” said Milsom impatiently, “that we saw him alive and well in London last week.”

  “Then why have these gentlemen come—to hear my impressions of Monsieur Bryant and his wife? Good! I will tell them. They were quite uninjured by the accident, but they had been badly shaken. The lady in particular was a difficult case. She complained of everything—the nurses, the food, her mattress—everything. If she suffered from anything it was hypochondriasis and ill-temper. We were glad to be rid of her. As for the poor husband, I pitied him. When the nurse found that little bottle of cyanide in his pocket, I pitied him the more. I thought at first that he was the victim of stupefying drugs, but it was not that. He told me that he carried the cyanide with him for months as a method of escape from his wife, but he had always lacked the courage to use it—even the courage to put his head into a gas-oven. I told him that death was but a little thing—that people met death face to face every day, and that the world was not one sou the worse when they left it. He said that he had faced death in the trenches when he was younger, and that now when he wished for it, he did not dare to die. I told him that he was wise; that one never knew what was waiting for one round the corner—good fortune, perhaps. He sighed and said that if anything would be waiting round the corner for him, it would be his wife.”