The Case of the Dead Diplomat (17 page)

From the recesses of his overcoat Polowski produced a brick-shaped piece of yellow metal, saying, “This is a sample of the consignment. I wish to have it tested in your presence. This gentleman has brought with him a flask of
aqua fortis
with which he will make the test under your own eyes. You have the little nugget of gold I gave you yesterday?”

“I have it here,” said Cooper.

“You've had time to think over my proposition. I can see that you have, for you are a clever man and I like dealing with clever men. Now, M. Zizon, you might begin by testing this little nugget. Do the test on the table here. We do not wish to derange this gentleman.”

The Roumanian Jew fumbled in his pocket and produced a tiny phial labelled
aqua fortis
and poured from it two or three drops of the acid on to the gold nugget. There was no result.

“You see; pure gold is proof against the acid, whereas any baser metal would begin at once to bubble.” He looked round the room, seeking some object in its decorations to illustrate what he said. He unhooked the gilt bracelet that held back the curtain.

“Stop!” said Cooper. “You mustn't damage the furniture.”

“The mark will scarcely be seen, will it, M. Zizon?”

“No,” said the Roumanian. “See, I shall wipe it off with this rag and it will leave no trace at all.”

“Now, M. Zizon, show us how base metal behaves; otherwise this gentleman will be saying that your acid is only water.”

Zizon took the bracelet and let fall a drop of the acid upon it; the metal instantly began to bubble.

“Yes,” said Cooper; “I see your stuff is stronger than water. What about this gold brick?”

“M. Zizon will show you what happens to it when we scrape off a little of it on to this piece of glass. If the scrapings were of base metal, they would dissolve entirely before your eyes.”

Zizon produced a little boring tool and set it revolving on a spot in the centre of the brick, dusting the filings on to the glass and dropping acid on to them. They remained undamaged.

“We can try any part of the brick—here, for instance,” said Polowski.

The experiment was repeated.

Cooper appeared to be impressed. “Yes, the test is all right; I'm satisfied.”

“What day would it suit you for us to bring the rest of the consignment and weigh it in your presence?” asked Polowski.

“Well, I don't carry £5,000 about with me. I shall have to cable to Canada and ask them to credit my bank in Paris with five or six thousand pounds, and that will take time.”

“Of course; I quite understand that, but if you cable this afternoon it need only take a day or two. You know, ten thousand pounds' worth of gold, which you will receive for your five thousand, is nearly as much as one man can carry into the hotel, and then when it has to be tested and weighed—and I hold to testing it and weighing it in your presence—it will take time. But I want you to be thoroughly satisfied with us, because I hope that this will be only the beginning.”

“Well, will you give me three days to bring the money over? This is Wednesday. You might ring me up on Monday and we'll make an appointment. I'm a little doubtful how to get the stuff through the Customs.”

“Nothing easier. You've been over in Europe buying books, you'll tell them. You pack your gold under a few layers of books, and books weigh nearly as heavy as gold. They will open your case to look, but they're not going to take the trouble of unpacking dozens of heavy books and doing them up again. That's the way in which we bring the stuff over into France—under layers of German books.”

The man who called himself Zizon was packing up his testing apparatus during this conversation; Polowski rose from his chair in order to stow his gold brick more easily in some hidden pocket in his voluminous overcoat. While thus engaged, he let his tongue run on.

“Yes; I prefer to deal with clever and intelligent men. When my friend Zizon first saw you sitting in that café on the Boulevard and pointed you out to me he said, ‘That is an intelligent man.' At first sight I was not sure. I thought you might be one of those pleasure-loving foreigners who come to Paris for the sake of its good
cuisine
and its agreeable women, but when I examined your features I saw that he was right. You are a clever man, monsieur—not one of those who take things easily for granted. That is the kind of man I like to do business with—a serious man. Then it shall be Monday when I call upon you again. I shall ring you up at two o'clock to ask whether the money has arrived. The gold is heavy; I do not wish to have my journey for nothing. Now we will take our leave.”

