Death on the Riviera (14 page)

“And you find out that your theory was right…how?” asked Blampignon.

“From Beaulieu we drove direct to Mrs. Hedderwick's. In the garage-yard there we found an identical boulder employed in exactly the same way. You see the beautiful simplicity of it all? Bourmin slips the empty boulder into the Rolls—probably under the driving-seat or some other suitable spot. After dropping the Malloys at the front-door, he parks the Rolls in the garage-yard at the rear of the villa. There he substitutes the empty boulder for the one that Shenton has placed ready for him. Doubtless Latour was responsible for conveying the empty containers from the villa to the boat—presumably in the rucksack that, according to Miss Westmacott, he used for carrying his painting gear. As I see it, there was a chain of boulders kept in continuous motion. Villa to boat, boat to shore, shore back to Villa Paloma, Paloma to Valdeblore, Valdeblore back to Paloma and so on and so on.” Meredith paused, pulled out a handkerchief, mopped his brow and turned with a triumphant expression to his French
confrères.
“Well, gentlemen, that's our story and we hope you like it. Now before we drive down to the
Hirondelle
are there any—?”

There was a rap on the door.

“
Entrez!
” sang out Gibaud.

A constable entered.

“
Pour M'sieur Meredith.
”

He held out the cablegram which had been sent round post-haste to the Commissariat by the manager of the Hotel Louis.

“Ah, thanks,” nodded Meredith. “I was expecting this.” Adding the moment the constable had closed the door: “A little enquiry I made at the Yard concerning our friend Shenton.” Hastily slitting open the envelope, he scanned the enclosed message and emitted a low whistle. “Well, well—what do you know? Just listen to this, gentlemen—
Reference
your enquiry stop person in question served six months Wormwood Scrubs 1939 stop theft West-end night-club stop charged under name referred your cable but at time trial suspected to be alias stop this never proved stop.
” Meredith glanced round with a self-satisfied smile, slipped the cablegram back into the envelope and thrust it in his pocket. “So my feelings about that young fellow weren't misplaced. As I suspected, a Bad Hat. I felt sure I'd seen his face before and I probably had…in the Rogues' Gallery at the Yard!” Meredith paused to relight his pipe, then added: “Now before we drive down to the
Hirondelle,
are there any questions, gentlemen?”

“
Mais oui,
” nodded Blampignon. “Just one little question. This figure in the cloak—you say Gibaud here suspect that it is a woman. And by the way you say it,
mon ami,
I think you do not agree, eh?”

“I do not!” said Meredith emphatically. “And for one very good reason. Now that we know for certain that the notes were being run off the press aboard the launch, I'm convinced that Latour's companion was a man.”

“A man?” asked Blampignon impatiently. “But what man?”

“A man who was indispensable to the working of that press. A man upon whose expert knowledge and technical skill Latour would be forced to rely. The king-pin, in fact, of the whole shady set-up.”

“
Sacré nom!
” exclaimed Blampignon, with an upward roll of his dark expressive eyes. “‘Chalky' Cobbett himself!”

“Exactly,” smiled Meredith. “The gentleman I was sent down here to collect.”

II

“Well,” called down Meredith from the quayside, “any luck, m'lads?”

Blampignon stuck a flushed and sheepish face out of the cabin-door and, glancing up at his tormentor, shook his fist.

“One half of an hour and we find nothing—nothing,
mon vieux! C'est incroyable.
But I have no more patience to continue the search. You have had your little laugh, perhaps?”

“And how!” chuckled Meredith maliciously. He nodded to Strang, who was squatting on a nearby bollard. “O.K. Let's get aboard and put 'em out of their misery.”

Dropping lightly on to the deck of the launch, Meredith and Strang, followed by the two French Inspectors, passed through into the for'ard cabin. There Meredith flicked on his pocket-torch and opened up a dark, deeply-recessed locker let into the starboard side of the boat beyond the double-tiered berths. Motioning his colleagues forward, Meredith announced with a dramatic flourish of his hand:

“
Voilà, messieurs!
The answer to the mystery!”

“The fresh-water tank!” exclaimed Gibaud. “But confound it, we lifted the lid and looked inside it. The darn thing's brimful of water.”

“That's what
we
thought,” admitted Meredith. “I even shone my torch inside to make sure. If I hadn't done so, we'd still be groping, eh, Strang?”

“You mean you see something strange about the tank that awake your suspicion?” asked Blampignon.

Meredith shook his head.

“No—even then I spotted nothing odd about it.”

