A voice at the other end snapped into action. ‘Who is speaking?’
Grant smiled wickedly. ‘My name is Martinez. And I am in the next chalet. If you want to get the pix of a lifetime you’ll get here when the coast is still clear.’ He then gave a convincing gasp and half shouted into the instrument. ‘Don’t! For God’s sake don’t do it!’ He whimpered for a moment and then hung up.
And that, he thought contentedly, should involve just about everybody.
There was a knock at his door. ‘Your tea, sir.’ A young nurse laid it on the desk and handed him another capsule of tuinal. ‘You must take this before you go to bed, sir. It will refresh you for tomorrow.’
He grinned and swallowed the thing. It would be no bad idea to be asleep when the police arrived. Tomorrow looked like being a day to remember.
Chapter Eleven – ‘He is very much awake.’
The Swiss Inspector of Police was courteous but insistent. Grant was still awaiting breakfast and the morning sunshine was pouring into his bedroom. A young doctor was also standing beside the bed and Grant half smiled as he listened to his apologies.
‘You will pardon us, Doctor Grant. But last evening there was a regrettable tragedy. Your neighbour, Mr. Miller, died and it seems that many things are unusual. The police would like to ask a few questions. Professor Hancke is sure that you will understand how we are placed.’
‘How are you placed?’ asked Grant coldly. ‘I don’t like receiving anyone before I’ve shaved and dressed.’
The doctor flushed. ‘The place has been in an uproar all night. It is surprising you heard nothing.’
‘After a sleeping pill! Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘So you really heard nothing?’ The inspector interrupted with a crisp formality which showed that from then on he would be in control.
‘Very little,’ snapped Grant. ‘I returned home in the small hours. The receptionist said that Mr. Miller had died and that some women were making a scene at his chalet. I ordered tea and returned to my own quarters. But it was necessary to pass Miller’s rooms and I got a glimpse of two half-naked Negresses singing and dancing inside. Since the nursing staff were on duty I left them to it. Shortly afterwards another nurse delivered my tea and made me swallow a capsule of tuinal.’
‘So you remember nothing more?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You didn’t recognise the girls?’
Grant hesitated. ‘I didn’t stop to think. And they were stripped. I didn’t hang around staring.’
‘They tell me that they know your name.’ The inspector was very remote.
‘And did they give their own names?’
He nodded. ‘Mary James and Dinah Moses.’
Grant raised his eyebrows. ‘Then I do know them.’
‘And when did you see them last?’
‘Yesterday afternoon. Or evening rather.’
‘And for what reason?’
‘To make a date. They were good company and I am leading a bachelor sort of life these days.’
‘Meaning the two days which have passed since Miss Koren returned to Paris.’ The policeman sounded sceptical. ‘You must have a great need for female society.’
Grant nodded. ‘Sure I have. I like popsies and probably always will. But I didn’t recognise them in the half light through an open door with two nurses rushing about flapping their hands.’
‘And you were not sufficiently curious to ask questions?’
Grant saw that a plain clothes man was rushing down a shorthand record of the conversation. ‘No. I had enough botheration on my hands without worrying too much about a minor orgy.’
‘What sort of trouble, m’sieur?’
Grant scowled heavily. ‘I run a Maserati. It was purchased in Paris but this evening I took a run into France and the engine began to knock. Acceleration was also sluggish and I was irritated. A new car, especially a Maserati, should be perfect.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘I had a friend who was returning to Paris. She was scheduled to leave early this morning by air but she offered to run it back for me instead.’
The inspector smiled. ‘Your friend, another lady friend, offered to run a car with an imperfect engine back to Paris and to motor all through the night?’
‘Sure,’ snapped Grant. ‘Why not? The roads are not so busy then. And it is not so very long. Eight or nine hours at most.’
‘Which left you with no car.’
‘Exactly. But I hired a Porsche. Or rather she hired the Porsche and for the moment I am using it.’
