by John Bude
III
Taking reluctant leave of Dilys outside the Villa Paloma, Freddy hurried back through the town to the Hotel Louis. Racked with impatience he went up to Meredith’s room and rapped on the door.
“Qui est là?” sang out Meredith in his stubbornly insular accent.
“Strang, sir. Can I have a word with you?”
“O.K. The door’s not locked.”
Meredith, coatless, with his shirt-sleeves rolled up, was sitting in an aura of tobacco smoke, poring over the various documents that littered the table before him. On seeing Strang he grinned broadly.
“Well, my little Casanova, how’s life been treating you? To judge by the hectic flush and dishevelled hair I should say you’d had a very interesting afternoon. Nice walk, eh?”
Freddy smiled sheepishly.
“Bang on, sir—thanks. But I didn’t actually barge in here to worry you with my private affairs.”
“No worry, Sergeant, I assure you. As your superior officer I’ve naturally been following the progress of your little romance with the keenest interest. But if you didn’t come here to talk about that young woman, then what the—?”
Freddy broke in eagerly:
“Look here, sir, do you mind if I borrow the car?”
“What on earth for?”
“Well, sir, I’ve got a hunch and I want to follow it up. I may be right off the rails, but I’ve a sneaking idea that I’ve hit on the modus operandi of this forgery business.”
“The devil you have!” whistled Meredith. “Just like that, eh? O.K. Sergeant. Pull up a chair and give me the gen. Any sort of hunch at this stage of our investigation is just about synonymous with manna in the wilderness. Right—fire ahead!”
For some fifteen minutes Freddy talked and Meredith, save for an occasional pertinent question, listened intently. At the end of that time he sprang to his feet, rolled down his sleeves and reached for his jacket. Then, unhooking his hat from the door, he clapped it on his head and rapped out:
“Nip down to the garage, m’lad, and get the car out at once. I’m coming along with you. I’ve just got to tidy up these papers and get ’em under lock and key. Meet me outside the front entrance in thirty seconds. O.K.—jump to it!”
As Meredith was hurrying by the reception-desk in the hotel lobby, however, he was intercepted by the maître d’hôtel.
“An urgent ’phone-call for you, M’sieur. I’ve had it put through as usual to my private office. It’s Inspector Gibaud ringing from the Commissariat.”
“Thanks,” nodded Meredith. “I’ll take it at once. By the way, I want you to do me a favour.”
“Certainly, M’sieur—anything you wish.”
“I want you to dig out a bottle of Nuits St. George—an empty bottle. Can do?”
The maître d’hôtel goggled.
“An empty bottle, M’sieur?”
“That’s the idea,” nodded Meredith.
“Very well, M’sieur. It is certainly a strange request, but I will fetch it for you at once.”
When, five minutes later, Meredith, with the wine bottle under his arm, went through the swing-doors to where Strang was waiting in the car, the latter realized at once that something was wrong. The Inspector looked as if he’d just been forced to swallow the juice of an unripe lemon.
As Meredith clambered sullenly into the driving-seat, Strang asked politely:
“Anything the matter, sir?”
“The matter!” snorted Meredith. “I’ll say there is.” He slammed in a gear with a vicious jerk and let out the clutch. “I ought to have thought of it, Sergeant. I’m losing my grip. Anno domini, I suppose. Not that that’s any excuse.”
“I don’t get it, sir.”
“Don’t you? Then I’ll put you wise. Gibaud has rung through to say that he’s just received information from some blokes down at the harbour that the Hirondelle put out to sea last night about eleven p.m. His witnesses swear that one of the men to board her was Latour.”
“Latour!” exclaimed Strang. “But I thought—”
“So did we all!” retorted Meredith. “That’s just where we tripped up. We naturally thought Latour would have cleared out of Menton. Instead, like the sly devil he is, he’s evidently been lying low right under our confounded noses.”
“He was alone, sir?”
