Three and One Make Five

by Roderic Jeffries

  ‘Inspector Alvarez, Cuerpo General de Policia.’

  She shielded her eyes from the fierce sun with her right hand as she studied him. ‘Enrique Alvarez from Llueso? . . . Remember me? Josephina Zimmerman, though I was Herrera Vila when we last saw each other.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said, trying to equate this middle-aged, stocky woman with a heavily lined face with a girl as fresh and as beautiful as a rosebud who had lived in the village.

  ‘How have things been?’

  ‘There’ve been troubles. I married a foreigner and when I had my boy and was ill, he left me.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ The foreigners plundered everything, he thought bitterly.

  She shrugged her shoulders. She belonged, as did he, to the last generation of islanders which had been born into poverty and who, in consequence, had never believed that the world owed them, or would provide them with, a smooth passage through life. ‘I work here for the señor and he pays. And my son is doing very well at school in his first year. They say he’s clever.’

  ‘That’s wonderful to hear. And how’s your brother who also moved away?’

  ‘We don’t see each other. He could never accept me marrying a foreigner.’

  Years of silence, he thought, just because of that. Yet now the youngsters had little bastards and no one seemed to think twice about it. ‘Is the señor in?’

  She nodded. ‘He doesn’t go out unless he has to, like yesterday, since she left.’

  ‘She?’

  ‘Another foreigner and much younger than him, but she was nice.’ Her tone suggested the combination was unusual. ‘Always full of fun.’

  ‘When did she leave him?’

  ‘Maybe a week ago: maybe a little more.’

  ‘D’you know why?’

  ‘Why?’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Who can know why? One day she was as always, the next she wasn’t here and he told me she’d left him. Perhaps she suddenly understood that it was all too difficult. There’s only ever trouble when an old man knows a young woman.’

  He winced.

  A bell sounded inside the house.

  ‘That’s him calling. I must go and see what he wants.’

  ‘Tell him I want a word with him.’

  ‘All right. You’d best come on into the kitchen to wait.’

  The kitchen was large and very well equipped, yet it still managed to be in keeping with the beamed ceiling and the roughly faced walls. If only more old farmhouses had been restored with such loving care, he thought, remembering Ca Na Rostra.

  She was gone a couple of minutes and when she returned she said: ‘The señor’s not feeling well and can’t see you.’

  ‘He’s got to see me.’

  She became uneasy.

  ‘He’s not in bed, is he?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Then take me through to wherever he is.’

  She hesitated, then led the way out of the kitchen, through the hall, under an archway which supported stone stairs, and into the high-ceilinged sitting-room, which had a second floor, or primitive gallery, at the far end. ‘Señor, the detective says he must speak to you . . .’

  ‘I told you to tell him I’m too ill,’ Massier shouted, his Spanish fluent but his accent heavy.

  Alvarez stepped forward to come into view. Massier looked considerably older than he had in the photograph. His face was lined, his hair had receded and become grey, and the suggestion of hard physical condition had given way to one of flabbiness.

  ‘Why d’you let him in . . .’ he began wildly.

  ‘I insisted,’ said Alvarez.

  Massier slumped back into the high wing chair. Josephina looked from one man to the other, then said: ‘Do you wish for coffee, señor?’

  He shook his head.

  Alvarez said: ‘Bring him a coñac’

  She hurried out of the room.

  Alvarez moved to a second chair and sat. ‘Your name is Raymond Massier?’

  ‘What if it is?’ Massier’s voice was deep and husky, like that of a man who smoked too much.

  ‘You once worked as an instructor in scuba-diving at Playa del Xima?’

  ‘No.’

  Alvarez brought a print of the photograph from the breast pocket of his shirt. He stood, crossed the carpeted floor, and held the photo out.

  ‘I tell you . . .’

  ‘And I tell you that I can drive you to Playa del Xima and find half a dozen people, including Garcia, who’ll identify you immediately.’

  Massier shivered.

  ‘You see the other two men?’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Do you remember their names?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘One was Roger Clarke and the other was Simon Allen.’

  ‘What . . . what d’you want?’

  Josephina returned, carrying a tray on which were two glasses, a bottle, a soda syphon, and an insulated ice container. She put the tray down on a table, stared uneasily at them, then left, without having spoken.

  Alvarez returned the photo to his shirt pocket and went over to the table. He poured out two brandies, handed one glass to Massier, returned to his chair. ‘There were five of you and Loco Llobera. Llobera told you where the Marques de Orlocas’s boat had sunk and you dived and found the wreck. And even though it was nearly fifty years before, the jewels and the gold plate were still in the wreck and you salvaged them.

  ‘Llobera wasn’t as completely stupid as people thought him, but neither was he even halfway to being normal. So once he’d led you to the fortune, he had to be eliminated in case he might start boasting about how he’d got his own back on the Marquesas family. You murdered him by getting him drunk and then pushing him over the cliffs at Setray.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes,’ he contradicted harshly. ‘And that’s when you made your first mistake. You gave him a bottle of cognac, from France, instead of a bottle of coñac, from Spain, to make certain he got drunk.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Sweat had gathered on Massier’s face and it was beginning to slide down his cheeks and nose.

