Pel Is Puzzled

by Mark Hebden

  ‘What do you reckon it is, Patron?’ Darcy asked. ‘Think Cormon was selling secrets and got in too deep?’

  ‘Industrial spying’s never managed to reach the blood-thirsty stage of international spying,’ Pel pointed out. ‘They don’t go in for killing.’

  ‘Perhaps they’ve just started, Patron.’

  Brigadier Foulot was in the city to attend court and when they arrived at the Hôtel de Police he was in the entrance. Pel drew him to one side.

  ‘This bar at Fauverolles where you used to meet Cormon,’ he said. ‘Did you ever see him there with a smartly-dressed city type called Rambot.’

  Foulot thought deeply for a moment then he shook his head. ‘Never,’ he said.

  ‘Did he go to other bars?’

  Foulot grinned. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Who doesn’t?’

  ‘Which one was his favourite? Do you know?’ Foulot thought once more. He seemed to go in for pauses for thought.

  ‘Well, I’ve heard him talk of the bar at Voivres.’

  ‘Which one? There are two there, to my knowledge.’

  Foulot smiled. ‘Actually, there are five,’ he said. ‘You could try them all. But the Bar du Centre’s only a little single-room place with a zinc counter and no spirit licence. The Bar des Ouvriers on the outskirts is usually full of farm-workers. The Bar Harry and the Bar Bourguignon are possibles, but if you’re looking for a well-dressed city type, I imagine he’d take him to the bar of the Hôtel Colbert. It’s just off the centre of the town, up the hill towards Aignay and next to the garage. You can’t miss it.’

  The weather was still warm and pleasant and Pel decided they might as well make a day of it.

  When they reached Voivres and the Hôtel Colbert, they picked a winner at once.

  ‘Sure.’ The proprietor, a tall man called Vandelet, nodded as he poured out their coups de blanc. ‘I know Cormon. He comes in here occasionally.’

  ‘He won’t any more,’ Darcy said. ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘Accident?’ Vandelet clearly hadn’t associated anything he’d read in the newspapers with any of his customers.

  ‘Murdered.’

  Vandelet pulled a face. ‘Wonder if that chic type had anything to do with it,’ he said slowly.

  This was a bonus already.

  Darcy leaned forward. ‘This chic type,’ he asked. ‘What was his name?’

  Vandelet shrugged.

  ‘Could it have been Rambot?’

  ‘Now you mention it, I think it was.’

  ‘Can you describe him?’

  Vandelet stared at Darcy. ‘Bit like you. Same height. Good-looking.’ Darcy preened. ‘But there was something else about him.’

  ‘What sort of something else?’ Pel asked.

  ‘Cold. He was a cold fish. He never smiled. Come to that, neither did Cormon. He seemed nervous as a kitten most of the time. Worried. You know how it is. They never seemed to be here just for a drink or a day out. They seemed to be doing business together. They always used to come in about this time when there was no one in and sit over there by the window. I heard them mention Paris once or twice. Come to think of it, the guy had a car that was registered in Paris.’

  ‘Number?’ Darcy said at once.

  It was a forlorn hope.

  ‘I didn’t notice,’ Vandelet said. ‘But I saw it drive off once when I went over to the table to remove their glasses. Through the window.’

  ‘Make?’

  ‘I didn’t notice?’

  ‘Colour?’

  ‘I didn’t notice that either.’

  ‘Did you notice whether it had four wheels or five?’ Darcy asked sourly.

  Vandelet thought. ‘No,’ he said, oblivious to the sarcasm. ‘I didn’t.’

  They obtained a description of Cormon’s friend. It wasn’t all that good. People seemed to go round with their eyes shut in a way which made it surprising that they didn’t bump into things. Certainly, they didn’t appear to use them for looking. The description was vague but at least they had some idea. Rambot, whoever he was, whatever he was, looked like Darcy.

  Back at the Hôtel de Police, Darcy promptly got on to the telephone to the Quai des Orfèvres in Paris but the police there knew of no one called Rambot.

  Sitting opposite Pel in his office, he began to wonder aloud. ‘It begins to look to me,’ he said, ‘as if Cormon’s money didn’t come from wins on horses.’

  ‘Pay-outs?’ Pel asked. ‘For pinching industrial secrets?’