“He was not!” snapped Meredith. “He was accompanied by that curious chap in the long black cloak that I was telling you about last night. Heaven knows, I could kick myself. I ought to have got Gibaud to post a chap on the quayside to keep the launch under observation. That’s the second time we’ve let Latour slip through our fingers. At any rate I’ve fixed for a watch to be posted down there tonight.”
“But look here, sir!” cried Strang, as Meredith swung the car into the Avenue de Verdun and headed for the Promenade du Midi. “This unexpected bit of news ties up perfectly with this new theory of mine. I mean if Latour took the boat out last night, it would account for—”
Meredith cut in with a sudden lifting of his previous ill-temper.
“By Jove—yes! That particular point hadn’t occurred to me.” Adding with seeming irrelevance: “By the way, did you notice what had happened to the bottle we spotted on Saturday night? You must have passed the spot where the launch was moored on your walk this afternoon.”
Freddy nodded solemnly.
“I did, sir. It was gone!”
Meredith gave a long low whistle; then, with a sudden burst of optimism, declared:
“By heaven, Strang! I think we’ve got ’em. We’ve got ’em by the short hairs, m’lad.”
IV
Cap Martin; the Villa Valdeblore at Beaulieu; then over to Menton and the Villa Paloma—it was long past dinner time when Meredith and Strang arrived back at the Hotel Louis. But a word to the maître d’hôtel and the couple were soon sitting down in the deserted dining-room to an excellent if belated meal. They were in a jubilant mood; a mood that gained lustre from the bottle of Beaujolais that Meredith had ordered to celebrate the occasion. Their evening’s investigations had brought in results that, in the light of Meredith’s previous depression, seemed little short of miraculous. It was Freddy’s hunch that had set the ball rolling, and their subsequent enquiries at the Villas Valdeblore and Paloma had increased its impetus. Suddenly, as if by magic, a series of uncorrelated clues had clicked together to form a clear and revealing pattern. Events which had previously baffled them could now be explained away with startling simplicity. It was always the case, thought Meredith—once one had discovered the solution to a problem it was hard to believe that a problem had ever existed.
But the Inspector was in no mood to waste time on an analysis of their good fortune. Although it was then past ten o’clock he was far too keyed-up to call a halt to the day’s investigations. Hastily finishing his coffee, Meredith nodded to Strang and together they hurried out to the car.
A three-minute dash through the emptying streets brought them down to the harbour. The constable whom Gibaud had detailed to keep watch on the Hirondelle was standing back in the deep shadows formed by the high stone breakwater of the harbour-arm, only a few yards from where the launch was riding at her moorings.
“Eh bien?” demanded Meredith.
“Pas de personne, M’sieur.”
“Bon!” said Meredith curtly.
It wasn’t exactly a loquacious exchange but one, thought Meredith, that was well within the scope of his linguistic abilities. At any rate it told him all he wanted to know. He turned to Strang.
“O.K. Sergeant—let’s get aboard.”
To Meredith, of course, this exhaustive search was a repetition of his previous day’s exploration aboard the Hirondelle. But now, convinced that he’d overlooked some vital clue, his investigations were even more prolonged and meticulous. Flicking on his torch and ordering the Sergeant
to do the same, he unlocked the cabins and, together, they got down to work.
At the end of half-an-hour, puzzled and dejected, they’d arrived nowhere. Meredith glared at Strang and shook his head.
“Can’t make it out, Sergeant. I could have sworn our theory was a winner. I’m damned if I can see where we’ve slipped up. After all, when I searched the launch yesterday I didn’t know what I was looking for. Just any sort of clue, eh? But now we’re looking for a specific object that, ipso facto, must occupy a specific amount of space. And that definitely limits the area of our search. It’s got me hipped. Don’t mind admitting it.”
“Going to call it a day, sir?”
“No, m’lad, I’m not,” retorted Meredith with a stubborn look. “We’re going to start all over again. Come on, let’s get for’ard and work our way back to the cockpit. We’ve all night before us.”
This wasn’t the first time that Meredith’s obstinacy and thoroughness had brought home the bacon. Some twenty minutes after they’d started their second examination they hit on the solution to the problem that had been puzzling them.
“Well, well, well!” chuckled Meredith, delightedly. “What do you know about that, Sergeant? Ingenious, eh? Must give the devil his due. You realize what this discovery means, of course?”
“That we’ve broken the racket wide open, sir.”
“Just that, I reckon. Blampignon’s now in a position to draw up the necessary warrants of arrest. A useful and highly satisfactory day’s work, m’lad. Except for one outstanding exception we’ve now got the gang more or less in the bag.”
“The exception being ‘Chalky’ Cobbett, sir?”
“Exactly, Strang. The man we were sent over here to trace and apprehend. Disappointing, eh? I hate having a loose end lying around in a case.” Meredith turned aside to lock the door of the for’ard cabin. “Still, sufficient unto the day is the progress thereof. We mustn’t expect miracles. Ready, Sergeant? Time we got back and caught up on our sleep. We’re all lined up for a pretty exhaustive pow-wow tomorrow with our good friend Blampignon. I guess he’s going to be tickled to death!”
Chapter XIV
Notes in Circulation
I
An early ’phone-call to Nice brought Inspector Blampignon hell-for-leather over to Menton. Gibaud had placed his office at their disposal and shortly after ten o’clock that Wednesday morning Meredith, Strang, Blampignon and Gibaud himself were seated in the small, business-like, first-floor room at the local Commissariat de Police.
Very naturally the atmosphere of the conference was one of suppressed excitement. For after weeks of indifferent progress the case had suddenly reached that conclusive phase where proven facts could be substituted for unproven, if plausible, speculation. Blampignon, his round, good-natured face wreathed in smiles, was like a cat on hot bricks. Racked with impatience, it was all he could do to tether himself to his chair. Barely had Gibaud closed the door and dropped into his seat behind the desk, when Blampignon burst out explosively:
“Mon Dieu! Is it necessary that we waste time like this? Do you wish me to die of suspense, mes amis? Tell me now, what exactly is it you have managed to find out?”
“Darn nearly everything!” grinned Meredith, who with an irritating lack of haste was setting a match to the bowl of his pipe. “But don’t look to me to start the ball rolling. That’s the Sergeant’s pidgin. He’s the fellow who first set the match to the fuse and with your permission, gentlemen, I’m going to ask him to open the proceedings. Agreed?” The two French Inspectors nodded. “O.K. Sergeant. Fire ahead—it’s all yours.”
“But…but where exactly do you want me to begin?” stammered Freddy, somewhat overwhelmed by the responsibility that had suddenly been thrust upon him.
“Begin at the beginning, m’lad,” suggested Meredith drily. “It’s always a sound idea.”
“You mean with what I happened to see that morning in the garage-yard at the Villa Paloma?” Meredith nodded. “O.K. sir. Well, early last Sunday morning I…”
And without more ado Freddy described in detail all that he’d witnessed through his peep-hole in the lattice gate—Shenton’s arrival in the Vedette; the strange “catch” that he appeared to have brought back from his early-morning fishing expedition; his hasty concealment of the tar-spotted boulder when the maid had come out into the yard. Every now and then, at Blampignon’s request, he had to break off so that Gibaud could translate some phrase that his colleague was unable to grasp. Freddy then turned to the walk he’d taken with Dilys Westmacott the previous afternoon. After describing the route they’d followed out to Cap Martin, he went on:
“We clambered out over the rocks to a point only a few yards from the sea. Miss Westmacott sat for a moment and we started chatting. Well, to cut a long story short, I happened to notice an empty wine-bottle stuck up on a rock a few yards ahead of us.” Freddy grinned. “Naturally I couldn’t resist the invitation, and I began chucking pebbles at the thing. At the third shot I hit it fair and square. And then, just close to it, I spotted the boulder.”
“The boulder?” enquired Blampignon. “What is?” Gibaud explained. “Ah! The piece of rock. And what is the significance of your discovery, mon ami?”
