Death on the Agenda

by Patricia Moyes

  “Oh, no, signore.” Madame Novari rose beautifully to the bait. “All you need to do is to catch a tram as far as Rive, and change to a...”

  “But it would mean leaving very early in the morning. Mr. Trapp tells me that he has to leave at half past eight every morning to be sure of getting in by ten.”

  Madame Novari looked puzzled, as well she might. “Half past eight?” she said. “No, no. I assure you. He must have made a mistake. He never leaves until nine thirty. Every morning I see him go. My husband says you could set your watch by him.”

  “That’s very odd,” said Henry boldly. “This morning I telephoned him at nine and there was no reply.”

  “Ah, you are right, this morning he left early. Half past eight. I was cleaning the hall, and I saw him go. But he had an early appointment, you see. I know because of the message.”

  Henry’s heart rose. Steadily, he said, “I think you must be mistaken. He assured me he had to leave at eight thirty every morning.”

  Surely, thought Henry, I can’t keep up this idiotic conversation much longer. She’ll see through me in a moment, and then I’ll be sunk. He had not reckoned, however, with the mentality of the wives of concierges. To Madame Novari, it was her greatest pride that she knew and observed, from vantage points in the hall and from behind the embroidered lace curtains of her sitting room, the exact comings and goings of every tenant. That her word should be questioned on such a matter hit her where it hurt most, and in her eagerness to prove her point, the incongruity of the subject matter was forgotten.

  “This morning he had an appointment at nine, signore. I should know, for I took the message up to him at seven o’clock. Poor man, he must have been still asleep. ‘There has to be a written answer,’ I said. He was cross, I could see that. ‘Inspector Teebeet must see you at nine in the office at the Palais’—that was the message. ‘Why couldn’t he have telephoned, the bloody idiot?’ he said. But he went in and wrote the answer, all the same, and I brought it down to her.”

  “To her?” The words came out like bullets, before Henry could stop them. Madame Novari rattled on in full spate. “Why, yes, to the young lady who brought the message. It seemed silly to me that she wouldn’t go up herself, but I suppose she was shy, it being so early in the morning, and Mr. Trapp a bachelor and...”

  “Was the young lady Swiss or French or...”

  Madame Novari suddenly stopped her chatter and looked at Henry suspiciously. He realized that he had overreached himself.

  “She spoke French,” said Madame Novari briefly. “My own French is not good enough to know what nationality she was. In any case...”

  Outside in the corridor, the front door opened and closed and there was a heavy, masculine tread. A man’s voice called urgently, in Italian, “Tilda! Where are you?”

  “My husband,” said Madame Novari.

  “I must go,” said Henry, quickly.

  At the door he came face to face with a big, burly, dark-haired young man, who seemed to be excited about something; and small wonder, thought Henry, if he had just heard the sensational news from the gendarmes.

  Ignoring Henry, Novari said to his wife, “Tilda, something has happened. Who is this man?”

  “I just came to inquire about an apartment,” said Henry. “Good-by, signora, and thank you.”

  He went quickly out of the flat and into the hall. There, under the eye of the gendarme, he got into the lift and pressed the button marked “6.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  THERE WAS NO sign of a gendarme on the sixth floor, and Henry concluded that the forces of the law were probably installed inside John’s apartment. He had little or no hope of getting in to take a look around for himself. His luck still held, however. As he had hoped, John’s flat was one of the two that faced the front of the building, and his next-door neighbor was Dr. A. Mahoumi, Avocat. Had it been the Zeiglers or P. Hirt, Henry would have been hard put to it to think up an excuse for calling, but a lawyer can always be approached on business. He rang the bell.

  There was a gentle shuffling sound from inside the apartment, and then the door opened a crack, and a soft, liquid voice said in English, “Who is it? What do you want?”

  “I want to see Dr. Mahoumi,” said Henry, and he added, “on business.”

  The crack did not widen.

  “Have you an appointment?” the voice asked.

  “No,” said Henry.

  There was a silence. Then the voice said, “What business?”

  “A legal matter,” said Henry deliberately. “Concerning money.”

