by Sapper
“I asked Jimmy what he made of it, and he shrugged his shoulders.
“‘When I get back to the hotel,’ he said, ‘I’ll try and make a rough translation of this other document. I know a certain amount of Russian, and I may be able to get the gist of it.’
“He left me the instant we got back, and went to his room, whilst I awaited him here. One hour passed, two – and then he came.”
Once again she paused and the two men craned forward eagerly.
“M’sieurs,” she said deliberately, “I have never seen anyone in such a state of suppressed excitement. He was like a man in a fever: he paced up and down the room like a maniac.
“‘God!’ he exclaimed again and again, ‘if only I could get the rest of those papers.’
“At length he calmed down a little, and threw himself into a chair.
“‘A plot,’ he said, ‘the like of which out-Vernes Jules Verne himself. And I’m only on the fringe of it. Or is it the wild fantasy of a diseased brain?’
“Once more he began pacing up and down, talking half to himself.
“‘It’s possible… Given the organisation it’s possible… And the will to carry it through… Listen, Marie, I have made a rough translation of that paper. I cannot tell even you what it is; the whole thing is too gigantic – too incredible. It might put you in peril yourself. But I must leave for Paris tonight, and then return to England.’
“Naturally,” she continued, “I was very disappointed, but I made no effort to dissuade him. To do so would have been wrong, for with a man duty must always come first. But I went with him to the station to see him off. And as he was stowing his baggage in the sleeper I happened to look along the train. Getting into another coach were the Pilofskys; there was no mistaking that woman even at a distance. So I told Jimmy, and his face became grave.
“‘I wonder if that means he still suspects me,’ he said.
“‘I don’t see how he can,’ I answered, though I was wondering the same thing myself.
“And then just as the train was starting, he leant out of the window.
“If by any chance something happens to me,’ he said, ‘will you remember one thing? Sealed fruit tins.’”
“Sealed how much?” ejaculated Drummond incredulously.
“Sealed fruit tins,” she repeated. “M’sieur, I was as amazed as you. I stared at him with my mouth open, almost wondering if he’d taken leave of his senses. And then the train steamed out, and I returned here. Which is all, messieurs, that I can tell you.” She sighed. “Poor Jimmy!”
For a space there was silence, whilst Drummond stared at Standish, and Standish stared at Drummond. The same thought was in both their minds: was the woman trying to pull their legs? All the first part of her story had the genuine ring of truth: but the climax was so utterly bizarre, so apparently fatuous that it had acted like a douche of cold water.
“You have no idea what he meant by this strange remark, Madame?” said Standish after a while.
“Mais non, m’sieu,” she cried. “It was as incomprehensible to me then as it is to you now.”
“There was no little joke that had arisen between you during your acquaintanceship that could account for it,” he persisted.
“Monsieur Standish,” she said with a certain hauteur, “is this the moment I would choose to mention little jokes?”
“I apologise, Madame. But you will, I am sure, agree that the remark seems so meaningless that I was trying to exhaust the possibilities of there being some commonplace explanation. But if there is none then it is quite certain that the words have a definite significance. And what that significance is, it must be our job to find out.”
Madame Pélain lit a cigarette.
“Both of you are also in the Secret Service?” she asked quietly.
“Something of the sort,” admitted Standish with a smile.
“Then you realise that it is tantamount to signing your death-warrant if you proceed.”
“Our death-warrants have been signed so often in the past, Madame,” said Drummond cheerfully, “that we keep carbon copies to save trouble. As a matter of interest, however, why are you so very pessimistic?”
She looked at him gravely.
“If it was worthwhile murdering one man because he was in possession of certain information, it is worth while murdering two. And the fact that in reality you have not got that information won’t help you, if it becomes known that you have met me. So far as the other side is concerned, they have no idea what Jimmy told me. He might have told me everything, and I might have passed it on to you.”
“That is true, Madame,” agreed Standish. “What alarms me, however, far more than that, is the possibility that you may be in danger.”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Fortunately, m’sieur, I am a fatalist. I don’t know if you have been out East; if so you will understand. Tid apa. Nothing matters. Jimmy was a dear; I liked him immensely. And if I can do anything to bring his murderer to book, you can count on me.”
“Good for you, Madame,” cried Drummond approvingly. “At the same time, speaking on behalf of all my sex, please be careful.”
She flashed him a swift smile.
“Merci, m’sieu,” she murmured. “Vous êtes gentil. But what,” she continued, becoming practical again, “do you propose to do now?”
“That requires a little thought,” said Standish. “At the moment, it doesn’t seem to me that there is much more to be found out here.”
“I suppose, Madame,” put in Drummond suddenly, “that you have never met a man called Charles Burton on the Riviera? He was staying at Nice recently.”
She shook her head.
“I do not recall the name,” she said. “Burton: no. Do you know at what hotel he put up?”
“I have no idea,” answered Drummond. “Though one should have no difficulty in finding that out. He is a gentleman of great wealth, who would certainly stop at one of the best.”
“Is he involved in this matter?”
“We do not know,” said Drummond. “We think that possibly he may be. He was at Nice while Jimmy was here.”
“Jimmy never mentioned him to me.”
“There was no reason why he should. I doubt if he even knew the man. Well, Ronald,” he went on, “I think we have kept Madame up quite long enough. What about a spot of bed?”
The two men rose.
“One minute before you go,” she said. “With regard to this Mr Burton. There is a man in Nice – an Englishman – who has made it his headquarters for years. He is a strange character; very intelligent; very cultured; very cosmopolitan. But if anybody can give you information about any well-known visitor, he can. His name is Humphrey Gasdon, and he lives at the Negresco. If you like you can easily meet him.”
“It must be done with great discretion, Madame,” said Standish. “The last thing we want is even a hint that Charles Burton is anything but what he professes to be.”
“But why should there be any hint? Go, tomorrow, and lunch at the Negresco. Humphrey is invariably in the bar before lunch. Equally invariably does he talk to all and sundry whom he meets there. Mention that you come from this hotel in the most casual manner, and he will almost certainly ask if you know me…”
“Which we don’t, Madame,” cut in Standish. “Don’t forget that. So far as is humanly possible we wish to keep you out of this. Tomorrow we meet as strangers.”
He paused suddenly, staring at Drummond.
“What is it, Hugh?”
Moving with the silence of a cat, Drummond was crossing towards the door that led to Madame Pélain’s bedroom. Crouched double, he flung it open, and even as he did so, there came the sound of the door leading into the corridor being closed.
He darted across the room, and opened
it. The corridor was empty, but just opposite the splash of water proclaimed that someone was turning on a late bath.
He returned to the sitting-room and his face was grave.
“Too late for that pretence, Ronald,” he said. “Someone has been listening.”
“Their espionage system is certainly efficient,” remarked Standish after a pause, watching Drummond who had gone to the sitting-room door and was peering out.
“Still running the water,” he said. “This complicates matters,” he continued, coming back into the room.
“It’s obviously a guest or an employé of the hotel,” said Standish thoughtfully. “Have you noticed anyone particularly these last two or three days, Madame?”
She shook her head.
“Because it is clearly you who are being watched. The same as in London, Hugh. They got on to us there through the Chief: they’ve got on to us here through Madame.”
“But, m’sieur,” she cried, “have you no inkling at all as to who ‘they’ are?”
“Not the faintest, Madame,” he answered. “But they are thorough in their methods, to put it mildly.”
“In any case it simplifies one thing,” she said quietly. “Since they know you have met me I shall come with you openly to Nice tomorrow for lunch. I do not like being spied upon from my bedroom.”
She rose and held out her hand.
“Good night, messieurs. You must assuredly be tired after your long run.”
With a nod and a charming smile she dismissed them, and for a moment or two they stood talking in low tones outside her door. The bath was still occupied and Drummond eyed the door longingly.
“I would greatly like to see the occupant,” he muttered.
“So would I,” agreed Standish. “What do you make of her, Hugh?”
“Genuine,” said Drummond promptly. “I believe every word she said. I hope to Heaven she’s in no danger.”
“She is sure to lock her door,” answered Standish. “Anyway, old boy, I’m practically asleep as it is. We’ll make discreet enquiries from Monsieur Lidet tomorrow, and see if we can get a line on the listener. Night-night.”
He opened his door, and Drummond went on to his own room, where he unpacked his bag. Then he undressed and got into bed, to find that all desire for sleep had left him. Light was streaming into his room through a frosted glass window over the door, and he grew more and more wide awake. And then the light went out: save for a faint glimmer from a street lamp outside, the room was in darkness.
From across the road came the low murmur of the sea: except for that the night was silent as the tomb. Occasionally the leaves of an acacia tree outside his window rustled in a fitful eddy of wind, and once a belated motor passed the hotel at speed. Cannes slept: at length he began to feel drowsy himself.
Suddenly he sat up in bed: a dim, flickering light was illuminating the glass above the door. It moved jerkily, increasing in power: then it died away again, and in a flash Drummond was putting on his dressing-gown. Somebody was moving in the passage outside carrying a torch or a candle.
He crossed to the door, and with infinite care he opened it and peered out. And what he saw made him draw in his breath sharply.
Some way along the corridor a circle of light was shining on a keyhole – a keyhole into which a hand was inserting a key. And the keyhole was that of Madame Pélain’s bedroom.
Not for an instant did he hesitate. The possibility of his appearance on the scene proving embarrassing he dismissed as absurd: if Madame was entertaining anyone she would hardly expect him to pick the lock. And so it transpired that the owner of the hand, though blissfully unconscious of the fact, had behind him, two seconds later, a foe more dangerous far than anything he had ever imagined in his wildest dreams.
At length the key turned, and inch by inch the hand pushed the door open. Then the torch illuminated the bed, and there came a sigh of relief. Madame, breathing a trifle heavily, was fast asleep.
The torch moved forward: still she did not stir, even when it halted by the bed. And then things happened quickly. For the hand that had held the key now held a stiletto, and even as it was raised to strike, a scream like a rabbit caught by a stoat, came from its owner’s throat.
The dagger and torch dropped from nerveless fingers and still Madame slept. Came a crack and a howl of agony, and the room was flooded with light. And the owner of the hand, the arm of which was now broken, stared fascinated at the terror which had come on him out of the night – a terror which had just been joined by a companion.
“I heard the commotion, Hugh,” said Standish. “What’s the trouble?”
“Attempted murder,” answered Drummond, picking up an empty tumbler from beside the bed and sniffing it. “Drugged,” he said laconically.
“Who is this little swine?”
“The would-be murderer. I’ve just broken his arm. Well, you rat, who and what are you?”
The man scowled and said nothing.
“Ring the bell, Ronald,” said Drummond. “Presumably there’s a night porter about. We must get Lidet up.”
At length a sleepy-eyed individual came padding along the corridor in carpet slippers, and he was promptly despatched to rouse the manager. Fortunately no one else seemed to have been awakened by the noise, and when Monsieur Lidet arrived a few minutes later he found the two Englishmen leaning up against the door smoking.
“I fear, monsieur,” said Drummond, with a smile, “that we are rather stormy petrels.”
“But what has happened?” cried the little man.
“That engaging feller over there endeavoured to murder Madame Pélain, having previously drugged her, with the stiletto you see on the floor.”
“Murder Madame,” stammered the manager. “But it is Louis – one of the floor waiters.”
“Nice pleasant manners he’s got,” said Drummond. “Very suitable for bringing one’s breakfast.”
“You vile scoundrel,” cried Monsieur Lidet in a frenzy. “Have you nothing to say?”
“I should think he’s got a lot,” remarked Drummond. “But he doesn’t seem to want to say it.”
“Villain, dastardly villain.” The manager was almost beside himself with rage. “What did you want to murder Madame for?”
The man shook his head sullenly, and then a groan burst from his lips.
“I broke his arm for him,” explained Drummond. “Well, m’sieur, I suggest that you send for the police. Perhaps they will loosen his tongue. And since Madame may wake at any moment, I suggest also that we await their arrival somewhere else. It might embarrass her to find cohorts of men in the room.” They went down to the lounge, where he turned to the waiter. “And if you try to bolt, you scum, I’ll break your other arm.”
But there was no fight left in the would-be murderer; he sat dejectedly in a chair with his eyes fixed on the ground awaiting the gendarmes.
“What do you make of it, Ronald?” said Drummond in a low voice.
“It’s clear that the motive was not robbery,” answered Standish. “Having drugged her, there was no need to murder her if that was the case. I’m inclined to think, old boy, that it was an attempt to kill two birds with one stone.”
“You mean–”
“I mean that if Madame Pélain had been found dead when she was called tomorrow morning, you and I would have been in a very awkward position. We were the last people to be with her: our arrival at the hotel and our whole interview with her was unusual. And I think we should have found ourselves very seriously inconvenienced by enquiries.”
“I’m afraid we still shall,” said Drummond.
“Not if we can persuade Lidet to keep his mouth shut. There is no doubt, of course, that it was Louis you heard in her bedroom, and there is no doubt that it is our arrival here and our interview with her that has cau
sed the whole thing. But I don’t see why we should tell the police all that – at any rate, at present.”
“He may speak.” Drummond jerked his thumb at the waiter.
“On the other hand he may not. If, as seems fairly obvious, we are up against some powerful organisation, he may be frightened to tell the truth. Here is Lidet.”
“The police are coming at once,” said the manager as he joined them. “It is a terrible thing this, gentlemen.”
“It might have been very much worse, m’sieur,” answered Standish. “Thanks to Captain Drummond no harm has actually been done. Which brings me to a request I am going to make to you. Had Madame Pélain been murdered it would, of course, have been impossible to keep back anything. But since she is unharmed I am going to ask you not to mention what we told you last night about Major Latimer.”
“You think there is a connection between the two things?”
“Undoubtedly. Otherwise the coincidence would be too incredible. We are moving in deep waters, M’sieur Lidet: how deep neither Captain Drummond nor I have at present any idea. But it will seriously hinder our enquiries if what we have told you is made public.”
The manager looked doubtful.
“But is it fair to Madame?”
“Let us leave that until Madame can answer the question herself,” suggested Standish.
“What then will you say?”
“The truth – so far as it goes. That Captain Drummond being wakeful, heard a sound in the corridor and looked out of his room. He saw Madame’s door being opened, and fearing foul play he dashed along just in time to avert a brutal crime. Believe me, m’sieur,” he continued earnestly, “there is much at stake. We are only on the fringe of things at the moment, and it is vital that we should remain free to carry on our investigations. As I said to Captain Drummond, I am sure that one object of the attempted crime was to incriminate us. Had it succeeded he and I would have been in a nasty hole. And that is why I don’t want a word said which will enlarge the scope of the police enquiry. Let it remain what it appears to be on the surface – an inexplicable attempt at murder.”