“Then how the devil…?” began Gibaud, bewildered.

“My torch slipped out of my hand and fell into the water—that's all.” Meredith groped in his pocket and pulled out a chip of stone that he'd picked up on the quayside. He handed it to Blampignon. “Just drop this in and watch carefully, my dear fellow.”

As Meredith directed the rays of his torch down into the tank, Blampignon dropped the stone into it with a gentle plop. It descended for about eighteen inches and then, as if affected by some incalculable freak of gravity, appeared to remain suspended in the water.

“But,
mon Dieu!
” exclaimed Blampignon, “it is not natural! What is the explanation?”

“This,” said Meredith curtly.

Reaching forward, whilst Strang kept the lid hinged back as far as it would go, Meredith cautiously gripped the rim of the tank and lifted out the false tank that was cunningly fitted into the top of the receptacle. Beneath it was a deep recess, insulated from the outer sides of the tank by a kind of four-inch water-jacket. Inside this recess was the printing-press!

“Good heavens!” cried Gibaud. “No wonder we didn't tumble to it. We sounded the tank, of course, to make sure that it wasn't hollow.”

“Quite,” nodded Meredith. “And you suspected nothing because of this ingenious idea of fitting a second smaller tank inside the first and filling the space between 'em with water. We got caught the same way. We've certainly got to hand it to ‘Chalky', because I'll wager a week's wages that he was the blighter who hit on the idea. All he and Latour had to do was to lift the press out of the recess, print off the notes, lift the press back in again and refit this tray of water into the top of the tank. I imagine the base of the tray escaped our attention because the light of the torch was reflected from the surface of the water and acted as a blinder. At any rate, that's how the trick was worked. And the only outstanding problem we've got on our hands is this—where the deuce is ‘Chalky' Cobbett? Find the answer to that one and we're all set, I imagine, to pull in the wanted men.”

Chapter XV

The Shuffling Cockney

I

Back once more in Gibaud's office the little group of officials went into another extended huddle. They still had to decide on the best scheme for the arrest of the wanted men. In Meredith's opinion it would be fatal to pull in Shenton and Bourmin before they'd discovered the whereabouts of Latour and the elusive “Chalky”. It was certain the couple would get to hear of the arrests, and, the moment they had, they'd melt away like a couple of snowflakes on a griddle. True, Latour had already cleared out of the villa because he suspected the police had learnt something of the gang's activities—but even Latour had no precise idea of just how much the police had succeeded in finding out. After all, hadn't he taken the launch out
after
his flit from the villa? And hadn't Shenton collected the latest batch of forged notes only that morning? Latour and Cobbett might be on their guard. They might even lie low for a period. But it was obvious that, at present, they'd no intention of abandoning their very profitable enterprise. As for Bourmin and Shenton, they were still blissfully ignorant of the fact that they'd come under suspicion. They had absolutely no reason to suspect that they'd been linked up either with the racket or with each other.

“So what is it you have to suggest,
mon ami?
” asked Blampignon, after an exhaustive discussion of this somewhat ticklish problem.

“Well, it's not for me to say, my dear chap. The actual arrests are
your
pidgin. But weighing up the pros and cons I'm against any immediate action. Risky, I admit. If we postpone the arrests of Bourmin and Shenton, say, for forty-eight hours, then we stand a chance, in the interim, of laying our hands on Latour and Cobbett. On the other hand if Bourmin and Shenton
do
happen to find out that we've got a line on 'em, then this very delay would enable them to get cracking while the going's still good. There's always a chance that they might pick up information about our recent investigations in the district—our interest in the
Hirondelle,
for example. It boils down to this. If we delay a couple of days we stand a chance of pulling in all four of 'em—or, if our luck's out, of allowing the whole boiling to slip through our fingers. That's our problem in a nutshell. But I must leave the final decision to you and Gibaud.”

“
Eh bien,
” nodded Blampignon, still obviously vacillating. “What is your idea about this, Gibaud?”

Gibaud shrugged.

“Two birds in the hand are worth four in the bush,” he declared with an oracular air. “On the other hand…I'm pretty sure Meredith's got the right idea. Yes—take it all round, I'm for delaying the arrests.”

“
Bon!
” exclaimed Blampignon, his good-natured face suddenly wreathed in smiles. “Then I will agree to it. We will allow ourselves forty-eight hours in which to find Latour and Cobbett. It is what you call a long shot, eh? But,
tiens!
That is how we will decide.”