‘Why did the lady do the work? Is that not unusual?’
Grant shook his head and held out his hands. ‘Look at the mess my fingers are in. I was working on the engine. Messing about with plugs and points. Still hoping to fix it even at the last moment.’
‘In the dark?’
‘Under a street light.’
‘After which you returned to the Clinique?’
‘Yes.’
‘Having gone there direct?’
‘No.’ Grant guessed that he was treading on thin ice. ‘I ran down to the lakeside, stopped at a jetty just west of here and had a cigarette.’
‘Alone?’
He nodded briefly. There had been no rain and he would have taken a heavy bet that there were no traceable footmarks on the ground around where he had parked.
‘After which you returned to Professor Hancke’s establishment . . .’
‘And checked in.’
The inspector studied him thoughtfully. ‘Professor Hancke’s records have given us some detail about your background, m’sieur, and I regret inconveniencing you. But it is necessary to build up a picture. You lived for five days with Mademoiselle Maya Koren, the ballerina. Yet, during that time you visited other women, and in particular you dined with a beautiful young lady whose hair is said to be the colour of washed silk. A silver blonde, you say in English. Who is she?’
‘My assistant at the laboratory where I work in Paris. We were discussing various technical projects. There was no social angle to these meetings. Purely professional.’
‘Then again it appears that you visited a pension last evening in which a young coloured girl had been brutally murdered. I am told that you called to see her and that you had seen her before. What was the purpose of these visits?’
Grant looked impatient. ‘I detailed all that in my statement last evening. She was a friend of my chief in Paris. He asked me to see her from time to time in case she might be lonely in a strange city.’
‘Which anticipates my point, Doctor. Why was she living in this strange city?’
Grant shrugged his shoulders. ‘Why not? She was going to make a leisurely tour of Switzerland. What better place to begin it than in Geneva?’
‘But the patronne of her pension tells us that the girl seldom left the house. Why would this be, do you think?’
‘She was feeling unwell. Change of food probably. It was more convenient for her to stay indoors.’
‘Well, it so happens that we have traced your movements in some detail, m’sieur. And for sure it was not you who killed this young Negress. But it is interesting that you knew her, that you knew the two coloured ladies who were misbehaving with Mr. Miller in a chalet next door to your own and that you seem to have heard nothing which could help us in any way to discover what exactly was going on in that room during the moments before the police arrived.’
Grant got out of bed and slipped on a dressing-gown. ‘Let’s talk outside on the terrace. And do me a favour, Doctor, send down some breakfast. This talking on an empty stomach is no good to anyone. Why don’t you let me dress and bother Martinez or someone else instead?’
‘I am glad that you mentioned Señor Martinez. He seems to have telephoned both Reuter and Tass late last evening. Around the time you returned home, in fact. And Reuter says that the call ended with suspicious noises which made them believe he had been attacked.’
Grant looked at the youn
ger doctor and smiled. ‘This is going to take years off Professor Hancke’s life. He’ll be furious.’
The inspector shrugged his shoulders. ‘Doubtless. But the really interesting thing is that both Reuter and Tass managed to arrive here before the police.’
‘And what happened?’
The inspector rubbed his chin and his eyes hardened with irritation. ‘They took photographs everywhere and already they are beginning to appear in later editions of our morning newspapers. But,’ he added quietly, ‘they also found Señor Martinez who was deeply unconscious and may well have been drugged. So now I must ask you a firm question. Did you see or hear any noise which might have been caused by someone moving around outside or did you see anything which might have made you suspect trouble? Anything suspicious?’
Grant shook his head. ‘Nothing except what I told you about the girls inside Miller’s place.’
The inspector studied his fingers. ‘Professor Hancke uses dogs to patrol the grounds. One of his dogs was unwell this morning and the veterinary surgeon has diagnosed a fractured rib. There are also bruises which suggest that the dog attacked an intruder but that the intruder successfully defended himself and downed it with either a punch or a kick. You heard no dog growl or make any sort of noise?’
‘No. Nary a sound.’ A trolley was being wheeled across the lawns and Grant guessed that this, at last, was breakfast. His story was near the bone but it held water and wouldn’t easily be cracked.
‘Now then,’ said the inspector quietly. ‘The picture is this. Three chalets are isolated beside the swimming pool. Of their three occupants one man is dead and is now headline news in every scandal sheet because of the coloured girls who were misbehaving in his room. The second man is unconscious. And the third man returned just when things seem to have been happening. But by a strange coincidence he visited still another coloured girl a few hours earlier, though only to find that she had been murdered. Then he had trouble with his Maserati, a car which simply does not develop trouble any more than a Rolls or Mercedes. And finally the car is no longer in Switzerland, its driver having decided to travel through the night instead of enjoying a leisured run by day. So it is possible that the car is hiding something. And finally the only man of the three who might have been able to tell us anything was sound asleep during every critical second. He heard nothing. No dog. No intruder. No screams. Nothing. It is all very unusual.’
The doctor interrupted with unexpected authority. ‘Doctor Grant was given, a sleeping pill as a matter of routine so he could hardly be expected to have kept awake. Tuinal is a powerful drug.’
The inspector looked longingly at the trolley. ‘May I join you over coffee?’
Grant nodded and sliced the top from an egg. ‘A pleasure. But only if you satisfy my own curiosity. What do you think happened to Señor Martinez? What sort of noises were heard on the phone?’
The inspector shrugged his shoulders. ‘Gasping noises. A man saying . . . “don’t do it.” Things like that. And then heavy breathing sounds as though he had been knocked out.’
‘And had he?’
The inspector smiled. ‘All things are possible. But on balance we suspect drugs. And you are a doctor. Could you have drugged the Spanish gentleman? It happened just around the time that you seem to have arrived home. After you had checked in at reception.’
‘Not me,’ said Grant firmly.
‘Then why do you carry syringes and medical equipment in your baggage?’ The inspector smiled apologetically. ‘We had a look round while you were asleep.’
Grant stared at him coldly. ‘Then you exceeded your duty, but I do always travel with a syringe or two and a few essential drugs. Coronary disease is common and I have a phobia about it. I like to feel that morphine is handy in case I ever have an attack.’
‘And the stomach tube?’
Grant hesitated for a split second. ‘I would use it as a tourniquet to bring up a vein if the need ever arose. It takes up less room than a normal rubber tourniquet and could be life-saving in an emergency. Why do you ask?’
‘Because,’ said the inspector gently, ‘there was a good deal of alcohol in Miller’s stomach but absolutely none in his blood. Which suggests that it might have been pumped into the stomach after death, and a Ryle’s tube would then be useful.’
Grant sipped his coffee and decided to change tactics. ‘Are you suggesting that I am involved?’ His voice was ice cold and he seemed to be bristling with irritation.
The inspector munched a finger of toast. ‘I am saying in positive terms that it is possible.’
‘One point. What killed Mr. Miller? Was he murdered?’
The policeman carefully unwrapped a lump of sugar and dropped it with a plop into his coffee. ‘According to the young ladies he had “an attack” but our autopsy points to death from coronary artery disease.’
‘And you behave as though you don’t believe that.’
‘I want to know the cause of the coronary seizure, because the autopsy says that otherwise Miller was very healthy. Newssheets and photographs taken by Reuter will tell you that he died as the result of a sex orgy and it is possible that that is what we were expected to believe, especially since someone tipped off the press to move fast and get in before the police. The girls may be lying. You are somehow involved with the girls, so it is therefore possible that you, too, may be lying. Then you are a doctor and you travel with drugs. So you may have killed him.’
‘Why?’
The inspector shook his head. ‘That is what we must find out.’
‘And you really believe this?’
