by Mark Hebden
Robinson looked even more startled, then he frowned and was silent for a while, considering the possibilities. ‘It could have,’ he admitted. ‘It’s got a tumbler device inside that wouldn’t require much to be made into a trigger mechanism.’
‘Is it something a good instrument maker could do?’
‘Most certainly.’
‘Cormon?’
‘I should think so. On the other hand—’
‘On the other hand, what, Monsieur?’
Robinson drew a deep breath. ‘I’m rather concerned,’ he said. ‘I’d better explain.’
He poured more drinks. ‘Lately I’ve only been doing private work in my workshop here. I told you about it. It’s secret and I have only one helper, a man called Cortes who’s been with me for thirty years. I’ve been working on something rather serious and even with him I permit him to see only part of it at a time. I have the only key to my workshop so no one can get in when I’m not here to supervise.’
‘Do your people at Montbard know about this new thing you’re working on?’
‘No. Cortes does, of course. Or at least I’m sure he has an idea. He’s not stupid. But only small parts of it were manufactured at Montbard, though I suppose it’s possible to put two and two together and come up with some sort of answer. But I was always careful to give the prototypes to different people and at different times so they didn’t have a clear picture. However, they might have talked. Rivard, for instance, is a sharp young man. Sometimes, I think a little too sharp. He may have come to some conclusion.’
‘What is this thing you’re working on, Doctor? May we know?’
Robinson hesitated then he shrugged. ‘It’s a government-backed idea,’ he said. ‘I should say a British government-backed idea, though the French government’s involved, too. I do the work here because it’s well away from prying eyes and, since all documents and letters are in English, it’s kept more secret. When I was in London last year I saw possibilities for my reverser that had never occurred to me before and I took the idea along to the Government. The Ministry of Defence to be exact. There were talks. The last time in April. I was taken to see various scientists, manufacturers and government advisers and eventually I was told to go ahead. Cash was provided. It’s been going forward since then like a steam train.’
Pel paused. ‘Have you ever met a man by the name of John Ford, Doctor?’ he asked suddenly.
Robinson frowned. ‘The man who was shot in Paris?’ he said.
‘Exactly.’
Robinson’s frown grew deeper. ‘I’ve met him,’ he admitted. ‘But I didn’t know him by that name. He was one of the men in England I had talks with. About my idea.’
‘What is it, Doctor? Some sort of secret weapon?’
‘No.’ Robinson seemed reluctant to answer. ‘Do you have to know?’
‘It would help,’ Pel said. ‘I think you can trust us. If you prefer, however, I could arrange for someone to come down from Paris. A man by the name of De Frobinius, with whom I’ve been working.’
Robinson frowned and thought for a moment. ‘I know De Frobinius,’ he said. ‘He’s Ford’s opposite number in this country.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘I think I’d better tell you everything, Inspector, without, of course, giving you the details. You might say my idea is a counter to an already-established weapon, the guided missile.’ He paused and lit a cigarette as they waited patiently. ‘You might even say it’s a device to effect the reversal of computors.’
There was a long silence. Pel was a little out of his depths but he was beginning to realise that whatever it was Robinson was engaged on was important.
‘Perhaps you don’t realise the implications of that,’ Robinson went on. ‘Most major weapons these days are worked by computors, which work out range, speed, et cetera. Torpedoes. Air-to-air, air-to-ground and ground-to-air missiles. Even artillery. Practically everything bigger than small arms. I was an artilleryman in the war and I learned a lot about it, particularly as, by then, artillery ranging was already being done mechanically. Do you see what I’m getting at?’
Pel was beginning to.
‘My gadget,’ Robinson went on, ‘won’t exactly reverse an artillery shell so that it’ll turn round and head back to the gun which fired it. Any more than it will return a computordirected enemy missile to its base.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘That would be quite a feat, I think. But an inter-continental ballistic missile hurtling through the stratosphere suddenly headed back to where it had been launched would have quite an effect on war, wouldn’t it?’
Darcy whistled. ‘Formidable,’ he said.