  ‘Did the other four know that Llobera had died?’

  ‘I swear I didn’t know him or anything about him.’

  ‘Obviously they didn’t. Which is understandable. If they had learned that, they might have begun to realize what you intended to do when you reckoned it was safe to do it.’

  Massier stumbled to his feet and went across to pour himself out a second and much larger drink.

  ‘You waited three years before you decided it was the right time to move. That must have seemed a very long three years as you watched the other four all spending furiously. But at least you’d managed to persuade them that it would be the height of folly to sell all the jewels and plate at once, so there’d been no general distribution and the bulk of the treasure—now worth God knows how many times more than it had been when it went to the bottom of the sea—was intact so that you knew that when you’d murdered everyone else there’d still be a fortune waiting for you.

  ‘This year, you started. You murdered Clarke, Allen Short, and Marsh. And when you murdered Marsh by getting him drunk and then pushing him out of the window, you believed you’d finally secured everything for yourself . . . Where are the jewels and gold plate?’

  Massier, who’d remained standing by the table, drained his glass and then refilled it with shaking hands. He drank greedily.

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘I don’t know anything,’ he croaked.

  ‘Are they on this island?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  Alvarez sighed. ‘Sit down.’

  Moving like a sleepwalker, Massier returned to his chair.

  ‘When did you first come to this island?’

  ‘About . . . eight years ago.’

  ‘Did you come here to live?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘What then?’

  ‘Just
for the summer, to teach diving.’

  ‘What happened in the winter?’

  ‘I returned to France.’

  ‘Are you married?’

  He hesitated, then nodded.

  ‘Where’s your wife now?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘When did she leave you?’

  ‘Five years ago.’

  ‘Was she fed up with your beachcombing way of life?’

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘Whereabouts did you live in France?’

  ‘In Paris.’

  ‘Did you own the place you lived in?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I . . . couldn’t afford to.’

  ‘D’you own this house?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How much did it cost to buy and restore?’

  Incredibly, he had failed to realize where the previous questions had been leading. He stared at Alvarez, even more frightened than before.

  ‘Fifty million would be a conservative estimate, wouldn’t it? Where did that sort of money come from? And where does the money come from to run the house and employ Josephina and the gardener?’

  ‘I . . . I won it.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘The lottery.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Three years ago.’

  ‘How many millions did you win?’

  ‘I . . . I don’t remember exactly.’

  ‘I’d have thought that that sort of memory would accompany one to the grave. But it must have been a lot more than fifty million. At which bank did you encash the ticket?’

  He realized that to give any answer would be merely to make it that much more easy to prove he was lying.

  ‘Where were you on Friday, the twenty-third of last month?’

  ‘Why d’you ask?’

  ‘It’s when señor James Marsh was murdered in the village of Pelonette, near Nice.’

  ‘I haven’t left the island in months.’

  ‘Can you prove that?’

  ‘Ask Josephina.’

  ‘Does she work here over the weekends?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘So she can never vouch for you on a Saturday or Sunday . . . You flew to Nice on Friday night, after she’d finished here, and you returned some time Saturday. Passports ire seldom stamped at borders these days, so you thought you were safe.’

  ‘I swear to God I haven’t left the island in months.’

  ‘You hold God that lightly?’

  ‘Then ask . . . ask Marion.’

  ‘Who?’

  His expression crumpled.

  ‘Who’s Marion?’

  ‘She . . . she used to live here.’

  ‘When did she leave?’

  ‘Nine days ago,’ he said in a whisper.

  ‘Why did she leave? Because she’d begun to suspect the truth about your visit to France?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where is she now?’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know.’

  Alvarez finished his drink, then stood. ‘I want your passport.’

  Massier looked up, his expression pleading. ‘If I . . .’ he swallowed heavily.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘The jewels and gold . . . What happens to them?’

  ‘When they are positively identified? They’ll be returned to their legal owner, the Marques de Orlocas’s daughter.’

  ‘Couldn’t . . .’ He stopped. His expression changed. ‘I don’t know anything about them,’ he said vehemently.

  ‘Your passport, please. And you will make no attempt to leave this island until further inquiries have been carried out.’

  Massier came to his feet and then stumbled out of the room.

  CHAPTER 21

  Dolores had just poured out a second bowlful of cocoa for Alvarez when the phone rang. She showed no inclination to go and answer the call so he regretfully came to his feet and went through.

  One of the guards at the post said: ‘There’s a message come in for you from señora Josephina Zimmerman. She says she’s just arrived at señor Massier s house and he’s shot himself and what’s she to do?’

  ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘She says he must have been dead for some hours.’

  In this heat, Alvarez thought grimly, the ravages of death soon became very apparent. It had not happened in his department, yet it was his case and there could be no doubt that Salas (to whom it must be reported) would direct him to carry out the investigation. ‘Look, do me a favour, will you? Get on to the police doctor for the Treller department and ask him . . .’