Left to himself, Cooper glanced at the electric clock on the wall. He could scarcely expect Richardson before five, for he would not risk meeting the swindlers on his way up to the room. How long was he to waste time in this expensive hotel where the rich food and the confinement were beginning to pall upon him? And how was all this expense going to throw light upon the murder of Everett? Who was going to pay for it…?

He was in the deepest depression by the time the tinkle of the telephone bell in his bedroom heralded the announcement of, “A gentleman to see you, monsieur.”

The gentleman in question proved to be Inspector Richardson, who said that he had taken the precaution to inquire whether M. Rivaux was alone.

“Well,” he asked, “how did it go?”

Cooper gave him a detailed account of his recent interview, not omitting the incident of the testing of the gold brick.

“That old wheeze? I expected something a little more original from a man of Polowski's experience.”

“It's an old trick, then?”

“One of the oldest. I'm afraid that they neglected your education in the detective class, Cooper. If they had taken you to the museum at the Yard they would have shown you a specimen of one of these bricks—a square piece of brass with holes in it filled half an inch deep with pure gold. I suppose they didn't let you look at it too closely or you might have noticed a slight difference in the colour.”

“Now I come to think of it, they didn't even let me take it in my hand, and I was so busy watching the testing experiment that I didn't think of asking for a closer view.”

“Perhaps it was as well. It might have put them on their guard. The wheeze is always the same. They know where the holes are and they use a boring tool, such as a bradawl, to bore out a few shavings of gold on which they pour a few drops of the acid. You didn't ask them to let you keep the brick?”

“I didn't dare to put them off.”

“I think you were right…”

“How long am I to stop here? It must be costing a little fortune. Won't there be a row when you send in the bill?”

“If it all comes to nothing there may be, but I don't think that it
will
come to nothing. Having gone so far we must see the thing through. If you were to leave the hotel now, and they came round to inquire for you and found you gone, the fat would be in the fire.”

“Must I still go to that beastly café? That blighter, Polowski, will pester my life out if I do.”

“No, you needn't do that; you've got to wait now until Saturday. I've been round to Everett's bank. They told me that he had neither paid in nor drawn a cheque bearing that number I showed you, but we have another string to our bow. Verneuil is off to le Pecq this evening to take Pinet by the throat and get his account of the visit of Polowski and his gang. He invited us to go with him, but I thought it might queer his pitch if we were to sit watching his methods. Verneuil is not like his chief, who likes to show off before foreigners; he has a rough and ready way with suspects and deals with them in the approved French way, which would make the pundits of our High Court gnash their teeth.”

“I wouldn't mind the delay so much if there was something for me to do, but what
can
I do as long as I have to wear this beastly disguise?”

“The hat, you mean? Why, it's quite becoming to you. You must have had many worse things to do in your time than to stop in a first-class hotel in Paris with the run of your teeth. Why, most men in the department would be green with envy.”

“I suppose they would until they tried it. Are you going to see Verneuil to-night after he's been to le Pecq, or to-morrow morning?”

“He's a good fellow, Verneuil; he's coming round to my hotel as soon as he gets back. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll ring up when I've seen him and give you his report in English. Even if people listen in, they won't understand if I talk fast. And now, if you are spoiling for a job, when you've had your dinner you can turn to and write a report about what happened this afternoon.”

“What's Bigot doing all this time?”

“God knows! When I ask Verneuil he screws up his eyes in that comic way he has, and his stomach begins to heave with suppressed laughter. He doesn't seem to have a lofty opinion of his chief.”

“I'm not surprised,” said Cooper. “Bigot strikes me as a self-important ass.”

