The Case of the Dead Diplomat (18 page)

“Shall we sit down, monsieur?” said Verneuil. “I have a few additional questions to ask you. I am told that you received a visit from three gentlemen on Friday evening.”

Pinet looked at him blankly and shook his head. “You have been misinformed, monsieur.”

Verneuil screwed up his eyes in a sceptical smile. “You must jog your memory, monsieur. On Friday evening, soon after it grew dark, three gentlemen from Paris rang your gate bell and were admitted.”

“Oh! I see what you mean. Many people—com-mission agents and commercial travellers—call on us who live in le Pecq to see things, and it is the practice here to admit them to show a sample of their goods. Some men did call last week.”

“What were they selling? Do you remember?”

“Gramophone records, I think it was.”

“You must do more thinking than that, monsieur. Indeed, it must not be thinking, it must be sober fact. I put the question to you. What did these gentlemen come here for?”

“They were working the whole district, selling gramophone records.”

“Ah! Working the whole district, were they? And if I told you that they came straight from the train to this house and went back from this house to the station you would be surprised to hear it? Come, come, monsieur. This is no time for fooling. I want a straight answer to a straight question. What was the object of their visit?”

Pinet rose from his chair and began to pace the floor.

“Well, monsieur, as you seem to know so much I had better tell you the truth. They wanted me to buy some gold.”

“But why should they think that you were in a financial position to buy gold—you, a struggling journalist—unless they thought that you knew of people rich enough to become purchasers?”

“Yes, that was it,” assented Pinet eagerly. “They wanted me to supply them with names and addresses of speculating people.”

“I see. They called on you as a journalist. Perhaps they called on other gentlemen connected with the Press—that Englishman who was murdered, for example. They might have called on him.”

“They did; he told me so.”

“M. Everett told you so? When?”

“When I called upon him on the Tuesday evening.”

“What did he say?”

“He asked me whether I had had a visit from three foreigners who were selling gold; that they had called upon him, and he had told them plainly that he knew of no one who would speculate in gold, and that they had gone slowly down the stairs discussing something in a foreign language. He said he did not like the looks of the men.”

“Would you be prepared to identify them?”

“Well, monsieur, I saw them in a rather poor light.” He pointed towards the electric bulb and assumed a confidential manner. “You must remember, monsieur, that this is a very lonely place, and there is very little police protection in the neighbourhood. When I told these men that I could not do what they wanted, they assumed a threatening manner, and I was in two minds about telephoning to the police. I should not care to identify them unless they were safely under lock and key.”

“You realize, monsieur, that all the statements you have made to me this afternoon can be put to the test, and if any of them prove to be false…”

“Of course I know that. If I've been lying to you I should deserve punishment. You can test my statements as much as you like; you will find them all true, though, of course, I cannot answer for the truth of what others have told me; but when M. Everett said that the men had called upon him I believed him, because he had no motive in lying.”

Verneuil's face as he screwed up his eyes whimsically was a picture. “But you, monsieur, you had a motive when you told me at first that these men had called at your house to sell you gramophone records. That, at any rate, was untrue.”

“Well, monsieur, you must put yourself in my place. Those three men are dangerous. I fenced with you at first because I am afraid of them. If they get to know that I have told you the real object of their visit, my life may not be safe. At any rate I have now told the truth.”

There was a long silence. Verneuil was none of your heaven-born cross-examiners, but he was a shrewd judge of character. “We did not start our conversation very well, monsieur, did we? For example, that gramophone record story… One fact remains unexplained. Why should they have selected you out of all the people living in the district of Seine-et-Oise as a person likely to buy gold, or even to indicate any other person as a likely purchaser. No, monsieur, you will have to give me a better explanation than that. If you had said that your late uncle had left you a fortune, for example, and I had believed it, well… then I might have gone away feeling more satisfied than I am.”

He saw the pallor of fear showing in Pinet's face, and, rather than frighten him into taking to his heels, he continued, “But you assure me that you have now told me the actual truth, and, being a man of honour as you appear to be, I must accept your assurance. I will not detain you further, monsieur.
Bonsoir et bonne nuit
.”

He allowed Pinet to bow him out of the house. On the way back to Paris he found himself alone in the second-class coach. He was not altogether pleased with the result of his interrogation, but in going over it in his mind he came to the conclusion that he had done well not to frighten Pinet too much. From St. Lazare station he made straight for Richardson's hotel, and related to him, as far as his memory served, Pinet's answers to his questions.

Richardson heard him to the end. “What impression did he make upon you?” he asked.

“When a man begins by telling you a lie and then confesses what he declares to be the truth, monsieur, you draw a certain conclusion, is it not so? My impression is that this M. Pinet had something to hide when he told me that those three foreigners had come to sell him gramophone records, and his excuse for that lie did not ring true. To my belief he has joined the little gang and is sharing in the profits. In thinking over what he told me I came to the conclusion that the men had approached M. Everett, but that he, unlike Pinet, had refused to have anything to do with them.”

“And then?”

“And then he knew their secret, and thus he was a source of danger to them. What more natural than that they should pick a quarrel with him and—” Verneuil shrugged his shoulders expressively.

“And killed him, you mean?”

“Men of that type, monsieur, believe in the adage, ‘Dead men tell no tales.' But when we get them to the police station…”

“You mean to arrest them, then?”

“I shall have to get the permission of M. Bigot before I do that. I shall see him to-morrow morning and tell him the result of our inquiries.”

“At what hour to-morrow will you see him?”

“At ten o'clock, and I should like you, monsieur, to come with me to his room. You will be a support to me.”

Richardson thought for a moment. In reality he was not for rushing matters, having still some hope that Cooper would obtain some useful admission from the men, but, as another interview with Bigot might produce some new fact, he promised to be at the police station at ten, and Verneuil took his leave.