  There was an audible hesitation. The door trembled slightly, and finally opened.

  “I am Dr. Mahoumi. Please come in.”

  Dr. Mahoumi was a small, rotund man of obviously Middle Eastern origin. He was dressed in a tight-fitting brown suit and very pointed black kid shoes, and he appeared to walk permanently on tiptoe. His movements, which reminded Henry of those of a cat, were as liquid as his huge dark eyes, and he used his small plump hands like a dancer. He led Henry into the living room, which abounded in hand-worked leather poufs and camel saddles and woven raffia dishes. There were a couple of very beautiful Persian rugs on the parquet floor, and not even the fact that the long windows which led onto the balcony were wide open could dispel the lingering scent of Egyptian tobacco.

  Henry walked straight across the room and out onto the balcony. Sunshine streamed down, over-hot in spite of the orange canvas canopy.

  Henry said, “You have a beautiful view here.”

  “Yes, yes.” Dr. Mahoumi danced out into the sunshine. “Very beautiful. Let us go inside.”

  “Can’t we talk out here?”

  “My dear Mr... I did not catch your name.”

  “Smith,” said Henry blandly.

  Dr. Mahoumi gave him a melting look of reproach. “Can we not be honest with each other at the outset?” his eyes seemed to say. Aloud, however, he said, “Ah, yes. Mr. Smith. If we have business to discuss, it is better indoors.”

  “Why?” said Henry.

  “Because...” Dr. Mahoumi danced a little. “Because it is better if all the world does not know our business, no? And here...”

  “There seem,” said Henry, “to be policemen in the apartment next door.”

  This fact was self-evident. The voices of the gendarmes in John’s flat were clearly audible. They were obviously searching the place, and Henry heard one of them, as he passed the open window, saying, “Another lot? That settles the matter, I should say.” It was plain that in warm weather there could be few secrets between neighbors in this building.

  “Quite so. Just as you say.” Dr. Mahoumi took Henry’s arm lightly between his delicate brown fingers, and led him gently back toward the sitting room. “They have been there for some time. A burglary perhaps. I do not know. It’s none of my business.”

  Having maneuvered Henry successfully indoors, Dr. Mahoumi sighed with relief and carefully closed the long windows. The voices of the gendarmes were cut off, but the heat grew oppressive. The lawyer motioned Henry to sit down on the divan, and then seated himself on a leather pouf.

  “And now, Mr...Smith. Your business?”

  “Ah, yes. My business.” Henry, who enjoyed romancing, launched into a complicated and extempore fiction concerning the will of a mythical uncle who had died possessed of untold riches which reposed in a numbered bank account in Geneva. Unfortunately, Henry explained, the uncle had been careless enough to allow himself to be run over by a tram without disclosing to Henry, his sole heir, the magic number which would open the door to his fortune. So Henry had come to Switzerland in an attempt to lay hands on his property. There would, of course, be a substantial reward for any lawyer brilliant enough to solve the problem.

  As he talked, Henry was mentally registering the geography of the flat, which he guessed was a twin to the one next door. It was what is known on the Continent as a studio, that is to say, a one-room bachelor apartment with its own tiny hallway, off which le
d a box-sized kitchen and a dwarf bathroom. Its most attractive feature was undoubtedly the balcony, which was wide and sunny and commanded a fine view of the lake and the Jura Mountains. Henry could even pick out the cream-colored mass of the Palais des Nations, half hidden in trees on the far shore. He thought of the soberly interesting sessions of the conference which, until yesterday, had been his all-absorbing concern. A wild sense of unreality swept over him. What am I doing here? What am I doing here, sitting in the flat of an Arab lawyer in a Geneva back street, telling a series of monstrous lies, while the Swiss Police frame a murder charge against me? I shall wake up in a minute... Emmy... Where is Emmy...must see Emmy...

  He heard his own voice saying, “I was strongly recommended to come to you by my friend Mr. Trapp.”

  “Trapp!” Dr. Mahoumi started, and looked at Henry accusingly, as though he had been bitten by a trusted camel. “You know Trapp?”

  “Yes,” said Henry. “I believe you have been doing some legal work for him.”

  “No. No...that is to say, just a few little routine details. To help a neighbor, you understand. What did he...? That is, he should not have...”

  “I not only know him,” said Henry, “I also know why there are gendarmes in his apartment. Don’t you?”

  “I have no idea. No idea at all!” cried Dr. Mahoumi. “I hardly know the man. Only as a neighbor. It must be a burglary.”

  “John Trapp is dead,” said Henry. “He was killed this morning.”

  For a moment, it looked as though Dr. Mahoumi was going to faint. His face went a dirty gray, and he closed his eyes and swayed on his leather pouf. At length he said in a whisper, “Who killed him?”

  “The general opinion,” said Henry, “is that I did.”

  This remark had an even more dramatic effect on the doctor. He opened his eyes, disclosing an expression of abject terror, and began to gabble in an almost incoherent way. “I know nothing. I heard nothing. I shall tell the police nothing. Everybody has a right to his private life. Why should I interfere? I didn’t interfere. I don’t know what went on.”

  Henry tried to get a word in. “A girl came here this morning,” he began.

  Dr. Mahoumi cut him short with a wail. “I saw nobody. I heard nobody. Anyone may have a woman in his apartment. How could I know?”

  A glimmer of light dawned on Henry. Taking a chance, he said, “It seems that this was a murder of revenge, like so many murders.”

  “Revenge... I don’t understand.”

  “You are obviously a very clever man,” said Henry. “Much too clever to take risks, I should have thought. I’m surprised that you let me in.”

  Dr. Mahoumi jumped up and backed toward the window. “There are gendarmes,” he said. “You dare not...”

  Henry grinned. “Don’t worry. I didn’t kill Mr. Trapp. That was just my little joke.”

  Dr. Mahoumi seemed to recover a little of his composure, but his voice was still shaking as he said, “Who are you?”

  “My name is Smith,” said Henry pleasantly. “Wilberforce Smith. And I have come to ask your advice on a legal matter. If you think it over and decide you can help me, contact me at the Hotel Étoile.”

  Dr. Mahoumi took a step toward Henry and looked at him almost defiantly. His courage seemed to be returning rapidly. “Mr. Smith,” he said, “I am afraid I cannot handle your case. These numbered bank accounts are impossible to crack. Any lawyer will tell you so. I have no more to say to you.”

  “I see,” said Henry. “How very disappointing. If you change your mind, ring me at the hotel.”

  He let himself out of the apartment and went down again in the lift. The gendarme in the hall gave him a bored look. Henry walked quickly to the nearest stop and took a tram back to the hotel.

  At the desk he paused to inform the porter that if anyone called asking for Mr. Wilberforce Smith they should be put through to him. The porter received this information without surprise, and made a careful note of it. He also told Henry the good news that Madame had already returned and taken the key.

  When Henry entered the room, Emmy was lying on the bed with a copy of the paper, Genève Soir, on the floor beside her, and she was crying. A glance at the back page told Henry that he had no need to break the news to her. He went over to the bed and took her in his arms.

  Characteristically, when Emmy learned the full gravity of her husband’s position, she stopped crying and became practical. Certainly she clung to him like a child and sniffled at intervals, but the negative grief which she had felt for John and Natasha and Annette was miraculously transformed, passing through momentary panic to indignation and action.

  She listened intently while Henry told her all that had happened, including his recent encounters with Madame Novari and Dr. Mahoumi.

  “You were terribly lucky,” she said. “That gives us a big lead. The girl with the message, she’s the person to hang on to. Do you think Madame Novari would recognize her again?”

  “I’ve no idea,” said Henry. “I imagine so, but I had no time to ask her.”

  “Of course,” said Emmy, “if we do find her, she may not help much. She was probably some little girl picked up from the street who wanted to earn five francs for delivering a message.”

  “I doubt it,” said Henry. “Remember, it was a verbal message. One wouldn’t trust just anybody with that. And then she had to bring back the written answer. It would have been too risky to involve a third person.”

  “A third person?”

  “Yes. As I see it, we’re dealing with a conspiracy of at least two people from the committee.”