  ‘That’s what it looks like, Patron. But, as you said, those people don’t usually go as far as murder.’

  Pel was silent for a while. ‘You know,’ he said slowly, ‘that Pissarro type didn’t impress me much.’

  ‘Why not, Patron?’

  Chiefly it had been Pissarro’s obsession with sport. No one who was honest could be that good at sport, Pel felt; especially when Evariste Clovis Désiré Pel was beaten regularly by Didier Darras at boules, dominoes, fishing, even scrabble.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Bit too friendly. Too helpful.’

  Darcy smiled. ‘If we suspected everybody who was helpful and friendly, Patron, we’d have the cells at 72, Rue d’Auxonne permanently full. And that wouldn’t improve our already uncertain image.’

  Pel frowned. You could hardly call the police popular these days, it was true. Most people seemed to regard them as allied to a fascist dictatorship and given to breaking heads purely for pleasure; to rioting students they seemed to exist merely to have brickbats and paving stones thrown at them. At the very least they were regarded by motorists as interfering busybodies with nothing better to do than persecute people in cars, and by old ladies who found them standing on corners as lazy good-for-nothings who should have been tearing about stamping out crime. Nevertheless, occasionally there were people who were friendly and willing to help – especially when they’d just been robbed or beaten up – at which point the police, provided they weren’t regarded as stupid idiots who couldn’t see clues when they were lying round knee-deep, were transformed by a miracle into the saviours of the Republic and the hard-worked guardians of the populace.

  Forcing himself from his meditations on the failings of the French public, Pel looked at Darcy. ‘Those papers you found in Cormon’s room? Have you had them looked at?’

  ‘I got Dériot of Electroniques de Dijon to have a squint through them. He thought they were nothing more than the outlines for simple gadgets.’

  ‘Recognise any of them?’

  ‘He thought they were all unimportant. Switches. Cutouts. Nothing secret. Nothing they haven’t got already.’

  Lighting a cigarette, Pel drew in the smoke, sat back and allowed it to dribble out of his nostrils. It was only his tenth that day. Tenth out of his second packet, of course, but that was something he tried to overlook.

  ‘I think we ought to know more about friend Pissarro,’ he said.

  ‘We can hardly demand a search warrant, Patron. He’s done nothing wrong.’

  ‘He didn’t tell us he’d been to see Cormon. At least not until we told him we knew.’

  ‘Doesn’t make him a criminal, Patron.’

  ‘Nevertheless—’ Pel frowned ‘—I wonder what sort of people visit that place of his.’

  ‘Not very many, I should imagine,’ Darcy said, ‘It’s not all that big.’

  ‘How about getting a photographer up there with a camera? Stick a placard on his chest or something. Make him look like a street photographer. There are a few about at this time of the year. The tourists enjoy it.’

  ‘You don’t get many tourists round Pissarro’s works.’

  ‘The Hôtel Central’s down the street. Plenty of tourists there. It’s a good enough excuse. Get him to take pictures of anybody who turns up who obviously isn’t a workman.’

  Darcy grinned. ‘I doubt if Grenier would like the job.’

  Grenier was the police photographer and he was fat, inclned to be lazy, and never in the best of tempers.

&
nbsp; ‘He’d never stand there all day,’ Darcy went on. ‘How long do you expect it to go on?’

  Pel frowned. ‘A week. No one will worry with all those Americans at the Central. He might even sell a few and make a bit on the side.’

  ‘How about Lagé.’

  ‘Could he do it?’

  Darcy smiled. Sergeant Lagé was a camera fiend who went out at weekends taking photographs all round the district, spending all his pay on cameras, lights and tripods and then wondering why he was short of money. It had started when he had tried to photograph the model aeroplanes his son built from kits. His son had long since progressed to girls but Lagé, because he was a sucker for doing other people’s work, was by now secretary of the photographic society at Fontaine where he lived.

  Darcy grinned. ‘He’ll enjoy it,’ he said. ‘Mind, you’ll probably end up with a series of studio portraits. He’s a great one for light and shade.’

  ‘I don’t want portraits,’ Pel growled. ‘I want snaps. Good snaps. Tell him to go and talk to one of the city photographic bureaus before he starts and get to know what we want. We could do with two or three of everybody who looks as though he might be Rambot. Get him on to it straightaway.’