Robinson smiled. ‘Exactly. Formidable. My device isn’t as big as that yet. But I feel – and the British government feels – that even if we couldn’t return a missile to its base, if it were computor-directed we could turn it back to the country of its origin. There are already counter-measures, naturally, but none of them as simple, small and lightweight as the one I’m working on. Of course, my device is only a small part of a much more sophisticated affair which is being developed by Sud Aviation in France and General Electric in England. It fits into a complicated switch system which is attached to a much larger protected-computor autopilot system. We think it will do exactly what we expect it to do.’ Robinson gave a shy smile and rubbed his shapeless nose. ‘I might add, Inspector, as you seem to know, that this was the reason for the recent meeting between the heads of state. You might say it’s top-level material.’
As Robinson finished, Pel sat in silence for a moment. ‘It occurs to me, Doctor,’ he said eventually, ‘that you ought to have some sort of guard here.’
Robinson smiled. ‘That would be the one thing to draw attention to us,’ he said. ‘And that’s the one thing I don’t want. I feel very firm about it.’
‘But if this thing, this valuable thing, disappeared, a great deal’s lost. Has anyone heard of it?’
Robinson smiled. ‘I suspect someone has. These things get around, you know. People in government are often indiscreet and a whisper spreads.’
‘Has anyone ever tried to steal it?’
‘Once. Someone got into my workshop here. It was quite obvious they’d been looking for it, from the way things had been scattered around and drawers opened.’
‘You’re certain it was this device of yours they were after?’ Robinson gave a neigh of laughter. ‘There’s nothing else,’ he said. ‘Nothing of any real value at all. It could only have been that.’
‘How did they effect entry?’
‘With a key, I imagine.’
‘I thought you had the only one.’
‘I have, and, of course, I immediately changed the lock and took extra precautions because there was no sign of forcible entry. The door was unlocked and wide open when Cortes arrived the next morning.’
‘But they didn’t get it?’
Robinson gave his neigh of a laugh again. ‘It was in April and that was when I went to England. I took it with me, as well as all the papers.’
As they drove away, Pel was deep in thought.
The business was growing complicated. What had started with an art theft at St Sauvigny seemed to have turned into a murder enquiry, and from that into some sort of underhand espionage deal – international or at the very least industrial – with another murder in Paris.
Who was behind it? He dismissed Madame Clarétie at once despite the large knife Darcy had seen in her hand when he’d visited her. She somehow seemed unconnected with the affair save for her relationship to Cormon. Was it Pissarro? He seemed active enough, but there seemed an awful lot lacking in him, as if most of it was pure show, put on to please other people and boost his own ego. But under the bounce, was he really just a straw man? Jacqmin? His feet, legs and eyes seemed to preclude murder, but Pel had found, in fact, that physical disability was barely a draw-back if someone really wanted to kill. Rivard, Robinson’s manager at Montbard? If nothing else, he had the drive to be dishonest and, Pel suspected, he was already cheat
ing Robinson in a few small ways.
And how were all the enquiries connected? Because they seemed somehow – by some sort of tenuous thread held chiefly, it seemed, by Jacqmin – to be connected. Cormon’s murder seemed somehow to be attached through Jacqmin to the murder in Paris. But Jacqmin’s knife, according to the Lab, hadn’t a trace of human blood on it, let alone blood of Cormon’s group. Was it the knife that had been used? Was there another knife?
For a long time Pel said nothing, smoking one cigarette after another, his dark eyes sharp, his mind busy enough for him not to notice the speed at which Darcy drove. After a while, he sat up.
‘We’re on an international level now,’ he said abruptly. ‘It’s clear Cormon stole the gadget that works Robinson’s reverser switch to make the device for defrauding the electrical authorities. Then, at some point, perhaps with information fed to him by someone we don’t know – this De Fransecky or Rambot, whoever he is – he tried to get hold of the new gadget Robinson’s working on. It must have been Cormon. He’d got his baccalaureat in locksmithing. He could open any door. Then, either because he knew too much or because he was scared, they got rid of him. Somebody forced him off the road on the slope down to Destres.
‘And when they went down to make sure he was dead, they were horrified to see him crawl out of the wreckage.’
‘Exactly.’ Pel lit a cigarette and drew a deep breath. ‘Our friend Robinson needs a guard, I think.’
‘He said he didn’t want one, Patron.’
‘He’s going to get one all the same. I’ll get the Chief to see him. If necessary, the people in Paris. Somebody’s already had a try for his gadget. We can’t take a chance on them having another go.’
He was silent for a moment, studying his cigarette. ‘It leaves you a little scared at the size of it, doesn’t it?’ he said.
He was beginning by this time to see the importance of the meeting he’d had in London. Someone at the other side of the Channel – even someone on his own side, if the speed with which he’d been sent to London were considered – had seen the connection between Robinson and the shooting of Ford in Paris, and was wondering how much the enemies of the West were involved.
‘It seems to me,’ Pel went on, ‘that this mysterious Rambot who keeps popping up’s the key figure.’
‘Think he belongs to the other side?’ Darcy asked.
Pel sniffed. ‘I’m beginning to wonder,’ he said.
At about the time Pel and Darcy were leaving Rambillard, Nosjean was hearing once more from Sous-Brigadier Quiriton at St Denis-sur-Aube.
‘It’s been seen again!’ he yelled excitedly down the telephone. ‘Just now!’
‘What’s been seen?’
‘The yellow Passat! Here! In this village!’
‘Get the number?’
‘No! In God’s name, this damned vehicle’s more elusive than a spectre! I saw it shoot past the window, going out of the village towards the south. Same one. Dent on the side. Front bashed in. There was a dent at the back, too, just for your information. I rushed out to get the number but the bastard had just shot round the corner. I got my car out and shot off after it, but it had already gone. It disappears faster than a rat up a drain. Whoever’s driving it must be up to something, to disappear that fast.’
‘Same driver?’
‘Same driver. Mop of hair. I didn’t see his face, just this mop of hair. Looked like a kid. Tall but slim with a small head, shoulders and jaw.’
‘What colour was his hair?’
‘Could have been anything. Dark. Red. Mousy. Blond. I don’t know. It moved too fast and the shadow inside the car made it just look dark. I got two of my boys out at once in their car but we didn’t find it.’
Nosjean thumped the desk with his fist in his anger and frustration. ‘They’ve got their eyes on Lebuchon-Roy,’ he said. ‘I’d bet my wages on it.’
‘That’s what it looks like.’
‘But we can’t watch the place everlastingly.’
‘Hang on,’ Quiriton said. ‘I haven’t finished yet. I think it’s tonight. Or tomorrow. Or sometime soon, anyway.’
‘Why?’
‘We’ve done a bit of sniffing as well as you.’ Quiriton sounded pleased with himself. ‘I’ve just been to have a talk with the gardien. There was a party round here yesterday. Private party. Antique dealers, decorators and students. It seems some of the questions were about chairs. Boulard? – is that the name? – Boulard chairs?’
‘Go on.’ Nosjean was growing excited.
‘The gardien was cagey and he didn’t give anything away. He’s not exactly bright but he was clever enough to remember that.’
‘Did he describe the type who asked the questions?’
‘Yes. Small. Bit effeminate. Smart-suited. Little beard and whiskers.’
‘It sounds like Pierrot-le-Pourri,’ Nosjean said. ‘Can we raise a few men?’
Quiriton laughed, clearly delighted with himself. ‘I’m sure we can and I’m sure we will. It’s the most exciting thing that’s happened in St Denis since the butcher’s shop caught fire. I can raise five, but I can get one or two from Barrois and some from Fricourt-le-Duc. Are you expecting a break-in?’
‘It begins to look like it,’ Nosjean admitted. ‘I’ll come down. Perhaps they’re getting greedy, because it isn’t very long since the last one at the Manoire de Marennes. Perhaps they think they’re cleverer than the poor old flatfoots.’
The sous-brigadier laughed again. ‘A lot of people think that,’ he said. ‘They’re not always right.’
‘Let’s see what we can do, shall we?’ Nosjean said. ‘I’ll check up on my types in Paris and see if they have an alibi for when you saw the Passat, then I’ll come down and join you.’
As Quinton rang off, Nosjean dialled Pierrot-le-Pourri’s number in Paris.
The sound of the bell was answered immediately and to Nosjean’s surprise it was Pierrot-le-Pourri himself who answered. Surprised, Nosjean talked for a while then suggested that he’d like to talk to Poupon, Pierrot’s sidekick.
‘Of course, chéri,’ Pierrot gurgled. ‘He’s right here beside me.’ The voice grew fainter. ‘The sergeant wants to talk to you, darling. Hurry up, do.’
Poupon’s voice came on the wire. There was no mistaking it, and Nosjean frowned.
‘Do you mind hurrying, dear,’ Poupon said. ‘We’re just on our way to the Bobino. We got a party up. All our friends. Dinner in Montparnasse and then the music hall. French theatre. Not that tourist rubbish you see at the Folies Bergère.’
Nosjean found a few trumped-up questions to ask and put the telephone down, frowning and angry. If Pierrot-le-Pourri and his pal, Poupon, were in Paris, they could hardly have been passing Ouiriton’s sub-station in the yellow Passat Nosjean was seeking. And clearly, if they’d organised a party to go to the theatre, they clearly didn’t intend to be in Quiriton’s area that evening. Yet – Nosjean frowned – there was something a little too pat about this theatre party. It sounded like a carefully arranged alibi. Perhaps someone else was doing the job and Poupon and Pierrot-le-Pourri were just waiting for the stuff to arrive. Perhaps the thieves even looked a bit like them: Perhaps they’d even been deliberately chosen as a sick joke to make the police flounder. The thought confirmed Nosjean’s belief that tonight was when the job was to be pulled. It had to be tonight. The party going to the Bobino seemed to confirm it. Both Pierrot and Poupon had sounded highly amused to hear Nosjean’s voice and he suspected they were enjoying his discomfiture.
Ringing off, he contacted the Quai des Orfèvres and asked if the premises in the Rue Vanoy could be watched. Though Nosjean himself might be somewhere else, it wasn’t hard to summon help.
He put the telephone down with a thoughtful frown on his face. Despite the precautions he was taking, he suspected it was probably all a waste of time because, if the job was pulled as he expected and the thieves got away with it, Pierrot and Poupon would hardly be stupid enough to allow the loot to arrive o
n their doorstep just when they would guess the police would be watching. They’d surely have arranged for it to turn up somewhere other than the Rue Vanoy. They probably even had a warehouse somewhere outside Paris – Rambouillet, Melun, Corbeille, Tournan, Chantilly, Pontoise or somewhere like that – where it could be left until the heat died down.
As he replaced the telephone, Nosjean looked at his watch. Chagnay was near St Denis-sur-Aube and, if he got off early, he might even manage to telephone Mijo Lehmann.
He went in search of Pel but Pel and Darcy had disappeared, so he took his problem to the Chief who listened carefully to his theories.
‘You’d better get down there at once, my boy,’ he advised. As Nosjean was stuffing notebooks and pens into his pocket the telephone rang. It was Odile Chenandier wondering where he’d been.
‘I’ve been busy,’ Nosjean said. ‘It’s been hell here.’
‘Are you still busy?’ She sounded lost and full of reproach.
‘Yes.’ Nosjean was quite unable to consider his private life when there was a job to be done. ‘I’m just on my way to St Denis-sur-Aube. We’ve had a tip-off and I’m handling it because the Old Man’s not around and we can’t waste time.’
She tried to find out more but he rang off hurriedly before he had to indulge in explanations which, while they weren’t lies, weren’t the truth either. He hadn’t seen Odile Chenandier for some time and he felt as guilty as hell.
Nineteen
When Pel arrived back at the Hôtel de Police, Misset was in the sergeants’ room with Lagé.
Unaware of Pel in the doorway, he was reading aloud from L’Equipe. His face looked as though he’d just learned he had a terminal disease and his voice was in mourning. The newspaper, apparently, carried an unexpected angle.
‘Filou’s dropped out,’ he was saying in aggrieved tones. ‘I had two hundred francs on him, too, and he’d just had a terrific ride on the Ballon d’Alsace and was lying seventh.’
‘Never mind Filou,’ Pel snapped from behind him. ‘Who’s minding the shop?’