  “How on earth do you work that out?”

  “Well,” said Henry, “let’s assume that the mysterious message-bearer was one of the girls from our setup at the Palais. She must be deeply implicated, because everyone knows that I deny having an appointment with John, and she hasn’t come forward with any statement about being asked to deliver a message this morning. She must know who the murderer is, and she knows that she’s helping to frame me, and she’s keeping quiet.”

  “Yes, but why shouldn’t she be the actual murderer?” Emmy objected. “Do you mean that it would have been physically impossible for a girl to have...?”

  “No,” said Henry, “but for a start, neither Mary nor Annette nor Helène was at the Hamptons’ party last night, so none of them had the opportunity of taking the dagger. Unless they burgled the house after everyone had gone home, which is highly unlikely. So there you have your first evidence of conspiracy.”

  Emmy opened her mouth to speak, then shut it again. “What is it?” Henry asked.

  “I just thought, mightn’t Natasha have taken the dagger?”

  “Certainly, she could have. But why, for heaven’s sake?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, then, don’t confuse the issue. Now, it would have been literally impossible for Mary or Helène to do the killing. Mary was with me in the interpreters’ room, and Helène was with Lenoir in the rest room. I heard them talking. Annette was in the cloakroom alone, I admit, but—if you could have seen the way she broke down. I just can’t believe she did it. Even if she did, she must have a partner. She wasn’t at the Villa Trounex, and what’s more, she was on leave last week, so she couldn’t have been responsible for the leakage of information.”

  Emmy said slowly, “You say that she broke down completely when she found that John was dead. Could that have been because she realized too late that she’d helped to kill him?”

  “It could be.” Henry spoke thoughtfully. “On the other hand, anyone could see that she was desperately in love with him, so her breakdown was quite natural. Helène nearly fainted, but I suppose that’s understandable. Mary was wonderfully calm and competent, but then she always is.”

  “Well,” Emmy said briskly, “this isn’t getting us anywhere. What we’ve got to do now is to get hold of photographs of all three of them and take them around to Madame Novari. I don’t care whether she thinks we’re
mad or not.”

  “I expect the police will have been at her by this time.”

  “Never mind. The first thing is to get the pictures. I’ve got a snapshot of Annette, the one I took in Yvoire last week. Where can we get the others?”

  “Heaven knows,” said Henry. He felt helpless, bereft of the streamlined organization of Scotland Yard, which could turn up a photograph of anybody in the world at the drop of a telephone.

  Emmy’s eyes went to the newspaper on the floor. “The local paper,” she said. “Surely they’ll have pictures of everyone in Geneva. Come on.” She swung her legs off the bed, stood up, and took Henry’s hand.

  “I really ought to stay here.”

  “No. You must come with me because my French isn’t good enough. And don’t suggest that I stay here without you, because I don’t intend to let you out of my sight for one moment.”

  Henry kissed her with enthusiasm, and, feeling much better, allowed himself to be bullied. In ten minutes they were in the offices of Genève Soir.

  A polite and charming young woman listened gravely to their request, and referred them to a polite and charming young man, who in turn handed them over to a matronly woman in a white coat, the guardian of the paper’s photographic library. An exhaustive search revealed that there was no photograph available of either Helène Brochet or Mary Benson. Henry and Emmy were then passed back to the polite young man, who had a brain wave.

  “But there is an English newspaper here, with a famous social column,” he exclaimed. “They will surely have the pictures you need.”

  He scribbled a note of introduction, and by half past five Henry and Emmy were wearily pushing open the door of the Geneva Weekly Mail editorial offices. Here, better luck was in store. It took an hour of searching, but eventually the helpful American girl assistant came up with two photographs. One showed Mary Benson in riding habit, receiving a blue rosette for show jumping at Morges. The other was of Helène Brochet, looking ravishing in a black dress with a cascade of white fox furs, attending a gala première at the Casino Theatre. It was not only the picture of Helène that was intriguing, however. Almost equally interesting was her escort, smart as paint in a neat dinner jacket, a carnation in his buttonhole. For it was none other than Konrad Zwemmer.