  As Darcy emerged from Pel’s office, Nosjean rose to his feet from his desk. He had been busy. Pursuing the line of thought on art thefts suggested by Sergeant de Troquereau, of Auxerre, he had decided to go to Paris and, guiltily feeling it was time he showed some interest in Odile Chenandier again, he had sadly rejected all thoughts of Mijo Lehmann and taken her with him. It was his weekend off and she had been overwhelmed at the thought of a whole day with Nosjean. The idea had boomeranged, however, because Nosjean’s intention had been to enquire round the furniture and antique shops in the Rue de Charonne, the Rue Vanoy, the Flea Market, the Faubourg St Honoré, the Rue St Honoré and the Ecole Militaire, and for some reason she had got it into her head that he was thinking of buying furniture to set up a home – and with whom but her? It had been faintly embarrassing to have to admit his real interest but the day hadn’t been entirely lost because there was a lot Nosjean saw that seemed to be fakes selling at genuine prices and, as he poked about, he was startled to discover how much he’d learned. With the aid of De Troquereau and Mijo Lehmann at Chagnay, he had acquired a surprising knowledge of antiques.

  There were also two young men in the Rue Vanoy, near the Ecole Militaire who had interested him greatly. Just on the right side of being queers, sharp as razors, typical Parisian decorator types, knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing, he decided they were worth a second look.

  By the time he had finished, both he and his girl friend were feeling faint with hunger and, since it was the end of the month and Nosjean was short of ready cash, he went to a charcuterie a few paces from the shop run by the two sharp young men and got them to make up a couple of sandwiches. In their greaseproof paper wrapping, they looked big enough to need a bulldozer to lift them but the smell was mouth-watering and the two of them sat on a bench under a tree to eat them. There were a lot of furniture shops around them and Nosjean decided the area might be worth another visit. By this time, however, aware that his interest was less in her than in his job, Odile Chenandier wasn’t half so keen on furniture as she had been, so Nosjean reluctantly found the periphery road and headed south again down the motorway.

  The girl’s face was filled with reproach as he dropped her at the door of her apartment but he avoided her eyes and said that he had to catch Pel in his office.

  He needed to talk to someone with experience. Even if the trip to Paris weren’t included, his expenses sheet was already so swollen by the trips to Chagnay he was growing a little worried. He’d been told to provide meals for Sergeant de Troquereau, from Auxerre, when necessary, but despite his fragile little boy’s frame, De Troquereau had the appetite of a weight-lifter and Nosjean had a growing feeling that someone would finally object to the cost.

  As he put his head round the door, Pel indicated a chair and pushed a packet of cigarettes across the desk. Nosjean shook his head.

  ‘I’m trying to give them up,’ he said.

  ‘It’s become an epidemic,’ Pel complained. ‘Are you succeeding?’

  ‘I’m down to five a day. With two in the evening.’

  Pel eyed him bitterly. All he’d done was cut them down from about two million to about five hundred thousand.

  ‘I think you ought to have a look at this art theft thing at St Sauvigny, Patron,’ Nosjean said. ‘I’m stuck.’

  Pel leaned forward. ‘What have you done so far?’

  ‘I’ve been in touch with the Historic Monuments Department. They suggest that whoever stole this panel – in fact, everything, the châteaux thefts, the lot – was an educated type, and that he seems to have an obsessional interest in the minutiae of antiques. De Troquereau says the same and Madame de Saint-Bruie–’

  ‘Who’s she?’.

  Nosjean grinned. ‘You ought to talk to her, Patron. Keeps a shop at Chagnay. You’d enjoy meeting her.’

  Pel pretended no interest but, without Madame FaivrePerret in the background – even taking no notice of him – he felt it might be a good idea.

  ‘You shall drive me down, mon brave,’ he conceded.

  ‘She’s an expert,’ Nosjean said. ‘She suggests it might be an antique dealer or an aristocrat who’s grown up with antiques. She suggests even that he might have received training at the Louvre School of Beaux Arts or at Arts-Déco. She suggests I look around in the South.’

  ‘On expenses?’ Pel shook his head. ‘They’d never permit it, mon brave. You’ll have to get Lyons and Marseilles in on the act. What about our friend from Auxerre? What does he say?’