  ‘Sorry, mate, I’ve too much to do as it is,’ said the guard, before replacing the receiver.

  Alvarez swore, thought, then returned to the kitchen. ‘I’ve got to get moving right away.’

  ‘You’re not going anywhere until you’ve finished the cocoa and ensaimada,’ corrected Dolores. ‘Not when I took all the trouble to go out early to the baker to get the ensaimada for you . . . Anyway, what’s happened?’

  ‘A man’s committed suicide. Thankfully.’

  ‘Thankfully?’ she repeated, shocked.

  ‘Now, everything’s over and done with.’ He sat on a stool at the small kitchen table.

  ‘But suicide, Enrique?’

  ‘There are times when I really can’t see it as a sin, whatever the priests say. If it’s kinder to everyone, including himself, how can it be so wrong?’

  She shook her head. There were times when she completely failed to understand him.

  He unwound part of the ensaimada and dunked it in the cocoa, then ate. Just over three years ago, there had been five men whose lives had been very ordinary. Then a sixth man, a tragic fool, had shown them a vision of riches beyond their wildest dreams and because men always longed for what they normally could only dream about, they’d pursued those riches without any thought to the cost. The cost had proved to be tragically high. Four murders and a suicide . . .

  Massier lay on the floor of the small room, beyond the sitting-room, which Josephina referred to as the library, even though there were no shelves of books, but only a few paperbacks in a metal-framed bookcase.

  The gun was a 9mm Lebel automatic and he’d put the muzzle against his right temple and pulled the trigger. There was a thin ring around the entry wound, due to pressure of the soiled muzzle, the skin was split and scorched, and the muzzle area alone was speckled with particles of partly burned powder. He’d been sitting on a chair behind the desk and at the moment of death an involuntary movement had thrown him off this on to the ground. His right arm was outstretched, his left was by his side: the automatic lay between his body and his right arm. The ejected cartridge case was three metres away. There was surprisingly little blood. His eyes were partially open and his lips were parted to show his upper teeth. Already, flies were bothering his corpse.

  Alvarez crossed to the single window and looked out The beauty of the enclosed valley, surrounded by mountains, increased the ugliness of the death behind him Why, he wondered bitterly, did man forever destroy . .

  He left the library and went through to the sitting room, where he found Josephina. ‘The doctor should be here soon and then the body can be moved . . . D’you know if there’s a safe in the house?’

  She nodded. ‘There’s one in the library: behind one of the paintings on the wall.’ She hesitated, then said worriedly: ‘I know only about it because I went in there one day and he’d left it open.’

  He said easily: ‘D’you think I could imagine there’d be any other reason?’

  She was relieved and grateful for this implicit testimony to her honesty.

  He returned to the library. There were three coloured prints of roses hanging on the walls and the last one he checked proved to be concealing the safe. As had happened not long before in the case, he searched for the key and this time found it almost immediately, in the top right-hand drawer of the desk. He opened the safe, which was much larger than the size of the door
suggested. There were a few pieces of personal jewellery—cuff-links, tiepins, and dress studs—some papers which included the escrituras of house and land, and nearly five hundred thousand pesetas and six thousand Swiss francs in notes. But no collection of stolen jewellery and gold plate.

  He relocked the safe and replaced the key in the desk drawer. Massier must surely have recovered the four shares of the men he’d murdered, so where was this fortune? Was there so much that it wouldn’t fit into the safe? But even the most valuable jewellery would pack into a relatively small space and surely there wouldn’t have been so much gold plate that it would have overflowed this large safe? And even if this was wrong and there had been that much, wouldn’t he have kept the jewellery in the safe, as being the more valuable, and the gold somewhere else?

  Josephina was in the kitchen. ‘If the Señor had something valuable,’ he asked, ‘but he didn’t want it in the safe, can you think where he might have kept it?’

  The question clearly bewildered her.

  ‘What about one of the outbuildings?’ he suggested.

  ‘He used the first one for a garage and there’s some wood and tools in the second one, otherwise they’re empty.’

  ‘How much land did he own?’

  ‘Just the garden. When he bought the house he was offered the farmland as well, but he said he didn’t want it.’

  The house and the outbuildings would have to be searched from top to bottom: the garden would have to be checked with a metal detector and, if necessary, dug over: the banks would have to be asked about safe-deposits . . .

  She interrupted his thoughts. ‘What’s the best thing for me to do now?’

  ‘I’d say you might as well pack up and go home. That is, after you’ve told me where you live in case I need some more help.’

  Til do that, then. I suppose . . . I suppose it’s happened because of you coming here yesterday?’

  Tm afraid so.’

  ‘What was the trouble?’

  ‘He’d been mixed up in something nasty.’

  ‘I’d never have thought it of him. You just can’t tell these days, can you?’

  She gave him her address, then began to leave but stopped at the door and turned back. ‘What’s to happen about the dog?’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘Well, feeding it.’