Dusty Death

by Clifton Robbins

  Harrison was about to protest when a familiar voice said “Good morning” and there was Jeanne de Marplay, looking fresher and more radiantly attractive than ever, throwing open a bag and displaying an extraordinary assortment of feminine belongings to the gaze of the curious. She even went so far as to pull some of the clothing out to give the customs officer a fair chance of examination.

  “Good morning,” answered Harrison, with a smile. “Somewhat unnecessary, I should say?”

  “Not a bit,” she replied. “With regular travellers to Geneva like myself the customs officer takes no risks. The ‘old, familiar faces,’ you know. They get suspicious and so our luggage has to suffer.”

  Harrison agreed that this certainly must be true when he saw how Jeanne de Marplay’s luggage was treated as compared with his own. A perfunctory chalk mark was placed on his, but before he had time to close the case, he and Henry were lending the woman a hand to open all her odd cases and the customs officer seemed to go carefully through everything, even making the confusion of the first bag worse than de Marplay had made it herself.

  “You must be a very suspicious character,” said Harrison.

  “I am,” she answered, with a laugh. “Don’t you think so?”

  “Not yet,” was his reply.

  “Now that all these things are back somehow,” said Jeanne de Marplay, “and they will be in a mess before I can unpack them, why shouldn’t we share a taxi—I suppose you’ll be staying at the Hotel des Montagnes?”

  “Better not, I think,” said Harrison.

  “Don’t be foolish, Mr. Harrison,” she replied. “Do you think I don’t understand what you’re thinking? You think that you will be recognised at once—of course, by the wrong people—if you are seen driving through Geneva with me. Now admit it, that’s what you thought?”

  “I’m afraid it is,” answered Harrison.

  “Well,” said the young woman, “I expect you’ve been seen already and, by the way, did you realise that the man on the other side of you, who has just gone out with his bags, is one of the most successful white-slavers in Europe?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “You see, Mr. Harrison, there’ll be a lot for you to learn in Geneva—possibly even from me—but the simple method of refusing to share a taxi won’t be the best way. Do we share?”

  “I accept the rebuke,” he answered cheerily. “We share.”

  “I suppose we shall get to know one another one day,” remarked Jeanne de Marplay, with a grimace. “But you’re a very suspicious man. Much more than I should have expected. Still, that’s your business, isn’t it? And so, to put you at your ease immediately, I might as well tell you that I certainly don’t intend to stay at the des Montagnes myself. Too expensive for one thing, and, for another, you might think I was always following you about—and a third thing, your man might die of fright. Although,” she added meditatively, “it would have been rather fun to have taken the room next to yours for one night just to see what you both felt about it.” Harrison and Henry laughed, the latter definitely with a great deal of relief; the taxi-cab was chartered and the party set off. Miss de Marplay was obviously in high spirits, almost unnaturally high spirits, thought Harrison, and was extraordinarily good company for the short distance from the station. With a twinkling “au revoir” which was certainly emphasised, she went on in the taxi-cab while Harrison and Henry inquired for rooms.

  The bags had been deposited and Harrison was just dismissing Henry and thinking that a bath and shave were the nearest to paradise at the moment when a tap came at the door.

  “Come in,” shouted Harrison, and there appeared the irrepressible Jeanne.

  “Oh lord,” cried Henry, with obvious displeasure.

  “I really am sorry to disturb you, Mr. Harrison,” she began, looking genuinely embarrassed. “I am frightfully sorry. I had no intention of following you up here, really, but something has happened and I had to come at once.”

  Her distress seemed so real that Harrison gave a smile and gallantly asked her what he could do for her.

  “The fact is,” she answered, “it’s my face cream. I always bring special face cream when I’m travelling. I can’t do without it. It is really very important. I should look awful if I hadn’t got it—really I should. And I was trying to put the things a bit straighter in my case going along in the taxi when I found that both pots had disappeared.”

  “I’m very sorry,” said Harrison. “But you can’t imagine that I should walk off with them.”