“The trouble with Bigot is that he fancies himself as an interrogator and loves to show off. If only he could be induced to take his job more seriously and think less about himself and the effect he's making on other people, he might develop into a fairly efficient detective officer. Imagine if Bigot had been turned on to this job of yours. He would have swanked in that café to such an extent that he would have had everyone laughing at his antics, and those three rascals wouldn't have touched him with a barge-pole.”

“You may be right,” said Cooper, “but I'm thankful I haven't got to work under him as Verneuil has. I wonder why those two swindlers have got a prize-fighter working with them? Where does he come in?”

“Well, there are always moneyed folk about the prize ring. He may be a decoy for some rich patron of the noble art.”

“He doesn't look as if he had the brains for acting as a decoy. I should have thought it more likely that he is kept in reserve for any rough work that may be wanted. Neither Polowski nor Zizon would be much good in a fight.”

“No, but if the prize-fighter had been brought into Everett's flat to tackle him—and remember, Everett was a young man who could use his fists—the prize-fighter wouldn't have taken a knife to him or had a rough and tumble on the carpet. He would have landed him one on the point of the jaw and put him to sleep. The murderer must have been a smaller man than Everett, and that is why he used the knife.”

T
HE RAILWAY
official posted at the barrier in the Gare St. Lazare knew Brigadier Verneuil; he had also served his time in the French navy, and the freemasonry of the sea was a bond between them. They shook hands.

“Going down on a job?” asked the railwayman. “As you are travelling without a ticket you must be.”

Verneuil's only reply was a wink. He made towards a second-class coach.

It would have been amusing to know what was passing through his mind as he sat at the back of the railway carriage, mechanically scrutinizing the other travellers boarding the train; but the thoughts that were causing the lines of amusement in his face had nothing to do with his fellow-travellers. He was thinking of his British
camarades
and their strange way of proceeding about their work. If we French police, he thought, were restrained from interrogating prisoners the prisons would be empty. It was bad enough to have judges and advocates and juries weeping over the rascals brought before them, and bringing all the skill and industry of detective officers to nought. In England, these Britishers had assured him, the police could count upon the goodwill of the public; in England a murderer was brought to justice and hanged in under three months from the date of his crime. Here in France people had forgotten how to punish; in fact a criminal had a career before him; he might end as a deputy if he pulled the right strings; and if he were a freemason he might attain to a Minister's portfolio. Well, well, it was a strange world and politics a dirty profession, but what was a police brigadier to do? He could not set the world right. Nevertheless, he wished that he had his British colleagues with him that evening. He was not daunted by the task that lay before him, nor did he, like Bigot, want an audience for the part he was to play, but numbers gave support to a man when he was engaged in a delicate investigation. To Verneuil all his investigations were delicate.

The coach was rapidly emptying; at Croissy he was the only passenger left in the vehicle. The sun had set and it was growing dark. Five minutes later the train pulled up at the station of le Pecq, and he discovered that he was the only passenger to alight on the platform.

Knowing his way he lost no time in reaching Pinet's little villa. He rang the bell. Instantly a light that had been showing through a chink in the shutters of the kitchen was extinguished. No one answered the bell, but electric light does not turn itself off automatically. Verneuil, though getting on in years, had been trained in the navy to make light of obstacles. He made light of Pinet's gate by vaulting over it. He made light of his lack of courtesy in taking no notice of the bell, by running up the steps and kicking at Pinet's front door. Almost he hoped that Pinet or his platinum blonde lady would telephone to the local police at Croissy, for then there would be an amusing complication that would fly all over the village, losing nothing in the telling. But Pinet knew that too, and footsteps were heard approaching the front door.

“Who is it?” asked an anxious voice.

“The police,” proclaimed Verneuil in decisive tones. “Open the door.”

Very reluctantly bolts were slipped back, the door opened a few inches and Pinet's face appeared.

“You remember me, monsieur—a brigadier from the ninth
arrondissement
in Paris. I called on you a day or two ago.”

Pinet switched on the light and opened the door. “Come in, monsieur,” he said, leading the way into the dining-room.