Unrealized by the little group in Gibaud's office, it was a decision that was to bear in its train many unexpected and unhappy consequences.

II

Before separating for lunch the Inspectors decided on the line of their future investigation. Gibaud made himself responsible for the day and night watch that was to be kept on
L'Hirondelle.
He'd already drawn up a duty roster and detailed a couple of plain-clothes men from the local force to carry out the job. The extended search for Latour and Cobbett was to be undertaken by Gibaud himself, in concert with Meredith and Strang. They arranged to meet at the Commissariat at two o'clock.

After a hasty lunch, therefore, the Englishmen found themselves once again in Gibaud's office deep in discussion.

“I don't know how you feel about it,” said Meredith, “but in my opinion, we ought to make a house-to-house comb-out along the waterfront. At least, for a start. After all, if ‘Chalky's' been making frequent trips aboard the launch, it's pretty well certain that he must have his hide-out in the vicinity of the harbour. Far easier and far less risky if he was more or less on the spot. Agreed?”

Gibaud nodded.

“And our Number One Priority, I imagine, is the Maison Turini. We know Latour's been making contact there with old Madame Grignot, the
concierge.
And since birds of a feather—”

“Exactly,” cut in Meredith. “There's a fair chance that ‘Chalky's' been very successfully tucked away in one of the apartments—either by himself or with some unsuspecting family in the tenement. Well, there's our starting-point, my dear chap. If we draw a blank there, we'll damn well search every likely house and café along the quayside.”

A swift run in the car brought them to the Quai de Bonaparte, and a few minutes later, after a further exhaustive cross-examination of Madame Grignot, their search of the building was under way. It was a long and arduous task demanding infinite tact and patience. The onus of the work naturally fell on Gibaud since all the various interrogations had to be carried on in French—but Meredith and Strang were by no means idle. Not only was it necessary to cross-question the inmates of the various apartments, but a thorough search of every likely hiding-place was equally essential. After all, Latour might have bribed some occupant to keep his or her mouth shut about the presence of the wanted man, and their knock on the door might have sent the fellow scuttling into some prearranged place of concealment.

From the first floor they moved up to the second; from the second to the third and fourth; from the fourth to the extensive cellars that formed a kind of semi-basement to the building.
En route
Mam'selle Chounet was, for the second time, put through the hoop. But she, like Madame Grignot and every other occupant of the place, swore that she'd never seen anybody answering to “Chalky's” description either in or near the Maison Turini. At the end of three hours' solid and unremitting labour they were forced to admit that they'd got precisely nowhere!

Dropping into a nearby café for a hasty snack and a well-deserved
apéritif
they set out to extend their enquiries along the Quai de Bonaparte. Two hours later, depressed and wilting, they moved along to the Quai Laurenti. But always to be met with the same blank stares and emphatic headshakes; the same negative answers and infuriating irrelevances. For a chap who must have been passing constantly up and down the quayside on his way to and from
L'Hirondelle,
probably for weeks on end, “Chalky” Cobbett appeared to have taken on the miraculous attributes of the Invisible Man! In brief—nobody had seen him in the district, far less spoken to him or made his acquaintance. What was more, nobody had ever heard any gossip about the fellow.

It was this last factor that really puzzled Meredith. “Chalky” may have been a topline forger, but he was certainly no linguist. It would be utterly impossible for him to conceal the fact that he was English, or at any rate a foreigner. Moreover, “Chalky” was a pint-sized sort of chap—a little over five feet in his socks—with that dead white complexion which had originally earned him his nickname. And if an undersized, white-faced little rat of a foreigner could have been wandering about this district for weeks on end without causing comment then something was very definitely screwy. There seemed to be only one logical answer to the enigma. “Chalky” hadn't been noticed along the waterfront for the very simple reason that he'd
not
been living near the harbour. In short, their investigations had been a damnable waste of time!

It was long after dusk before the three officials retraced their steps along the Quai Laurenti and headed for the parked car. Jaded, leg-weary, and disheartened, they spoke little as they jogged by the garishly-lit little shops and cafés that shouldered each other along the gently curving waterfront. Even for a Mediterranean night the air was exceptionally clear and balmy. Quite a number of people were strolling up and down the broad pavements or sitting over their drinks at the little marble-topped tables outside the cafés. Pausing a moment to light his pipe, Meredith temporarily dropped behind his companions, who, busy with their own reflections, plodded on towards the car.