‘I believe in facts. And the facts are that you visited a girl who was murdered: that you know two other coloured girls who will become notorious and who were involved with a man who died. The man who died had alcohol in his stomach and none in his blood, but you carry a stomach tube and could have used it to confuse us. Your story about the Maserati is unusual and it is even more unusual for a girl to lose her sleep and drive to Paris during the night in preference to the comfort of a day run.’
Grant carefully spread a slice of thin malt bread with butter and then laughed aloud. ‘I never really knew Miller and I only spoke with Martinez twice. What possible reason could I have for harming either of them?’
‘That,’ said the inspector gently, ‘is just one of our problems.’
‘And the others?’
‘There was a brutal murder in Switzerland last evening. A man was killed and placed in the back of a long distance lorry. His body was discovered at the frontier and for certain he was murdered at a time when you were not within the grounds of Professor Hancke’s Clinique. In fact we would like to know precisely what you were doing between 10.30 p.m. and 2.30 a.m. this morning. Especially,’ he added quietly, ‘since we have established that this second dead man was staying at the Rhône Hotel while you were also there with Miss Koren.’
‘And you want the detail of every minute.’
‘Every minute,’ said the inspector firmly.
Grant lit his first cigar of the day. After making his statement to the police about Maria Suza there had been a run to St. Julien in France. There he had met his assistant Stefanie Carmichael and enjoyed a moonlight picnic before returning to Geneva shortly after two. The Maserati had begun to give trouble early in the evening and they had wasted time trying to locate the cause. Eventually Miss Carmichael had offered to take the thing to Paris. So they had then returned to Geneva and she had hired the Porsche while he continued to fiddle with the car engine in a last desperate hope to find the trouble spot and avoid disarranging programmes. ‘Anything else?’ he asked coldly.
The inspector rolled a cigarette. ‘As a matter of fact there is. These girls who were discovered with Mr. Miller live in private houses but the police have no notification of their arrival in Geneva and both houses were entered last evening.’
‘Burglars?’
‘We think not. Nothing was taken. But both houses were certainly ente
red by some person or other with something important to do and this is an angle which might also be worth pursuing. Why break into and enter a house without robbery?’
Grant shook his head. ‘No idea.’
The inspector smiled. ‘A man enters a house either to remove something or to leave something. Perhaps he was simply leaving something or looking at something. But, of course, we shall find out in due course.’
‘And meanwhile what about myself?’ Grant drew carefully at his cigar. ‘I have been sent here for a medical overhaul. But I am not hospital bound. I take it that I can continue to live normally?’
The inspector smiled. ‘I like the word “continue,” but I know what you mean and you may move around as you please. Though we would like to keep your passport for a few days.’
‘And no doubt you collected it while you were examining my luggage.’
The policeman nodded. ‘We did take that liberty.’
Grant looked at him steadily. ‘I figure on leaving here within the next two weeks if all goes well. I will expect to have it back when the time comes.’
‘Then let us hope that all does go well and that the time does come.’ The policeman was relaxed deeply into his chair but his eyes were calculating. ‘We have no death penalty for murder in Switzerland, but more than one Englishman is serving a life sentence and it is very disagreeable. Let us hope that further evidence will put you completely in the clear.’
Grant turned towards the doctor. ‘I shall be glad of a chat with Professor Hancke as soon as he is available.’ And then he glanced towards the inspector. ‘If this man Martinez phoned Reuter how did he know what was going on? If I were you I’d have a few questions to ask him as soon as he is awake.’
The inspector smiled gently. ‘When Señor Martinez is awake he will have a great deal of explaining to do. The trouble is, that like yourself, when Señor Martinez is awake he is likely to be very much awake. We don’t expect to get very much . . . what you call “change” . . . out of him. But,’ he added, ‘if we collect as much circumstantial evidence from him as we have been able to pin on you then we shall be in a real quandary.’
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