  “You might have done without knowing it. You see, that awful customs examination when both our bags were open near each other. They might have been pushed into yours by mistake.”

  “I should think that was hardly likely but I shall be only too pleased to satisfy you. Henry, open the bag and have a look.”

  Henry opened the bag somewhat superciliously and certainly there was nothing to be seen. Before, however, he could look any further, Jeanne de Marplay had dashed to the bag, turned over the shirts and underclothes on the top, and then triumphantly brought out two small china jars, labelled with the name of a popular brand of face cream.

  “I’m so relieved,” she said, with a smile of joy. “Thank you so much. I’m glad I had that inspiration because you might have wondered what on earth they were doing in your bag. ‘Au revoir’ really this time.”

  She disappeared again, leaving Harrison and Henry looking rather blankly at each other.

  “Queer,” said Harrison.

  “Comic,” said Henry.

  “Too queer,” said Harrison. “Much too queer. You can get out, Henry, I’m going to have a bath.”

  But Henry’s moments of peace were not to last long. He himself was unpacking in a leisurely way, meditating on the “cheek” of these foreigners, among whom he included de Marplay, when a waiter knocked on his door and told him that “his master wanted him.”

  “My what?” asked Henry, with astonishing dignity.

  “Your master,” was the somewhat nervous reply, “Monsieur Harrison.”

  “Mister Harrison in English, I think,” said Henry, superbly. “Mister Harrison to you and Mister Harrison to me and none of that ‘my master’ business when I’m staying here, thank you. You understand?”

  The waiter withdrew, apologising and overwhelmed by the reproof, and Henry made for Harrison’s room. He found him sitting in his bath, singing lustily.

  “These foreigners—” muttered Henry as he went towards Harrison.

  “Annoying you again?” said Harrison, sympathetically, knowing full well that Henry was thoroughly enjoying himself. “Well, Henry, the start’s good. We’ve got a clue.”

  “Not quite,” answered Harrison. “But very nearly, that’s where I thought of it. But things are going to move now. The face cream, Henry, don’t you see?”

  “I certainly don’t,” said Henry.

  “Let’s put two and two together, Henry. The face cream didn’t come into my bag by accident, that’s certain. When we were helping that woman undo her cases she slipped the pots into my bag. It couldn’t have happened any other way. If the customs man had put them in by mistake we should certainly have noticed him examining them, shouldn’t we, Henry?”

  “Certainly we should.”

  “It was therefore something she didn’t want him to see, wasn’t it? It couldn’t have been because it was face cream. That would have got through the customs all right. And she wouldn’t have made such a fuss about that kind of face cream, anyhow, it’s a popular brand and I’ll swear she can buy it anywhere in Geneva. A put-up job, Henry, and she did it well too. When you opened the bag, you saw how quickly she got across the room and took out the pots. Didn’t give either of us a chance to touch them, did she?”

  “She was pretty nippy, I must say.”

  “She was,” agreed Harrison. “But she’s made a mistake. She’s given us a clue—a most important one.”

  “I still don’t see it, sir.”

  “Now,
Henry, what would one want to conceal from a customs officer in a small pot like that?”

  “Well—” started Henry.

  “Plain as a pikestaff,” said Harrison, leaning out of the bath. “Drugs, cocaine, heroin, dope of any kind. She knew the customs people would look at anything of hers so she passed it on to me.”

  “Good Lord,” said Henry. “That sounds right.”

  “It is right,” answered Harrison. “I’ve been assisting to smuggle a very valuable consignment of dope into Geneva, the town where they’re trying to stop it. Some irony, isn’t it, Henry?”

  “Yes, sir, I agree,” said Henry. “But oughtn’t you to tell the police here?”

  “Certainly I ought, Henry, but I’m not going to,” replied Harrison. “That would spoil it. She doesn’t seem quite as clever as I thought. It’s too good a clue to miss. Certainly too good to give away. Perhaps she couldn’t help it, Henry, perhaps she had to.”

  “Poor devil,” said Henry.