  De Troquereau had been even more explicit. ‘He suggested we should keep our eyes on the Rue St Honoré in Paris, round the Flea Market workshops, the streets round the Ecole Militaire and the Rue de Charonne and the Rue Vanoy. All places where stolen property turns up.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I went to Paris?’

  ‘You didn’t ask permission.’

  ‘I knew I’d never get it.’ Nosjean smiled. ‘So I took Odile Chenandier there for a day out. Killed two birds with one stone, you might say. Not on expenses.’

  Pel looked hard at Nosjean. The old innocent look he remembered Nosjean had had when he’d joined his team had gone. He was learning fast. He’d eventually be a good detective.

  ‘And what did you find out?’

  Nosjean smiled. ‘I saw a lot of what I decided were fakes selling at genuine prices.’

  ‘You’re that good at it?’

  ‘Not really, Patron. But this girl in Madame de Saint-Bruie’s shop–’

  ‘Which girl in Madame de Saint-Bruie’s shop?’

  ‘This Mijo Lehmann. She’s been most helpful. I’ve been to see her two or three times for information. I took her out to lunch to repay her for her trouble.’ Nosjean grinned. ‘Again, not on expenses.’

  ‘Is she pretty?’

  Nosjean blushed and Pel decided that perhaps the old innocent look hadn’t entirely gone. It pleased him.

  ‘I’ve been to Chagnay a lot, Patron,’ Nosjean went on. ‘I’ve learned a great deal.’

  Pel nodded approvingly. It was only what he’d expected.

  ‘What with Madame, Mijo Lehmann and Sergeant de Troquereau, I think I can identify a few things now,’ Nosjean went on. ‘There are a few I saw in Paris which I reckon were stolen.’

  ‘Worth putting the Quai des Orfèvres on to them?’

  Nosjean shook his head. ‘Doubt it, Patron. There’s too much moving around up there. Documents, chairs, commodes, plates, chests, officers’ trunks, mirrors, secrétaires. I did a bit of asking around.’

  ‘Find anybody?’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘Names?’

  ‘Jean-Jacques Poupon and Pierre Rebluchet, also known as Pierrot-le-Pourri.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because, I gathe
red, he’s a bad egg. So I looked him up. He’s got a record. He was caught stealing as a teenager but as a first offender got a suspended sentence. It didn’t work and he tried his hand at it again. This time he went down the line. That was seven years ago. Nothing since.’

  ‘Probably only means he’s grown more cunning,’ Pel observed. ‘What about the other one? Poupon.’

  ‘Nothing known.’

  ‘Any others you investigated?’

  Nosjean smiled. ‘One or two are well known, but not for stealing. Fiddling. Faking. Fraud. But nothing really hard. It’s too difficult to prove anything, it seems.’

  ‘These two – Poupon and Pierrot-le-Pourri: Would it be worth getting a search warrant?’

  Nosjean shrugged. ‘Doubt it, Patron. I bet anything they lift doesn’t appear in their shop until it’s well and truly disguised. They aren’t collectors. They’re just a couple of shysters out for what they can get. They both drive flashy cars but they’re smart operators. To get anything on them we’ll need to catch them red-handed.’

  Pel looked at his fingers. The thought of the Rue Martinde-Noinville and Madame Routy’s cooking was enough to influence his decision.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ he decided, ‘I’ll go with you to Chagnay.’

  Ten

  Pel was just about to go home when Judge Brisard rang.

  ‘Who keeps sending all these people to my office?’ he demanded.

  ‘Which people?’ Pel was all innocence.

  ‘I’ve had Nosjean, Pomereu, Doctor Minet and some stupid young gasbag from Montbard who talked half the morning about electrical gadgets. Are you being deliberately difficult, Pel?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Pel at his most innocent was almost cherubic. ‘I informed the chief of what you wanted and he said I was to follow instructions.’

  Brisard breathed heavily down the telephone but Pel was sure of his ground. Feeling he had scored a victory, he drove home cheerfully. Anything that stopped Brisard’s gallop was a job well done. Battling down the Cours Charles-de-Gaulle from the Place Wilson, Pel was almost happy and began to sing En Revenant de la Revue to himself. As he turned into the Rue Martin-de-Noinville, however, his spirits sagged. The house looked no bigger than a parrot’s cage. On either side the houses were larger, cleaner, better-painted and with better-tended gardens. Pel’s appeared to be neglected and its garden looked like a hen run.