“Well, sir, I noticed that it had tar-stains on it like the one Shenton had taken from his creel. And the arrangement of the stains—five dots like a lopsided domino-five—was identical!”
“Mon Dieu!” breathed Blampignon gustily. “Go on! Go on!”
“I realized at once that these five dots couldn’t have got there by chance—I mean exactly the same number and arrangement in both cases. It seemed pretty obvious that they’d been painted on. And then it struck me that the up-ended bottle might have some connection with the boulder—that it might have been set up there as a kind of marker. Without Miss Westmacott realizing I managed to decipher the label on one of the broken pieces. Nuits St. George, sir.”
“Nuits St. George!” echoed Blampignon excitedly as he turned to Meredith. “But that was the label on the empty bottle you saw on the rocks after we surprise the launch on Saturday night!”
“Exactly,” nodded Meredith. “And it was there for the same reason—to pin-point the spot where one of these specially marked and specially designed boulders had been set ashore off the launch. Yesterday, when Strang passed the spot, he noticed that the bottle had gone. Presumably the boulder had been collected in the interim and the bottle thrown into the sea or hidden in the undergrowth.”
“But why…what…?” floundered Blampignon with a blank, almost imbecile, expression on his swarthy features.
Meredith laughed.
“Let me tidy it up for you, my dear fellow. Mind if I take over now, Sergeant? Right! Then let’s get down to the fundamental facts of the mystery. The launch we surprised on Saturday night was the Hirondelle—no mistake about that. Latour was aboard her with A. N. Other—this enigmatic figure in cloak and wide-brimmed hat whom my good friend Gibaud here claims to be a woman. Latour was there for one reason and one reason only—to land one of these curiously marked boulders and to mark its position with an empty bottle of Nuits St. George. Aboard the launch, by the way, I found a crate half-full of these empty bottles.”
“Mon Dieu!” cried Blampignon, clapping his hands despairingly to his head. “Do not let us worry about these bottles. It is the pieces of rock I do not understand.”
“Neither did we at first,” admitted Meredith. “Until we laid our hands on one and succeeded in opening it.”
“Opening it?” demanded Gibaud, bewildered. “What the devil do you mean?”
“Fixed under the centre dot of the domino-five was a perfectly concealed spring-catch. By luck I pressed the right spot and the top of the contraption hinged back. Inside, of course, it was hollow. A thick lead plate was let into the base of the rock to counteract the loss of weight due to this hollow. Neat, eh? To all appearanc
es the lump of rock both looked and felt genuine.”
“And the hollow,” asked Blampignon, “for what was it made?”
“To conceal a nice thick wad of counterfeit notes all fresh and crackling from the press, my dear fellow.”
Blampignon jumped to his feet.
“So that is how they work it! The press was on board L’Hirondelle—is that how you mean?”
“Ingenious, eh?” chuckled Meredith. “What better place to set it up? All Latour had to do was to cruise around off-shore at night, print off a prearranged consignment of dud notes, slap ’em into one of these boulder affairs and dump the stuff at some lonely spot along the nearby coastline.”
“But why these elaborate precautions?” asked Gibaud. “Why not walk off the launch with the notes in his pocket?”
“Because there was always a chance that the police might grow suspicious of his nocturnal trips in the Hirondelle. If the launch was searched or Latour frisked as he came ashore…well, he’d have as much chance of getting away with it as an icicle in hell! That money was hot, and Latour wasn’t going to risk handling it. Sensible, you’ll admit. With their particular modus operandi there was absolutely nothing to connect the Hedderwick launch with any sort of racket.”
“Nothing? Nothing?” cried Blampignon, who was now striding about the room in a perfect dither of excitement. “How do you mean…nothing? What about the printing-press? Are we so stupid, we police, that if we see a printing-press on a boat we ask no questions? Merdre! I do not believe that one, mon vieux.”
“Hang on! Not so fast,” chuckled Meredith. “You Frenchmen always pride yourselves on your logicality. Well, let’s look at this from a logical point of view.”
“Eh bien, that is just what I do!” protested Blampignon.