The Inspector was just flicking out the spent match, when a small boy, chased by an irate, gesticulating woman, shot out of a nearby
pâtisserie
like a greyhound from a trap. In view of the lad's violently masticating jaws, it was pretty obvious that the owner had caught him pilfering her stock-in-trade. His precipitate appearance on the pavement resulted in a head-on collision with a bent, wizened little man who was shuffling by the shop with his eyes seemingly fixed on the ground. The outcome of the impact, from Meredith's point-of-view, was startling. In a flash of ill-temper the little fellow made a wild attempt to fetch the urchin a clout on the head.

“'Ere! Watch aht!—blast yer!”

In the circumstances this censure was admittedly justifiable but why the devil, wondered Meredith, had the old man lashed out in English? English, moreover, that had about it the unmistakable clipped and nasal twang of the Cockney? He swung round sharply and took a closer look at the elderly white-bearded figure. Then he suffered a shock. There was no mistaking the man's features as, muttering under his breath, he started off again on his interrupted shuffle along the brightly-lit sidewalk. It was M'sieur Grignot—the half-witted husband of the
concierge
at the Maison Turini!

So Grignot could speak English, could he?
Cockney
English! And when the need arose his mind could work as quickly and clearly as the next man's. What the deuce did it mean? That Grignot's insanity was assumed? That the fellow, for all his mumbling and chuckling and head-nodding, was merely laying on an act?

And then, like a bolt from the blue, Meredith hit on the explanation for the old fellow's behaviour; a startling theory that whipped him into a mood of ever-mounting excitement. Good God, yes! It all added up. The simulated craziness; the inarticulate babblings; the uncomprehending glances—what better alibi for a man who wished to conceal his identity? Frenchman by name but Englishman by birth, eh? Simple to hide the fact that he couldn't speak or understand a word of French behind this façade of idiocy. And hadn't Latour been in the habit of paying regular visits to M'sieur and Madame Grignot in their little glass-fronted cubby-hole? And wasn't the Maison Turini within a stone's throw of the harbour? Above all, wasn't this M'sieur Grignot a pocket-sized little chip of a chap, who displayed, in moments of forgetfulness, an easy command of Cockney vituperation?

By heaven, yes! There was absolutely no doubt about it. The search for the elusive “Chalky” was at an end. He could be picked up now whenever they wished at the Maison Turini!

III

By ten-thirty that evening, after a dash over to Nice, concerted plans had been worked out for the arrest of the wanted men. The dead-line was fixed for ten-thirty the following morning. Blampignon was to pick up Bourmin at Beaulieu, and a 'phone-call had been put through to Colonel Malloy at the Villa Valdeblore asking him to make sure that the chauffeur would be on the premises at the appointed time. Meredith, Strang and Gibaud were to deal with Cobbett at the Maison Turini; and, immediately after his arrest, they were to go direct to the Villa Paloma to pull in Shenton.

Over the providential and unexpected discovery of “Chalky's” whereabouts Blampignon was jubilant.

“You have no doubt about this,
mon ami?
There is no chance that we arrest an innocent man?”

Meredith shook his head emphatically.

“None whatever! The devil only knows why I didn't rumble the trick before. Of course the beard and the olive-skinned complexion helped to pull the wool over my eyes. His assumed craziness did the rest. Clever, you'll admit. Latour knew he could trust the old woman, and I imagine when he fixed for her to take up that
concierge
job at the Maison Turini, he kidded the owners of the place that she was actually married to this halfwit. All ‘Chalky' had to do as a preliminary was to let his beard grow and darken that dead-white pan of his with some suitable stain. The idea of acting ga-ga, of course, was to overcome the lingo difficulty and prevent people from asking awkward questions. Ourselves included! Neat, eh? Naturally when we made enquiries this afternoon to find out if anybody had seen or heard anything of a five-foot, white-faced Englishman in the district we drew a blank. But I'll wager every darn witness we questioned had seen Madame Grignot's crazy ‘husband' shuffling and muttering around the streets. If you ask me, ‘Chalky' had hit on the all but perfect alibi. If it hadn't been for that youngster…well, the chances are we'd still be groping. Bourmin, Shenton and now Cobbett. Three in the bag, eh? A pity we can't lay our hands on Latour. Can't bear to have loose ends lying around and Latour's one of 'em. However…” Meredith lifted his shoulders, “this looks like the wind-up of my assignment down here. And I don't mind telling you, my dear Blampignon, that I've enjoyed every minute of it. The
entente cordiale,
eh? I shall miss your sunny, Provençal smile back at the Yard!”