The Case of the Dead Diplomat (14 page)

“Very good indeed; that's the line to take. As you will have a lady with you during the latter part of Act I, you will find it easier to splash your money about. If you happen to notice me in the front row of the stalls, don't be tempted to wink at me!”

On his taxi-drive to the Café Veil, Cooper was a prey to the fear that all these well-laid plans might be brought to nought through the absence of the three miscreants, but as his driver swung round the corner to set him down, his heart beat fast, for he had caught sight of the trio seated at their former table. Paying his fare, he proceeded to swagger into the alley-way, and was conscious of the interest he was exciting, not only among his little party, but among all the occupied tables within ten yards of him. The waiter invited him to a table in the same section as that of the three. He gave his order. A few moments later, M. Verneuil made his appearance, accompanied by a striking-looking dame, not, it must be confessed, in her first youth, but admirably gowned and groomed. The ex-petty officer hesitated and looked puzzled. Cooper realized that his disguise was too perfect for recognition, but he dared not make a sign because his little group had begun to take an unhealthy interest in him. Fortunately the lady herself went straight to the only vacant table and sat down, and this gave Cooper an excuse for looking in her direction with the faintest suggestion of a wink, his face being turned away from Polowski and his friends. Verneuil took ceremonious leave of his fair companion and departed.

Cooper seemed to be quite an adept at ogling; he was glad to find that the lady was as well posted in her part as he—she kept glancing at him and looking away whenever he caught her eye. When his eye was elsewhere, she brought the full battery of her charms to bear on him. Presently, when there was no waiter within call, she took out a cigarette, fitted it into a holder, and felt in her bag for a light. She clicked her tongue petulantly and looked round for the waiter. Cooper sprang from his chair, and removing his wide-brimmed hat with a sweep, produced a lighter. The lady made use of it and thanked him with a gracious smile. Cooper pointed inquiringly to the vacant chair by her side; she begged him to be seated.

He found that she was quite a remarkable impersonator. While appearing to deal in all the arts of coquetry, her conversation would have greatly surprised Polowski and his friends if they could have overheard it.

“Are the people here?” she asked.

“Yes,” replied Cooper, playing up to her with an enamoured look. “I'll tell you where they're sitting; don't look round, because they're staring at us. They are at the third table at the back, beyond the alley-way.”

“The third table: I'll see them when we get up to go.”

“Have you worked long in connection with the detective service in Paris?”

“For several months, off and on, sometimes for M. Bigot, more often for M. Verneuil. He amuses me, that gentleman—a typical sailor. And you, monsieur? They tell me that you belong to your famous Scotland Yard of which we read in the
roman feuilleton
.”

“It is a great pleasure to an English detective to make the acquaintance of so astute a lady as yourself,” said Cooper gallantly. “Let me offer you an
apéritif
.”

“Thank you, monsieur. I have to keep to my regime; I've had the only beverage that I permit myself to take. Shall we put your friends over there to the test? If you will look across the street you will see a small jeweller's shop. I suggest that we pay the waiter and cross over to it. If your friends follow us, then our mission will have been successful; if not, we must try some other ruse. You wish to impress them with the idea that you are a reckless young Canadian with his pockets full of money, is it not so? Well, a rich young Canadian would naturally desire to give the lady of his choice some mark of his esteem. You, however, like myself, have no money to throw away, but it costs us nothing to enter a jeweller's and inquire the price of his wares. I have here a little box wrapped in paper which you will appear to have given me. Shall we go? I want to look at these gentlemen as I go out—the third table from the alley-way, you say?”

