by John Bude
Ten minutes later Blampignon rejoined them. He announced with an expressive roll of his dark and luminous eyes:
“Tiens! Our friend Bourmin has unquestionably the eye of a connoisseur. A very charming and sensible young woman.”
“And her story tallies with that of the old woman?” asked Meredith.
“Absolutely, mon ami. Bourmin set her up in this apartment some eight weeks ago. They met one evening in a café at Monte Carlo.”
“Did you question her about Bourmin?”
“Yes—but I think it is certain she knows nothing of his criminal activities. Nor does she even seem to know who are his friends. It is clear that he does not come here as often as Mam’selle Chounet would wish.” Blampignon shook his head and heaved an elephantine sigh. “I think perhaps she is lonely sometimes. It is very sad, mon ami. The beauty of a woman is like that of a flower. It must be looked on often before it withers. Tout passe, tout change, as we say. Yes, yes…it is very sad.”
III
It was shortly after midnight when they spotted the ghostly outlines of the launch against the dark line of the land. For three solid hours the little police-boat had been patrolling about two hundred yards off-shore between the harbour at Menton and the outermost point of Cap Martin. For the first hour Meredith and Strang had enjoyed the novelty of this maritime beat, but as time dragged on and nothing happened their initial enthusiasm began to wane. Now it looked as if things, with any luck, were about to grow more lively.
It was evident that the launch had slipped into its mooring-place when the police-boat had been at the far end of its patrol, for they were convinced that it hadn’t been there when they’d last investigated this particular stretch of coastline.
Hastily throttling back the engine, Blampignon brought the boat round in a wide sweep and headed for a point about a hundred yards away from where the launch was lying at its moorings. He explained in swift undertones:
“We will get ashore, mes amis, and see what we can see, eh? But very silently, you understand. I think it is possible that so far we have not been noticed.”
Cutting out the engine entirely, Blampignon, with perfect judgment, brought the little craft gently to the shore. There, with surprising agility, the Inspector clambered cautiously on to the rocks and in a few seconds had securely tied off the painter. One by one he helped the others to disembark and silently, in single file, they began to creep towards the launch.
The foreshore at this point was tricky to negotiate in the dark. Beyond the fringe of rocks, a rough grassy bank mounted to the road that, for about half-a-mile or so, ran parallel with the sea along the eastern side of the cape. To make matters worse a canopy of umbrella pines shut out what little light there was, and their roots, thwarted by the stony soil, in many places projected above the ground. And it was in one of these, when they were less than a dozen yards from their objective, that Blampignon unfortunately caught his foot. Even as he measured his length on the ground a low whistle sounded ahead, followed by the scrape of boots sliding over the rocks and the sudden lifting drone of the launch’s engine.
“Vite! Vite!” yelled Blampignon. “Before they cast off.”
“Come on, Strang,” snapped Meredith, hastily clicking on his torch. “At the double—but watch out for these confounded roots!”
“O.K., sir.”
Aided by the rays of the pocket-lamp they plunged forward, slipping and scrambling over the rocks until they reached the spot where the boat had been moored. But even as Meredith made ready to spring aboard, the launch swung clear of the rocks and, gathering speed, slipped swiftly away into the darkness. Meredith swore fluently.
“So that’s that, eh, Sergeant? A couple of seconds sooner and we’d have nabbed ’em.” Adding as Blampignon lumbered up out of the gloom gingerly rubbing his barked shins: “What now, my dear fellow? No good giving chase, eh? Too big a start.”
Blampignon shook his head despondently:
“It is hopeless, hopeless! But the launch…do you think you could identify it if you saw it again?”
“Sure of it. White-painted hull with two thin scarlet stripes just above the water-line. There was a name on her bows, but unfortunately she was too far out for me to read it.”
“A name!” exclaimed Blampignon. “That is very curious. It is usual for these racketeers to avoid such a simple means of identification. There is much about this business, in fact, that I fail to understand. If she was moored here to unload the contraband, why is there no car waiting to collect it?”
“Umph, you’ve got something there,” commented Meredith, slowly swinging the rays of his torch over the surrounding ground. “Nothing’s been dumped here either. Another odd factor, eh? After all, they’d have had plenty of time to start landing the stuff before we broke in on the party. As you say—” Meredith broke off and added with a chuckle: “Hullo! Here’s a bit of evidence they’ve left behind anyway. An empty wine bottle by the look of it.” He picked up the bottle and examined the label. “Nuits St. Georges, eh? Must have been making a night of it. I suppose we are right about this?”
“How do you mean?” asked Blampignon.
“You don’t think it was just a picnic party or a courting couple or something of the kind?”
“But if so why did they rush off in such a hurry?” demanded Blampignon. “Oh no, no. Of this I am sure. They were engaged in—now what is the expression?—some shady business, mon ami.”
“Quite—but what shady business?”
Blampignon shrugged.
“It is incomprehensible, M’sieur. But perhaps, in due course, we find the answer.”
“And now?” asked Meredith. “Where do we go from here?”
“Back to Menton. It is useless to continue our patrol. I think it is good time that we tie up the boat and get a little sleep. Tomorrow I will ring you and let you know if any of our patrols have better luck. I am still hoping it is so, M’sieur.”
Chapter X
Picture Puzzle
I
Directly after breakfast the following morning Meredith received a ’phone-call from Inspector Blampignon. The news that he had to impart was sensational but puzzling. A coastguard cutter, patrolling some two miles off Cap Ferrat, had actually succeeded in intercepting the cruiser-launch before it had made contact with the smaller craft that had put out from various points to meet it. The crew had been arrested, the contraband impounded by the custom’s authorities, and the launch, itself, confiscated. According to Blampignon this ill-fated trip had resulted in a dead loss of some ten million francs to the gang who’d sponsored it. He was convinced that the racket, at any rate for the time being, had been broken wide open.
“But you see what we have to ask ourselves now, mon ami? If the launch we see at Cap Martin has no connection with this smuggling, then what precisely was it up to?”
Although they discussed this enigma for some minutes, Meredith had to admit that he was as nonplussed as Blampignon himself. They did advance one possible theory. Had the launch been “borrowed” without the owner’s permission? But, as Blampignon pointed out with devastating commonsense, along that crook-infested coast nobody but a fool would leave the engine-casing of his boat unlocked. And apart from this elementary precaution there were a dozen other equally effective methods of immobilizing such craft when lying at their moorings. Meredith concluded:
“So take it all round, we’ve got to admit we’re flummoxed. Well, thanks for ringing, my dear chap. If anything further turns up in this counterfeiting business I’ll let you know on the nod. But don’t expect miracles, because at the moment we seem to be bogged down. Depressing but true. However, we’ll do our best. Can’t say more. Au revoir, old man.”
II
Later that day Meredith was to reflect on this particular statement and chuckle. But that was just how it always ran. Long periods of frustration and inactiv
ity, suddenly alternating with short, sharp bursts of progress.
It was only a few minutes after Blampignon had rung off, in fact, when a totally unexpected development put just such a jerk into his investigation. It was a ’phone-call from the local police-station that first whipped Meredith and Strang out of the doldrums in which for so many days they’d been becalmed. Some information had just come in—significant information. Inspector Gibaud was anxious that his English colleagues should have the details without delay. Could they call round at once?
“Can a duck swim?” exclaimed Meredith, delighted. “Expect us in three minutes. No—cancel that, and make it two!”
Inspector Gibaud, whom Meredith had already met, was waiting impatiently for them in his office. He was the perfect counterpart of Blampignon—a tough, wiry little man, with quick brown eyes and a pair of magnificent handlebar moustaches that he chewed fiercely during moments of reflection. From Meredith’s point-of-view Gibaud had one outstanding virtue—he could speak English like a native. The outcome, no doubt, of a long-ago holiday at Folkestone where he’d fallen in love with the receptionist at his hotel and eventually whisked her back over the Channel as his wife.
Waving them to be seated, Gibaud announced brusquely:
“I’ve some good news for you, Inspector. Some of those counterfeit notes have turned up here in Menton. They were brought along early this morning by a tobacconist called Guillevin. And that’s not all! Guillevin was able to identify the particular customer who passed these notes over the counter.”
“The devil he was!” exclaimed Meredith. “And where exactly does this M’sieur Guillevin hang out?”
“At the far end of the Rue de la Republique—near the Old Town.”
“I see. And the customer who passed the notes?”
“An odd little fellow by the name of Jacques Dufil. Apparently he always buys his tobacco at Guillevin’s. At least,” amended Gibaud with a smile, “when he can afford it. Guillevin’s known the fellow for years. He lives somewhere up in the Old Town in a single room and ekes out a precarious sort of existence as a painter.”
“Jacques Dufil, the artist?” broke in Strang excitedly.
Meredith broke in with a sardonic glance.
“Don’t tell me you know the fellow!”
“Well, not exactly, sir. But there was a picture of his in the exhibition I visited the other morning. Pretty duff in my opinion. But, of course, all this ultra-modern, surrealistic stuff leaves me cold.”
“Good lord! Just listen to it!” snorted Meredith. “These highbrow boys from Hendon!” Adding as he caught Gibaud’s expression, “Anything worrying you, Inspector?”
“No, no. I’m surprised to hear that Dufil’s showing one of his canvases at the gallery—that’s all. No idea he had any standing as an artist. It certainly doesn’t fit in with the facts.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, at one time, according to Guillevin, he made a pretty sketchy sort of living touting his masterpieces round the tourist cafés during the holiday months.”
Meredith’s interest quickened.
“Tourists, eh? You know, Gibaud, I wouldn’t be surprised if we hadn’t got something here. Has it occurred to you that this picture hawking would provide the perfect alibi for a little shady dealing…er…on the side, as it were?”
“Black Market francs, eh? The point had occurred to me. But I’m afraid that cat won’t jump.”
“Won’t jump—why?”
“Because for the last six months our friend Dufil hasn’t been working the cafés. Apparently he’s found a patron who’s willing to buy his canvases. Not just an odd one here and there, but his whole output! I don’t say the poor devil’s made a fortune, but he’s certainly had a bit more to spend on tobacco.”
“I see,” mused Meredith; then, springing up, he added impatiently: “Well, what are we waiting for? We’ve got to have a word with Dufil. We’ve got to find out just how these dud notes came into his possession. Point is, until we’ve cross-questioned him, we can’t be sure he isn’t tied up with the racket himself. Where does he hang out?”
Gibaud chuckled.
“Although he’s a professional man, I’m afraid he doesn’t wallow in the luxury of a proper postal address. But Guillevin’s explained exactly how we get there. It’s off some alleyway in the Old Town. You’d like me to come along as interpreter, perhaps?”
“There’s no ‘perhaps’ about it,” admitted Meredith with a rueful smile. “I’d be sunk without you.”
“Good enough then,” concluded Gibaud briskly. “Let’s go.”
III
To walk from the broad avenues and sunlit shopping streets of the new town into the sunless chasms between the high shuttered houses of the old was to pass in a few moments from the twentieth century into the Middle Ages. Meredith, who so far hadn’t had time to explore this quarter of Menton, found it fascinating. The guide-books, tendering their customary bunch of shop-soiled adjectives, might refer to the Old Town as “quaint”, “picturesque”, “historic”; but, as they plunged into this labyrinth of narrow streets, it was the word “ageless” that came instinctively into the Inspector’s mind. This, one felt, was as it had always been. In these secret, tortuous alleyways nothing had changed. The bare-footed, brown-skinned old harridans gossiping on their doorsteps might well have squatted there when Napoleon’s Grand Army tramped along this twelve-foot highway on their victorious march into Italy. Here, felt Meredith, amid this amorphous red-tiled cluster of houses clamped so securely to the naked rock, time and progress had been kept at bay.
But Gibaud allowed his English colleagues little time to stand and stare. With an unerring sense of direction he hustled them briskly through this honeycomb of dark, squalid streets, turned into a vine-shaded courtyard and rapped imperatively on the rickety door of the hunchback’s one-roomed lodging. After a moment’s silence, they heard the painful shuffling of his footsteps on the creaking stairs and, an instant later, the door was cautiously opened and his head appeared round the corner of it like an apprehensive tortoise. Seeing Gibaud, who was in uniform, Dufil uttered a snarling cry and shrank back, a sullen, suspicious expression on his crooked features.
“What do you want? Why have you come here?” he demanded hoarsely.
“You are Jacques Dufil?” enquired Gibaud politely.
“Yes, M’sieur.”
“Very well—we want to have a talk with you.”
“A talk with me. What about, M’sieur?”
Gibaud gestured to the staircase.
“Shall we discuss that upstairs, my friend?”
The hunchback lifted his misshapen shoulders.
“But certainly—if it is necessary.”
Once up in the gloomy, stone-walled little room, Gibaud, wasting no time in small talk, got down to his cross-examination. At first, still apprehensive and ill-at-ease, Dufil refused to be drawn. But gradually, realizing the impersonal nature of the Inspector’s enquiries, his grunted monosyllables gave way to an ever-quickening stream of information. And bit by bit it all came out.
At the end of some fifteen minutes, Gibaud, who’d been hastily jotting down a summary of the hunchback’s evidence, turned with a satisfied chuckle to Meredith and demanded:
“Well, how much did you understand of that lot?”
“Not a damned word!” retorted Meredith. “But since you look like a cat that’s swallowed the canary, I guess you’ve learnt plenty. So you’d better give me the low-down, my dear chap. Then if I want to put any questions to our friend here you can tackle him before we leave. O.K.?”
“O.K.,” nodded Gibaud. “Well, this briefly is how it runs, About six months ago a fellow named Latour got in touch with Dufil after he’d seen him touting his pictures round the cafés. He asked Dufil if he was prepared, from then on, to sell him every picture that he painted. There was
one stipulation. If Dufil accepted the offer he was to keep his mouth shut about this arrangement. At first Dufil thought the fellow must he a dealer and that he was buying in his canvases as a speculation. You know how I mean?—on the offchance that there might be a future vogue for the fellow’s work. But he soon realized that Latour had absolutely no knowledge of art. Mind you, our friend here wasn’t making a fortune out of this offer. Far from it! Latour made it clear from the start that he was only prepared to pay a cut-throat price. But the point was that the money came in regularly and on the nod. Dufil naturally asked himself why was Latour so anxious to buy up all his output? And why didn’t he want anybody to know about it? Well, our friend here may have a queer-shaped head but it’s screwed on the right way.” Gibaud paused and threw a sidelong glance at the hunchback, who, though not understanding a word of English, had been beaming and nodding as if in complete agreement with the Inspector’s narrative. “You’re a cunning little fellow, eh, Dufil? Far more intelligent than you look, I reckon.” The hunchback’s nods grew more emphatic and he chuckled hoarsely. Gibaud turned again to Meredith. “It didn’t take him long to dig out the answer to the mystery. Latour was buying in his pictures and fobbing them off as his own. In short, for some private and obviously nefarious reason Latour was posing as an artist. Realizing this Dufil made a few discreet enquiries in the town and soon discovered that Latour was living in the house of an eccentric Englishwoman—a wealthy widow by the name of Hedderwick. It seems that she owns a largish villa here in the Avenue St. Michel.”
“Hedderwick! The Avenue St. Michel!” cried Strang excitedly. “Good heavens! It’s all beginning to add up.”
“Have you gone crazy?” asked Meredith with a withering glance. “What’s beginning to add up? I suppose you couldn’t possibly let us know what you’re blethering about?”