by Sapper
“Very good, gentlemen,” said the manager. “I will do as you ask. But only on the condition that Madame, when she recovers from the effect of the drug, must be consulted.”
“Certainly,” answered Standish. “I quite agree with you. And now,” he continued to Drummond as the manager went forward to greet the police who had just arrived, “all we can hope for is that that little worm of a waiter keeps his mouth shut.”
Which was precisely what he did do. No amount of cross-questioning – an art at which the French police are adept – had the smallest effect. He maintained an air of sullen silence, which even threats could not shake.
And at length he was removed in custody by the two gendarmes, while the sergeant remained behind at the hotel to make a search through his belongings. This, too, proved abortive: nothing of the smallest interest was discovered. In fact the only information of any value came from the head waiter who had been fetched from his bed. According to him the man, Louis Fromac, was a good and reliable waiter in every way: he would have to be so in order to be promoted to a floor, which was always regarded as a prize.
But, though he never talked of such things in the hotel, he spent most of his leisure in a small inn, situated in the old part of the town, which was the headquarters of a revolutionary club. So far as he knew the members did no harm: they drank much wine and talked interminably.
“I, too, know that club,” said the sergeant. “It is the headquarters of the Communists in Cannes.” He shrugged his shoulders. “They shout at one another without waiting for an answer, and think they are rebuilding the world. No, gentlemen, the more I think of it the more do I believe that this is one of those strange sex crimes of which one hears from time to time. It is more a matter for a doctor than for the police. But I will return tomorrow morning when Madame is recovered, and see if perchance she can throw any light on his motive.”
He bowed to the three men, and left the hotel.
“His theory suits us, Hugh,” said Standish as they walked up the stairs. “And the one thing we’ve got to do is to get Madame’s ear before the worthy sergeant does his stuff.”
“Anything in this Communist business?” remarked Drummond thoughtfully.
“It seems to me to be the one ray in the darkness,” said Standish. “Though what the links are between Charles Burton, millionaire, and Louis Fromac, waiter, is a bit obscure.”
“Think so, Ronald? I don’t. The links are two sleepy Englishmen, one of whom, at any rate, is now going to bed. Night-night.”
CHAPTER 4
Fair Warning
Their luck was in next day. It seemed to Drummond that his head had only touched the pillow when he was awakened by a waiter with a note. It was from Madame Pélain.
“Please come to my sitting-room at once.”
The sun was pouring in at the window as he shaved rapidly, and then scrambled into his clothes. And as he stepped into the corridor he ran into Standish evidently bound on the same errand.
Madame was in a peignoir, and though pale she was completely self-possessed.
“There is no time to lose,” she began at once. “The sergeant of police is waiting below to see me. I have heard what has happened from Monsieur Lidet: I have heard, Captain Drummond, that I owe you my life. But the immediate point is, what am I to say to the sergeant? Lidet has told me the line you took up last night: is that what you want me to stick to?”
“It is, Madame,” said Standish promptly. The telephone jangled on the table, and she picked up the receiver.
“En cinq minutes,” she said.
“You wish me to profess complete ignorance as to the reason of this waiter’s action?”
“Please, Madame.”
“It was, of course, connected with Jimmy’s death and our interview last night.”
“I see no other possibility,” said Standish. “But with all due deference to the worthy sergeant, I think we are more likely to progress if he knows nothing about it.”
“Very good, messieurs. I will do as you say. It will be well now if you return to your rooms. We must not let the sergeant think that we have been arranging things. Come back in half an hour.”
They bowed and left her.
“A worthwhile ally, Ronald,” said Drummond. “I liked that prompt, unquestioning acquiescence. Come and bite a roll in my room.”
Standish poured himself out a cup of coffee and strolled over to the window.
“Worthwhile she may be, old boy,” he agreed, “but it complicates matters. I don’t quite know what we’re going to do about her. There are other Louis Fromacs, and next time you may not be awake.”
“You think they’ll have another dip at her?”
“We dare not risk them not doing so. Though everything depends, of course, on the motive behind the attempt on her life. If it was merely to involve us with the police, and keep us tied by the heels here for some days, then she would be safe the instant we leave Cannes. But if there was any question of revenge in the matter, or if they have decided that she knows too much, she won’t be safe wherever we are.”
“If it was a question of her knowing too much, why did they wait to strike? They could have doped her two nights ago.”
“That’s perfectly true.” Standish lit a cigarette. “And yet there is a certain Machiavellian cunning in getting at us through her which I should have said was a bit above a waiter’s form.”
“But, my dear fellow, Fromac is very small beer. He was only carrying out instructions.”
“When did he get ’em? No one knew we were coming here till we arrived.”
“Not you and I personally, I grant you. But they must have guessed that somebody would arrive here to pump the lady. At any rate they took precautions in case anybody did come. If they were wrong, and no one came, then she was safe. There was no point in murdering her unnecessarily. What is more,” continued Drummond, “it seems to me that there is no object in murdering her at all now. So far as they know we two are in possession of all the dope, so that getting her out of the way is merely bolting the stable door after the horse has hopped it. It’s you and I, old son, who will have to watch our step.”