With a lingering gaze into Cooper's eyes she rose, and he stood aside to let her pass him, observing only that she cast a glance in the direction of Polowski before gaining the pavement. Cooper did not dare to look behind him, but some subtle instinct told him Polowski was also on the move. The lady crossed the street with the superb indifference to the risk of oncoming traffic that distinguishes most Parisians and halted before the jeweller's window. She pointed with a gloved finger at jewels that seemed to take her fancy; she leaned towards Cooper as if he was the romantic hero of her girlhood, and then Cooper appeared to be persuading her to enter the shop with him and to overcome her scruples, for from the corner of his eye he had seen the Polowski group streaming over the road in their direction. It may be supposed that Paris jewellers are accustomed to foreigners who admire and ask prices, but do not buy, for this one was tireless in displaying glittering gewgaws. Cooper admired, but his admiration did not prevent him from glancing towards the plate-glass window where his three villains were apparently intent on the jewels displayed. At a hint from his companion, Cooper said that he hoped to visit the shop again by daylight. As they turned to go the lady produced a little parcel from her bag, made up in the form used by jewellers for their goods.

“You gave me this,
mon chéri
; how can I show my gratitude to you—a man so generous?” She was in the doorway when she turned to address Cooper in this flattering fashion, and as he followed her out one of the three men seemed purposely to cannon against him.

“
Milles pardons, monsieur!
” cried the man, removing his hat in confusion.

“It is nothing, monsieur,” said Cooper, sweeping off his imposing headgear with a flourish.

The man tried to continue the conversation, but with a bow Cooper hurried on to overtake his companion, who was walking in the direction of the Madeleine. He had now the exquisite satisfaction of knowing that the rôles were reversed; that he, a detective of the Central Division at Scotland Yard, was being shadowed by three of the most shameless rascals in Europe.

“They are following us,” murmured the lady, without looking round. She had surveyed the pavement behind them in a mirror in one of the shop windows.

“Yes; that's a hopeful sign, but we must shake them off.”

“Nothing easier,” said she, stopping at the taxi rank and mounting the step of a taxi. She gave their destination in a clear voice which, if it did not carry as far as their pursuers, was heard by all the other drivers in the rank.

“The Restaurant Marly.”

Their taxi sped away towards the Champs-Élysées.

“What is your destination, monsieur? The Grand Hotel? Then I'm taking you out of your way. I live on the other side of the river.”

“Then,” said Cooper gallantly, “let me drive you home.”

“Thank you, monsieur, but I prefer to take the Metro.” She tapped on the window and signed to the driver to stop. “I shall be quite safe in getting down here,” she said; “there is the station of the Rond Point just opposite.” She looked through the back window. “They didn't take the trouble to follow our taxi. Will you want me tomorrow?”

“Probably not, madame, but if I should, I will telephone to M. Verneuil a little after six.”

“
Au revoir, monsieur
.”

Cooper directed the taxi-man to drive to the Grand Hotel. He walked to the desk and said that a friend had taken a room for him that afternoon.

“Your name, monsieur?”

“Jacques Rivaux.”

“Quite correct, monsieur,” agreed the clerk, and signalling to a
chasseur
, he gave directions for the luggage to be taken up to Number 33. He put a registration form before Cooper and invited him to fill it up. Quick reflection told Cooper that it would be unsatisfactory if he filled up the form in a disguised hand. The question of his handwriting was never likely to arise in the future. He supposed that these forms were useful in exceptional cases, but that as a general rule they were never looked at by the police. He filled his form up with a complete disregard for the truth, trusting that his police friends would be there to exonerate him if the form were ever called in question.

He was conducted to a room on the first floor. He had never bargained for so much luxury. The bathroom, with its enormous porcelain bath in which one might easily drown oneself; the huge pedestal wash-hand basin and the ante-room which could serve as a sitting-room, were all of the most modern kind. He looked into cupboard after cupboard and found each furnished with some unexpected gadget. Even in the bathroom the towels were kept warm in a little closet fitted with an electric coil. It was the sort of palatial lodging that a dissipated Canadian millionaire's son might well affect.

Cooper was hungry. It did not worry him that his outfit was not such as is frequently seen in the dining-room of the Grand Hotel, but what would you? No Canadian millionaire's son could go without his dinner. He must play the part. He played the part right royally.