  “If that’s her trouble it explains a lot, but don’t let us jump at conclusions. It sounds too easy for me but she had to get it in and the simplest way was by far the cleverest. The porter must have been well tipped to arrange the luggage as he did. Very bright, Henry, very bright.”

  “She couldn’t have brought in all that amount only for herself,” said Henry, with conviction.

  “I shouldn’t think so,” was the reply. “That’s why we have some kind of clue. You see, Henry, I didn’t want to go wandering round Geneva asking if anyone knew anything about Gilbert Twining. That would be a fool’s game, wouldn’t it? And, besides, she would be there to spike me every time. However ridiculous it sounds, Henry, we must assume she’s connected with the Twining business. We must also assume that it’s a serious enough business for the fascinating lady to follow me to Geneva directly she discovers I’m on the job and even to let her friends know I’m coming. All of which means, Henry—” Clay Harrison paused, for effect, one would almost think, except that he immediately exclaimed—“You’re keeping me in this bath a devil of a long time, Henry, hand me over a towel.”

  Henry passed the towel but was too curious to make a discreet disappearance.

  “Well, Henry?” said Harrison, in the midst of a vigorous rubbing, as if oblivious of all he had immediately said before.

  “Which means what, sir?” prompted Henry.

  “Oh, that,” replied Harrison, putting on his underclothes in a leisurely manner. “Don’t you see, Henry, it means that Gilbert Twining has not disappeared of his own free will. In fact, he has been made to disappear and Miss de Marplay knows why, if not how.”

  “That sounds serious, sir.”

  “Very serious, Henry, because if we connect it with the other clue, it may be even dangerous. If Twining disappeared in connection with drugs he may be—”

  “Dead?”

  “He may be, Henry; I trust not, but we’ve got to face it. Judging by the style, manners, deportment, or whatever you like to call it, of Miss de Marplay, I don’t think we need exaggerate the amount of human feelings our opponents may possess. Mercy would not be one of their special characteristics, I should say. These drug people must be pretty nasty characters and I should think they do things thoroughly. There is only one thing about it, one feels they must be a bit scared or she would not have got on to my tracks so quickly.”

  “And what will you do next, sir?” said Henry.

  “I shall go straight along to the headquarters of the League and find somebody who knows something about drugs—that’s why I said the clue was most important. If we ask generally about Twining nobody would be inclined to help us. I expect there’s a lot of confidential stuff mixed up in this and a secret’s a secret, but if I go straight up to a man who presumably knows something about Twining and ask him, point blank, where Twining is, I may get an answer before he gets over his surprise.”

  Harrison finished his dressing with a cheerful whistle. His sense of tune was not irreproachable but his devotion to Gilbert and Sullivan was beyond criticism. A breakfast of coffee and rolls and a pleasantly pulling cigar and he sallied forth into the town of Geneva, leaving Henry to keep a watchful eye over the hotel.

  Chapter VI

  The Passport Committee

  After a certain amount of wandering and suspicion, Clay Harrison found an official, British by birth, who seemed to know a great deal about the drug traffic.

  Corning along the side of the lake, Harrison had had time to consider whether the plan of campaign he had roughly suggested to Henry was worth pursuing. It was not easy to keep his thoughts on the subject because the sun was shining brilliantly and the miniature capital lay charmingly displayed on the opposite bank. The Saléve itself made an effective and colourful background while the drifting of clouds and mists in the distance suggested that Mont Blanc itself and the whole range of its attendant peaks might condescend to show themselves later in the day.

  “But what a place for plots and conspiracies,” thought Harrison, as he walked on. He passed a newspaper shop under the closed Kursaal and there it seemed possible to find journals printed in every language under the sun. “The nations of the world jostle each other here. It isn’t a big enough place, like London or Paris, to force itself on them so they, in revenge, have made it international. Your next-door neighbour in a cafe may come from any old part of the world and you take it for granted. Not a bad thing really, for it makes it the centre of the world. The centre of the world for good, but why not for evil as well? They must follow each other about.”