“That’s nothing new,” said Standish with a grin. “I wonder who this man Gasdon is she wants us to meet,” he went on thoughtfully.
“What I wonder a darned sight more,” remarked Drummond, “is what poor old Jimmy meant by sealed fruit tins.”
There came a knock at the door, and Monsieur Lidet entered.
“None the worse, I trust, gentlemen,” he asked solicitously, “for your disturbed night?”
“Not a bit, thank you,” answered Drummond.
“Since the matter was bound to come out, I have let it be understood that the whole thing was an attempt on Madame’s jewels,” continued the manager. “It is as good a story as any other and it will satisfy the visitors. By the way, the sergeant is interrogating Madame now.”
“We have already seen Madame,” said Standish. “She has agreed to follow our suggestion as to what she tells him.”
“Then the condition I made is fulfilled, gentlemen. And as for me, my lips are sealed. But I confess to an overwhelming curiosity.”
“Which I can assure you we would gratify if we knew the answer ourselves,” said Standish frankly. “But we are every bit as much in the dark as you are. There is, perhaps, one thing you could do for us,” he added as an afterthought. “A Mr Charles Burton was stopping at Nice about a week or ten days ago. Could you find out at what hotel he was staying and when he left? He is a man of considerable wealth, and so it would probably be one of the biggest.”
“I will do so at once,” cried Monsieur Lidet. “I have below the listes des etrangers of the past month.”
He bustled out of the room, and a few moments later the telephone rang. Drummond answered it.
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br /> “Thank you, m’sieur,” he said when the voice ceased. “That is just what we wanted to know.”
He replaced the receiver.
“Burton stayed at the Ruhl for the inside of a fortnight,” he said. “He left last Friday.”
“Before the Pilofsky episode at Chez Paquay.”
“Exactly. Before that episode. It is, therefore, clear that Burton’s departure was quite unconnected with Jimmy getting those papers.”
“So that if Burton murdered him it was because of what he learned from Pilofsky.”
“Undoubtedly,” said Drummond. “Pilofsky followed Jimmy to Paris, and there told Burton what had happened. My hat! old man, those papers must have been important. Remember Pilofsky had no proof that Jimmy had got them. And yet the bare chance of his having them was enough for murder.”
“Jimmy’s sudden change of plan was suspicious. Pilofsky would have had no difficulty in tracing him to this hotel. He could have made enquiries from the driver of the car the instant he first suspected anything at Chez Paquay. Then it was easy money to discover that Jimmy, after taking on his room that very morning, had suddenly decided to leave. And a bloke who’s running round with a delightful woman like Madame Pélain doesn’t do that without a mighty good reason.”
Once again the telephone rang: this time it was the lady herself to say that the police had gone and that she would like to see them.
“First and foremost,” she said as they entered her sitting-room, “I want to thank you, Captain Drummond, for what you did.”
“It was nothing, Madame,” said Drummond lightly. “The astounding piece of luck was that I happened to be awake, in view of how infernally sleepy I’d felt a bit earlier on.”
“Even so, mon ami, not everyone would have troubled to get out of bed in the middle of the night as you did. However,” she added with a smile, “it is not difficult to see that you are the type of man who would loathe any further allusion to the subject.”
“You’re quite right there, Madame,” laughed Standish. “He might even blush.”
“And so,” she continued, “let’s come to the next point. What do we do now?”
The laugh faded: Standish looked at her gravely.
“Madame,” he said, “there is no good in beating about the bush. Last night’s events prove conclusively that we are up against a powerful and dangerous organisation. What that organisation is it is Captain Drummond’s and my job to try and find out. With you, however, it is a different matter altogether. You have become mixed up in it by a sheer accident, and to be perfectly frank I do not see that you can help us any more. You have told us all you know, and it merely means that you are running an unnecessary risk by remaining here.”
“What then do you suggest that I should do?” she asked quietly.
“Disappear, at any rate temporarily,” answered Standish. “Go on a motor tour; anything you like. It will be necessary for us to remain here for a day or two over this Fromac affair, but then we shall be returning to England ourselves. And I know that we shall both feel easier in our minds if we know you are safe.”
“What about Humphrey Gasdon?” she asked.
“The main object in meeting him has gone,” said Standish. “We have found out from Lidet about Charles Burton. He left the Ruhl in Nice last Friday. From there he went to Paris.”
“Nevertheless,” she said thoughtfully, “I would like you to meet Humphrey. I have a feeling, Mr Standish, that he can help you. As I told you last night he is a strange man, with an almost uncanny knowledge of all sorts of strange things.”
“Well, Madame,” remarked Standish, “from what you said there should be no difficulty in making his acquaintance at the bar.”
“None. For all that, I think I will come too. Stop, please,” she said with a smile as Standish started to protest. “Your solicitude for my safety is very sweet and I appreciate it. But I am not going to run away from here because a miserable waiter tries to stab me. And that being the case I, personally, shall lunch with Humphrey today. I want his opinion on this strange attempt on my life. You and Captain Drummond must, of course, please yourselves. But should you happen to be in the bar of the Negresco at twelve o’clock today we could doubtless all lunch together.”
“We capitulate, Madame,” laughed Standish. “So may we have the pleasure of taking you over?”
“Enchanté, m’sieu. I will be in the lounge at eleven-thirty.”
“What about a leg-stretcher?” said Drummond as they went down the stairs, but Standish shook his head.
“Not for me, old boy. Developments in this affair are so rapid that a full report to the Chief is indicated.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” said Drummond. “Thank God! no one can read my writing, so get to it, my trusty old comrade.”
He strolled through the open door and across the promenade. The sea was at its bluest, and for a while he stood, with eyes half closed, accustoming himself to the glare. To the right behind the Casino lay the harbour full of yachts of all sizes, and after a time he sauntered in that direction. How often, he reflected savagely, must Jimmy have taken the same stroll!
By the door of the Casino he paused: should he go in and have a look at the papers? He decided he would and, after getting the Continental Daily Mail from the reading-room, he threw himself into an easy chair by the big window in the bar.
The place was almost empty, and beckoning to the barman he ordered some beer. And it was while he was consuming it, resignedly – in Drummond’s estimation, French beer was an outrage on public decency, and a probable cause of civil riot – that he noticed two men standing by the door in earnest conversation. And suddenly one of them glanced at him, only to look away immediately on catching his eye.
A faint smile twitched round his lips: some more developments for Standish. Then from behind his paper he waited the next move.
It came shortly. One man left the place; the other having given an order to the barman, came over to the window and took the easy chair next to his.
“Captain Drummond, I believe,” he began without any preamble.
“Your belief is correct,” said Drummond. “Though I fear you have the advantage of me.”
“My name is quite immaterial,” remarked the stranger, lighting a cigarette. “From what happened at the hotel last night I gather that you are a man of prompt action. Am I right?”
Drummond stared at him thoughtfully.
“Let us proceed on that assumption,” he said.
“Good. I am going to suggest a very prompt action to you now.”
Drummond raised his eyebrows.
“Very kind of you,” he drawled. “I am agog with excitement.”
“It is,” continued the man calmly, “that you quit this place, and go on quitting. That you disappear entirely from the haunts of men, you and your friend – and hide yourselves, where not even your wife, if you have one, can find you.”
“Splendid,” cried Drummond, pouring out some more beer. “May I ask why you suggest those somewhat drastic manoeuvres?”
“For the simple reason that if you don’t do what I say you will be killed as surely as night follows day. You laugh, but I can assure you, Captain Drummond, that it is no laughing matter. I myself am running a grave risk in talking to you. But I disapprove of life being taken unless it is unavoidable. And so I am warning you: disappear. For you have no more chance of escaping, if you continue on your present line, than a moth has of coming alive out of a killing-bottle.”
“My dear fellow, your solicitude for my safety is as touching as your simile is apt. What, precisely, may I ask, is my present line?”
“You are out here in connection with the death of Major Latimer,” answered the man quietly. “Further enquiries on that subject can only result in your own. So if you take my advice you will
beat it while the going is good.”
The man drained his glass and rose to his feet.
“I can assure you,” he went on, “that I am not exaggerating. I am speaking honest, unvarnished truth. You are meddling in things of the magnitude of which even I have only a hazy idea. And if you go on doing so you will die with the utmost certainty. Good morning.”
“It would be a much better one if this beer wasn’t so foul,” said Drummond. “However, I’m much obliged to you for our entertaining little chat.”
He watched the man till he was out of sight: then he beckoned to the bar-tender.
“Have you any idea who that gentleman was?” he asked.
“None at all, sir,” said the barman. “I’ve never seen him before.”
Drummond lit a cigarette, and lay back in his chair. That the man had been in earnest he had no doubt. The quiet way in which he had spoken, the complete absence of any truculence or threats, proved that. And the calm assurance with which he had mentioned Jimmy Latimer showed that he had reliable inside information.
It was very decent of the man, reflected Drummond. What he had said about the risk he ran himself was in all probability correct. And he had done it for an absolute stranger. The point to be decided, however, was what notice, if any, should be taken of the warning.
All through his long and troublous career, there was one mistake Drummond had never committed: he had never underestimated his opponents. And the extreme efficiency of the staff work on the other side, in this case, showed that it was doubly important not to do so now.
The difficulty lay in the fact that neither Standish nor he knew who those opponents were, whereas they themselves were marked down. As things stood at the moment, the dice were heavily loaded against them.
Moreover, he failed to see how that state of affairs could be rectified unless they actually did what the stranger had recommended – disappear.
Suddenly he saw Standish strolling along the road outside, and knocking on the window he beckoned him in.