Having satisfied his appetite, it only remained to await the arrival of his chief; he passed the time in rehearsing the interview with Polowski on which he was counting for the next day. He had begun to feel confidence in his powers; perhaps the wine imbibed at dinner had given him courage. At ten o'clock the telephone bell rang and a voice informed him that a gentleman was asking for M. Rivaux from Quebec.

“Show him up, please,” was Cooper's reply. A knock at the door, the turning of a key, the closing of the door behind the guest, and Richardson stood before him, surveying the room with an appraising eye.

“Doing yourself pretty well, Sergeant Cooper,” he said. “I hope that it's not going to give you expensive tastes.”

“No fear of that, inspector, but you see, one has to play up to the part.”

“And how did your little comedy go?”

Cooper related his adventure at the Café Veil and at the jeweller's opposite.

“You are sure that you saw them following you?” asked Richardson.

“Quite sure, and so was M. Verneuil's lady.”

“Did she play her part well?”

“She couldn't have done it better.”

“And that Roumanian chap barged up against you, did he? Well, that's a good sign. If you're in your place at the café to-morrow, one of them will sidle up to you and start the ball rolling. You'd better not change your kit to-morrow, because if you did they mightn't recognize you again; nor would it do for the hotel people to see you decently dressed and in your right mind. You'll have a dull day, I fear. Don't forget about the marks of dissipation, an empty champagne bottle and the rest of it if you bring them back here.”

“That's all right; I've made a list of the scenery. How did you get on with those papers?”

“I went through every scrap of them and found nothing that would be of the slightest use to us.”

“Then what are you going to do to-morrow?”

“Well, it occurred to me as I was walking down here that Everett must have had a writing-table, or the use of one, at the Embassy. When I've returned this lot of papers to Verneuil, I shall go and see Mr. Gregory and ask him about it. Now get to bed and don't lie awake thinking.”

M. B
IGOT
was receiving a visitor in his little office—a dark-complexioned young man whose hair was prematurely thin. He was protesting. “It comes to this, inspector; you were good enough to give me that story of the German Nazi dagger with which the murder was committed. My editor was delighted with it. Now he complains that the story is incomplete; that we hear no more about the dagger; yet, as you told me yourself, it was with it that the murder in the rue St. Georges was committed.”

“You went much too far in your article in
Le Témoin
. I never told you that the dagger had been supplied to the murdered man by the Germans.”

“I know you did not, but your story that it had been sent by a friend on the opposite side of the frontier had no publicity value whatever, whereas if it can be said that it was supplied by one of the Nazi leaders to a member of the British Embassy staff… Or even that the dead man had received a visit from a Nazi chief who came armed with this dagger —think for yourself what can be made of it! “

Bigot attempted a dash of sarcasm. “I observe that
Le Témoin
is not concerned with the truth of what it prints, only with its publicity value.”

“The truth has very little to do with successful modern journalism, and, after all, who can say what is true and what is false? Two men may be watching the same incident; for example, a house painter falls from a ladder and is killed. One eye-witness will swear that he missed a rung with his foot and fell by accident; another, that he threw himself from the ladder with intention: both are recounting what they saw in good faith. The historian can choose between them.”

“Yes, but…”

“I know what you are going to say—that I had no right to tell our readers that Mr. Everett received that dagger from a German Nazi, but from an English friend who wrote to him from the other side of the frontier. That is no story for a journal such as ours. If my version was not strictly true, it was better than the truth. As my editor said, if it wasn't the truth it ought to have been. The moment has now come for you to redeem your promise and tell me something more about that dagger. The public expects it.”

“At this stage, monsieur, I can tell you nothing more; you will have to wait until our inquiries are complete.”

The reporter of
The Witness
left the police station grumbling.

It was this conversation which led to headlines in
The Witness
of the following morning: