‘All the sawdust we can get at is out now,’ Burnley said presently, and then, in a lower tone, ‘I’m afraid it’s a body. I’ve come on a hand.’
‘A hand? A body?’ cried Felix, his face paling and an expression of fear growing in his eyes. The Chief moved closer to him as the others bent over the cask.
The two men worked silently for some moments and then Burnley spoke again:
‘Lift now. Carefully does it.’
They stooped again over the cask and, with a sudden effort lifted out a paper-covered object and laid it reverently on the ground. A sharp ‘My God!’ burst from Felix, and even the case-hardened Chief drew in his breath quickly.
It was the body of a woman, the head and shoulders being wrapped round with sheets of brown paper. It lay all bunched together as it had done in the cask. One dainty hand, with slim, tapered fingers protruded from the paper, and stuck stiffly upwards beside the rounded shoulder.
The men stopped and stood motionless looking down at the still form. Felix was standing rigid, his face blanched, his eyes protruding, horror stamped on his features. The Chief spoke in a low tone:
‘Take off the paper.’
Burnley caught the loose corner and gently removed it. As it came away the figure within became revealed to the onlookers.
The body was that of a youngish woman, elegantly clad in an evening gown of pale pink cut low round the throat and shoulders, and trimmed with old lace. Masses of dark hair were coiled round the small head. On the fingers the glint of precious stones caught the light. The feet were cased in silk stockings, but no shoes. Pinned to the dress was an envelope.
But it was on the face and neck the gaze of the men was riveted. Once she had clearly been beautiful, but now the face was terribly black and swollen. The dark eyes were open and protruding, and held an expression of deadly horror and fear. The lips were drawn back showing the white, even teeth. And below, on the throat were two discoloured bruises, side by side, round marks close to the windpipe, thumb-prints of the animal who had squeezed out that life with relentless and merciless hands.
When the paper was removed from the dead face, the eyes of Felix seemed to start literally out of his head.
‘God!’ he shrieked in a thin, shrill tone. ‘It’s Annette!’ He stood for a moment, waved his hands convulsively, and then, slowly turning, pitched forward insensible on the floor.
The Chief caught him before his head touched the ground.
‘Lend a hand here,’ he called.
Burnley and the sergeant sprang forward and, lifting the inanimate form, bore it into an adjoining room and laid it gently on the floor.
‘Doctor,’ said the Chief shortly, and the sergeant hurried off.
‘Bad business, this,’ resumed the Chief. ‘He didn’t know what was coming?’
‘I don’t think so, sir. My impression has been all through that he was being fooled by this Frenchman, whoever he is.’
‘It’s murder now, anyway. You’ll have to go to Paris, Burnley, and look into it.’
‘Yes, sir, very good.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s eight o’clock. I shall hardly be able to go tonight. I shall have to take the cask and the clothing, and get some photos and measurements of the corpse and hear the result of the medical examination.’
‘Tomorrow will be time enough, but I’d go by the nine o’clock train. I’ll give you a personal note to Chauvet, the chief of the Paris police. You speak French, I think?’
‘Enough to get on, sir.’
‘You shouldn’t have much difficulty, I think. The Paris men are bound to know if there are any recent disappearances, and if not you have the cask and the clothing to fall back on.’
‘Yes, sir, they should be a help.’
Footsteps in the corridor announced the arrival of the doctor. With a hasty greeting to the Chief, he turned to the unconscious man.
‘What happened to him?’ he asked.
‘He has had a shock,’ answered the Chief, explaining in a few words what had occurred.
‘He’ll have to be removed to hospital at once. Better get a stretcher.’
The sergeant disappeared again and in a few seconds returned with the apparatus and another man. Felix was lifted on to it and borne off.
‘Doctor,’ said the Chief, as the former was about to follow, ‘as soon as you are through with him I wish you’d make an examination of the woman’s body. It seems fairly clear what happened to her, but it would be better to have a post-mortem. Poison may have been used also. Burnley, here, is going to Paris by the nine o’clock in the morning to make inquiries, and he will want a copy of your report with him.’
‘I shall have it ready,’ said the doctor as, with a bow, he hurried after his patient.
‘Now, let’s have a look at that letter.’
They returned to the courtyard and Burnley unpinned the envelope from the dead woman’s gown. It was unaddressed, but the Chief slit it open and drew out a sheet of folded paper. It bore a single line of typing:
‘Your £50 loan returned herewith with £2 10s. od. interest.’
That was all. No date, address, salutation, or signature. Nothing to indicate who had sent it, or whose was the body that had accompanied it.
‘Allow me, sir,’ said Burnley.
He took the paper and scrutinised it carefully. Then he held it up to the light.
‘This is from Le Gautier also,’ he continued. ‘See the watermark. It is the same paper as Felix’s letter. Look also at the typing. Here are the crooked n’s and r’s, the defective l’s and the t’s and e’s below alignment. It was typed on the same machine.’
‘Looks like it certainly.’ Then, after a pause: ‘Come to my room for that letter to M. Chauvet.’
They traversed the corridors and the Inspector got his introduction to the Paris police. Then returning to the little yard, he began the preparations for his journey.
First he picked up and counted the money. There was £31 10s. in English gold and, having made a note of the amount, he slipped it into his pocket as a precaution against chance passers-by. With the £21 handed by Broughton to Mr Avery, this made the £52 10s. referred to in the typewritten slip. Then he had the body moved to the dissecting-room and photographed from several points of view, after which it was stripped by a female assistant. The clothes he went through with great care, examining every inch of the material for maker’s names, initials, or other marks. Only on the delicate cambric handkerchief was his search rewarded, a small A. B. being embroidered amid the tracery of one corner. Having attached a label to each garment separately, as well as to the rings from the fingers and a diamond comb from the luxuriant hair, he packed them carefully in a small portmanteau, ready for transport to France.
Sending for the carpenter, he had the end boards of the cask replaced, and the whole thing wrapped in sacking and corded. Labelling it to himself at the Gare du Nord, he had it despatched to Charing Cross with instructions to get it away without delay.
It was past ten when his preparations were complete, and he was not sorry when he was free to go home to supper and bed.
PART II
PARIS
CHAPTER IX
M. LE CHEF DE LA SÛRETÉ
AT 9 a.m. next morning the Continental express moved slowly out of Charing Cross station, bearing in the corner of a first-class smoking compartment, Inspector Burnley. The glorious weather of the past few days had not held, and the sky was clouded over, giving a promise of rain. The river showed dark and gloomy as they drew over it, and the houses on the south side had resumed their normal dull and grimy appearance. A gentle breeze blew from the south-west, and Burnley, who was a bad sailor, hoped it would not be very much worse at Dover. He lit one of his strong-smelling cigars and puffed at it thoughtfully as the train ran with ever-increasing speed through the extraordinary tangle of lines south of London Bridge.
He was glad to be taking this journey. He liked Paris and he had not been there for four years, not indeed sinc
e the great Marcelle murder case, which attracted so much attention in both countries. M. Lefarge, the genial French detective with whom he had then collaborated had become a real friend and he hoped to run across him again.
They had reached the outer suburbs and occasional fields began to replace the lines of little villas which lie closer to the city. He watched the flying objects idly for a few minutes, and then with a little sigh turned his attention to his case, as a barrister makes up his brief before going into court.
He considered first his object in making the journey. He had to find out who the murdered woman was, if she was murdered, though there appeared little doubt about that. He had to discover and get convicting evidence against the murderer, and lastly, he had to learn the explanation of the extraordinary business of the cask.
He then reviewed the data he already had, turning first to the medical report which up till then he had not had an opportunity of reading. There was first a note about Felix. That unhappy man was entirely prostrated from the shock and his life was in serious danger.
The Inspector had already known this, for he had gone to the ward before seven that morning in the hope of getting a statement from the sick man, only to find him semi-conscious and delirious. The identity of the dead woman could not, therefore, be ascertained from him. He, Burnley, must rely on his own efforts.
The report then dealt with the woman. She was aged about five-and-twenty, five feet seven in height and apparently gracefully built, and weighing a little over eight stone. She had dark hair of great length and luxuriance, and eyes with long lashes and delicately pencilled brows. Her mouth was small and regular, her nose slightly retroussé and her face a true oval. She had a broad, low forehead, and her complexion appeared to have been very clear, though dark. There was no distinguishing mark on the body.
‘Surely,’ thought Burnley, ‘with such a description it should be easy to identify her.’
The report continued:
‘There are ten marks about her neck, apparently finger marks. Of these eight are together at the back of the neck and not strongly marked. The remaining two are situated in front of the throat, close together and one on each side of the windpipe. The skin at these points is much bruised and blackened, and the pressure must therefore have been very great.
‘It seems clear the marks were caused by some individual standing in front of her and squeezing her throat with both hands, the thumbs on the windpipe and the fingers round the neck. From the strength necessary to produce such bruises, it looks as if this individual were a man.
‘An autopsy revealed the fact that all the organs were sound, and there was no trace of poison or other cause of death. The conclusion is therefore unavoidable that the woman was murdered by strangulation. She appears to have been dead about a week or slightly longer.’
‘That’s definite, anyway,’ mused Burnley. ‘Let’s see what else we have.’
There was the woman’s rank in life. She was clearly well off if not rich, and probably well born. Her fingers suggested culture, they were those of the artist or musician. The wedding ring on her right hand showed that she was married, and living in France. ‘Surely,’ thought the Inspector again, ‘the Chief is right. It would be impossible for a woman of this kind to disappear without the knowledge of the French police. My job will be done when I have seen them.’
But supposing they did not know. What then?
There was first of all the letter to Felix. The signatory, M. Le Gautier, assuming such a man existed, should be able to give a clue. The waiters in the Toisson d’Or Café might know something. The typewriter with the defective letters was surely traceable.
The clothes in which the corpse was dressed suggested another line of attack. Inquiry at the leading Paris shops could hardly fail to produce information. And if not there were the rings and the diamond comb. These would surely lead to something.
Then there was the cask. It was a specially made one, and must surely have been used for a very special purpose. Inquiry from the firm whose label it had borne could hardly be fruitless.