Richardson went to the telephone and rang up the Grand Hotel, asking to be put through to M. Rivaux. “Is that you, Cooper? Richardson speaking. V.—you know who I mean—has just got back. It's too long a story to tell you over the phone. I'll come round.”

The people at the Grand Hotel had come to know Richardson. Had they been of the inquisitive breed they might have thought it strange that a French Canadian should have as an intimate an Englishman of wealth and importance, for so they considered Richardson, but hotel people in Paris have long lost all curiosity about the strange guests that they harbour under their roof. Richardson was shown up to Room 33 without any circumlocution.

“Well?” inquired Cooper. “What did Verneuil get out of our friend at le Pecq?”

“Precious little, if you ask me. Pinet began by saying that those three rascals were peddling gramophone records from house to house. That was too much for Verneuil to swallow, and so he told Pinet, but our friend Verneuil is no born cross-examiner. Pinet went to the length of saying that the men had gold to sell, and they wanted the addresses of people with money enough to buy it. According to Verneuil's account of his interrogation, Pinet's statement that the men had come to him because he was a journalist had been put into his mouth by Verneuil himself. The statement that those rascals had called on Everett as well as Pinet, and that Everett told him so, was also unconsciously suggested by Verneuil's questions, I believe.”

“As an interrogator poor old Verneuil seems to be a dud.”

“Yes, but the interview is going to have one important result—he wants to bring those three men down to the police station and turn them inside out if Bigot will let him. Apparently he dare not do it on his own.”

“Won't that queer our pitch? I mean, won't it break off all relations between Polowski and me?”

“It will, but you never can tell with the French police how far they will get if they start running the harrow over a set of suspects. That Roumanian Jew, for instance… It wouldn't take much to make him squeal.”

“Oh, Lord!” sighed Cooper. “We don't seem to be getting along very fast, do we?”

“Come, this is no time for pessimism. This is the first time we've had a glimmer of a motive for the crime, and Verneuil has asked me to be present when he beards his chief, M. Bigot. That will be all to the good. And now let me tell you of a little adventure that I had this afternoon. When I left you I went for a walk down the rue de la Paix and into the Place Vendôme. You remember we went there together for our second day in Paris? In the late afternoon the Place is a favourite parking-place for cars: there are rows of them on either side of the Vendôme column. I was just beginning to take a short cut across the Place when a taxi pulled up a few yards in front of me, and a lady got out of it. There was something familiar about her; she had platinum blonde hair—that's common enough in Paris, as you know—but there was something that struck me about her walk when she had paid off her taxi. She had the same slight limp that Pinet's young woman had; I couldn't be mistaken. Well, I hung about to see where she went. She did not notice me. She went straight to a very swish car—the newest streamline model—and taking a key from her bag she unlocked it, started the engine and drove off alone.

“I asked Verneuil if she was there when he called, and he said no. So the lady can run to a new car. She drives it up to Paris, parks it, and goes off in a taxi to a destination unknown. There's something in this that does not meet the eye.”

“Yes, it looks as if Pinet had joined up with the gang—a poor journalist would scarcely run to a car of that kind. She's worth watching.”

“She is, but I don't trust the ordinary French policeman to keep on her track without giving himself away.”

“Couldn't I do it? It would give me some occupation for to-morrow.”

“How could you do it? In that hat of yours? You'd be spotted a mile off, and you can't go in your own clothes, because you might run across some member of the gang.”

“Well, then, what about that policewoman who came with me to the Café Veil? She could do it all right.”

“She might, but I think of doing it myself. You can do the sights of Paris to-morrow, and I'll come round after lunch to tell you how we got on with friend Bigot.”

W
HEN
R
ICHARDSON
arrived at the police station of the ninth
arrondissement
, he found Verneuil awaiting him with some impatience.

“M. Bigot knows nothing about the subject of our visit to him as yet; it will be a surprise. If you'll give yourself the trouble of coming straight to his room I will do the necessary talking.”

He tapped at Bigot's door and threw it open, ushering in his British colleague. On seeing Richardson, Bigot jumped to his feet and shook hands. He was in an expansive mood that morning. “Ah! Monsieur Richardson, I am glad to see you again, though of necessity you will not have much to tell me.”

Richardson looked to Verneuil to open the proceedings.

“On the contrary, Monsieur Richardson has a good deal to tell you. He has desired me to make his report to you since he does not altogether trust his French.”

Thereupon Verneuil told Bigot what the reader already knows about the gang which was selling bogus Russian gold, and about its connection with Pinet and the attempt to victimize Sergeant Cooper, who was playing the part of a rich young Canadian.

When the story was told to the end, Bigot burst into a shout of laughter. Mastering his mirth he turned to Richardson. “Please excuse me, monsieur, but the joke, you will agree, is irresistible, when I tell you that I am on the eve of clearing up the mystery of the assassination of Mr. Everett. I have forborne to make a report to His Excellency the Ambassador until my evidence is complete. In so delicate an inquiry one must be allowed time—is it not so with you in London?”

His manner was so convincing that Richardson inquired whether he had reached the stage of arresting a suspect, because, as he explained, there was now a question of arresting the three swindlers and subjecting them to close interrogation.

Bigot waved his hand in front of his face. “Not yet, my friends, not yet. Go on with your playacting a little longer. Let your young Canadian millionaire, who is known to me as Sergeant Cooper, fool them to the top of his bent—it can do no harm; indeed it may even be amusing. But an arrest at this moment would be a serious matter. It could not be kept from reporters, and the publicity would entirely spoil my
coup
. I expect information from the Lobby of the Chamber this very evening. The
coup
will be theatrical in the sensation that it will produce.”