  Again he came back to the method of approaching his own particular problem. It was tempting to try and surprise a man into giving information, but was that the right way with a question it was going to take some time to solve? All right if the piece of information would finish the case and that was that; but such an ending was very unlikely and he would want all the friends he could possibly muster before he had finished. No, that wouldn’t do. After all, it would be far better for him to throw himself on the mercy of the official and hope for the best.

  Harrison was shown into a room where a man of about forty was seated at a remarkably tidy desk. Very few papers were to be seen and hardly an official file. “Suspicious,” thought Harrison.

  “Mr. Harrison?” asked the official in a quiet, measured tone. “Pray be seated. My name’s Dawnay, at your service.”

  “Thank you,” answered Harrison, sitting down. “I’ve come on rather a delicate matter and I need your help. I wish I could say I claim it—”

  “Anything in my power,” said Dawnay.

  “It’s about a man named Gilbert Twining,” continued Harrison, speaking very slowly, to get every possible effect out of his statement and also to watch the other man’s face.

  “What name did you say?” answered the other, imperturbably, although Harrison could have sworn there was a faint sign of recognition in Dawnay’s eyes when the name was mentioned.

  “Gilbert Twining,” repeated Harrison.

  “I’m afraid I don’t recall the name,” answered Dawnay. “But I’m not very good at names. Possibly you can give me a little help?”

  “The fact is,” said Harrison, “this Gilbert Twining has disappeared.”

  Again Harrison could have sworn he saw a change in Dawnay’s eyes, but the answer gave no indication of it.

  “Of course I’m sorry to hear that,” said Dawnay. “If he is a friend of yours. I am sure you will not think I am trying to perpetrate a poor joke but, as a useful fact for identifying a man, the bare mention of his disappearance would hardly be considered, would it? By the way,” he asked meaningly, “is this gentleman a friend of yours?”

  “Well, not quite,” answered Harrison, to be immediately interrupted by an “Oh” from Dawnay, an “Oh” which conveyed much more than a long sentence and which seemed to say: “I thought as much. Now I’m going into my shell about ten times as deep as before.”

  Harrison was rather amused at the course the interview wa
s taking. Mr. Dawnay was evidently an exceedingly cautious man, a good servant of his organisation, and he was not to be drawn by casual methods. Rockbottom credentials would certainly be necessary before he would even consider being helpful.

  “As a matter of fact I have been asked to try and trace Mr. Twining in an almost professional capacity—”

  “How foolish of me,” said Dawnay. “Of course your card said Clay Harrison. Do you know, I had not connected you at all.” Harrison felt a certain doubt but remained silent. “It is a great pleasure to meet you. We do not often see a man of your special kind of reputation in our quiet town of Geneva. I am very pleased you called on me.”

  “Thank you for the compliment,” answered Harrison, with a smile. “But I did not quite grasp your remark about connecting me. Excuse my denseness, but connecting me with what?”

  “I’m so sorry,” replied Dawnay. “Yesterday’s French newspapers. They said something about your coming to Geneva. It caused quite a stir here. I did not think I should be one of the lucky people to be approached by you—so quickly, too.”

  “Now, of course, you understand.”

  “Hardly,” answered Dawnay. “I certainly don’t understand how a man of your reputation can announce his movements to the whole world. It does not seem in keeping, does it, especially if you have been entrusted with what you yourself have called a rather delicate matter?”

  “That was the work of an enemy, Mr. Dawnay,” said Harrison.

  “Your enemies must be pretty well informed, Mr. Harrison.”

  “They are, Mr. Dawnay, very,” answered Harrison. “Or, may I say, they were. I fear I was not discreet enough; I admit that. But I have learned my lesson.”

  “I am glad to hear that,” said Dawnay, suddenly looking Harrison full in the eyes. “But I regret to say my work makes me very suspicious, much more suspicious than I am by nature. You will understand that, I’m sure. Now how am I to know you are Mr. Clay Harrison, at all?”