And lastly, if all these failed, there was left advertisement. A judiciously worded notice with a reward for information of identity would almost certainly draw. Burnley felt he was well supplied with clues. Many and many a thorny problem he had solved with far less to go on.
He continued turning the matter over in his mind in his slow, painstaking way, until a sudden plunge into a tunnel and a grinding of brakes warned him they were coming into Dover.
The crossing was calm and uneventful. Before they passed between the twin piers at Calais the sun had burst out, the clouds were thinning, and blue sky showing in the distance.
They made a good run to Paris, stopping only at Amiens, and at 5.45 precisely drew slowly into the vast, echoing vault of the Gare du Nord. Calling a taxi, the Inspector drove to a small private hotel he usually patronised in the rue Castiglione. Having secured his room, he re-entered the taxi and went to the Sûreté, the Scotland Yard of Paris.
He inquired for M. Chauvet, sending in his letter of introduction. The Chief was in and disengaged, and after a few minutes delay Inspector Burnley was ushered into his presence.
M. Chauvet, Chef de la Sûreté, was a small, elderly man with a dark, pointed beard, gold-rimmed glasses, and an exceedingly polite manner.
‘Sit down, Mr Burnley,’ he said in excellent English, as they shook hands. ‘I think we have had the pleasure of co-operating with you before?’
Burnley reminded him of the Marcelle murder case.
‘Ah, of course, I remember. And now you are bringing us another of the same kind. Is it not so?’
‘Yes, sir, and a rather puzzling one also. But I am in hopes we have enough information to clear it up quickly.’
‘Good, I hope you have. Please let me have, in a word or two, the briefest outline, then I shall ask you to go over it again in detail.’
Burnley complied, explaining in half a dozen sentences the gist of the case.
‘The circumstances are certainly singular,’ said the Chief. ‘Let me think whom I shall put in charge of it with you. Dupont is perhaps the best man, but he is engaged on that burglary at Chartres.’ He looked up a card index. ‘Of those disengaged, the best perhaps are Cambon, Lefarge, and Bontemps. All good men.’
He stretched out his hand to the desk telephone.
‘Pardon me, sir,’ said Burnley. ‘I don’t want to make suggestions or interfere in what is not my business, but I had the pleasure of co-operating with M. Lefarge in the Marcelle case, and if it was quite the same I should very much like to work with him again.’
‘But excellent, monsieur. I hear you say that with much pleasure.’
He lifted his desk telephone, pressing one of the many buttons on its stand.
‘Ask M. Lefarge to come here at once.’
In a few seconds a tall, clean-shaven, rather English looking man entered.
‘Ah, Lefarge,’ said the Chief. ‘Here is a friend of yours.’
The two detectives shook hands warmly.
‘He has brought us another murder mystery and very interesting it sounds. Now, Mr Burnley, perhaps you would let us hear your story in detail.’
The Inspector nodded, and beginning at the sending of the clerk Tom Broughton to check the consignment of wine at the Rouen steamer, he related all the strange events that had taken place, the discovery of the cask, and the suspicions aroused, the forged note, the removal of the cask, the getting rid of Harkness, the tracing and second disappearance of the cask, its ultimate recovery, its sinister contents, and finally, a list of the points which might yield clues if followed up. The two men listened intently, but without interrupting. After he had finished they sat silently in thought.
‘In one point I do not quite follow you, Mr Burnley,’ said the Chief at last. ‘You appear to assume that this murdered woman was a Parisienne. But what are your reasons for that?’
‘The cask came from Paris. That is certain, as y
ou will see from the steamship’s documents. Then the letter to Felix purports to be from a Parisian, a M. Le Gautier, and both it and the note pinned to the body were typed on French paper. Further, the label on the cask bore the name of a Paris firm.’
‘It does not seem to me very conclusive. The cask admittedly came from Paris, but might not Paris have been only the last stage of a longer journey? How, for example, do we know that it was not sent from London, or Brussels, or Berlin, in the first instance, and rebooked at Paris with the object of laying a false scent? With regard to the letter, I understand you did not see the envelope. Therefore it does not seem to be evidence. As for the French paper, Felix had been frequently in France, and he might be responsible for that. The label, again, was a re-addressed old one. Might it not therefore have been taken off some quite different package and put on the cask?’
‘I admit the evidence is far from conclusive, though it might be said in answer to your first point about the re-addressing of the cask in Paris, that such would involve a confederate here. In any case it seemed to both our Chief and myself that Paris should be our first point of inquiry.’
‘But yes, monsieur, in that I entirely agree. I only wished to make the point that you have no real evidence that the solution of the problem lies here.’
‘I’m afraid we have not.’
‘Well, to proceed. As you have suggested, the first point is to ascertain if any one resembling the dead woman has disappeared recently. Your doctor says that she has been dead for a week or longer, but I do not think that we can confine our inquiries to that period only. She might have been kidnapped and held a prisoner for a considerable time previous to her death. I should say that it is not likely, but it may have happened.’
He lifted his telephone, pressing another button.
‘Bring me the list of disappearances of persons in the Paris area during the last four weeks, or rather’—he stopped and looked at the others—‘the disappearances in all France for the same period.’
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