The Case of the Dead Diplomat (24 page)

“I tell you that I haven't another
sou
to give you —not a
sou
.”

And then the other woman said something which blunted the edge of the discussion, for the voices lost some of their acerbity. Pinet's lady extruded a long, silk-covered leg from the car, following it with the rest of her person—wound up the windows, locked up the car, and led the way towards the pavement. Richardson took a more devious course to the other side of the rue de la Paix and kept them well in view. They crossed the road and made for the Café de la Paix in the Boulevard; he did the same.

He was not the kind of man to take risks when he was, as he thought, nearing his goal. Both these women had seen him at different times dressed in the same clothes that he was then wearing—obviously clothes of English cut. Both of them were engaged in transactions that would not bear the light of day. Fortunately there was more than one door into the Café de la Paix. They had gone in through that on the Boulevard; he chose the one leading from the Place de l'Opera. The café was crowded; the two women found seats near the entrance and were too busy in conversation to notice him; he made for the only vacant seat, which was actually next to their table, and turned his back on them.

After having given their order Thérèse left her seat for a few minutes; the waiter returned with the beverage and filled the glasses; then Thérèse returned and said laughingly, “You won't mind, my dear, if we exchange glasses; it is more prudent.”

The platinum blonde broke into a hard laugh. “I know that you don't mean what you say, that it's a jest to make me smile, because of course you could not really believe the story you told me just now. These doctors, my dear… they know nothing. I could tell you a story of a friend of mine…” She had dropped her voice and Richardson never learned the dramatic fate of the friend of hers.

He did not strain his ears to listen to the rest of their conversation, for he had now plenty to occupy his thoughts. It was obvious from what he had just heard that Thérèse had not told Verneuil the whole story; that she had either intentionally or through inadvertence concealed the fact that she had had a drink with this same companion on the evening when she was taken ill, and that she had guessed, rightly or wrongly, that her liquor had been doped; otherwise why should she have insisted on changing glasses with her hostess? That the platinum blonde was her hostess was quickly established. She had tinkled her glass for the bill, paid it and was now taking leave of Thérèse.

“Until Monday,” were her parting words.

As soon as she was out of sight Thérèse summoned the waiter and asked for a glass of cognac. Richardson had decided to keep observation on her rather than follow the other woman back to le Pecq, but scarcely had the waiter brought the cognac when a new figure entered the café—no less a person than Polowski. Fortunately Richardson had a newspaper before his face at the moment when Polowski was making a survey of the assemblage. He was about to take a vacant seat when the woman Thérèse jumped up and went across to him. He was politeness itself—hat off, back curved, deferential bow. She invited him to her table, but he declined no less politely on the excuse that he was awaiting guests, and a little crestfallen she returned to her seat to sip her cognac.

Suddenly the scheme of things was disclosed to Richardson's mind. Luck had favoured him that evening. The platinum blonde was paying blackmail to this waif Thérèse; the platinum blonde had been visited by Polowski and his little gang. Polowski was acquainted with Thérèse. Whatever might be the connection between these three persons, it was clear that the explanation must be sought for at the villa in le Pecq. It was needless now to follow Thérèse; he would go and take counsel with his subordinate, who was known to the staff of the Grand Hotel as the eccentric French Canadian, M. Rivaux.

“M. R
IVAUX
is alone,” announced the resplendent porter of the Grand Hotel.

“He's had visitors this evening?”

“No, monsieur, no visitors.”

“You need not announce me; he is expecting me,” said Richardson, going towards the lift.

He knocked at the door of Cooper's room and was admitted immediately.

“Let us sit down,” said Richardson. “I've been having a lively time. Let me tell you exactly what's happened since I saw you after tea.”

He proceeded to describe his adventures at le Pecq and afterwards in the Place Vendôme. Cooper listened to him with close attention.

“The plot is thickening,” he said; “but where do I come in?”

“You have a very important part to play. Here are all these people—the three swindlers with the gold brick; Pinet and his platinum blonde woman; that street-walker, who apparently was given a dose of something that disagreed with her, and who is receiving considerable sums of money from Pinet's woman. How do all these people come to know one another? What is the link between them? That is where you come in, Cooper. You have to find the answer to the conundrum.”

“The devil I have!

“Instead of waiting for these men to call upon you on Monday, you must telephone to them and make an appointment for to-morrow, Sunday. They will think that everything is going swimmingly, especially if you say that you've had a cable from your bank in Quebec. When they do come, you must take a high and mighty line with them—say that you don't care to play second fiddle to a French adventurer; that you thought they were dealing with you alone, and now you find that they are in treaty with another man behind your back.”

“If I tell them that, they'll want to know who my informant was.”

“Well, the answer to that is quite simple. Your informant was a woman whom you picked up in the street and took to a café, and she was half seas over at the time—
in vino veritas
, as they used to say at school. That was her stage of intoxication when she blurted out the story of an adventure she had had. You need not fill in any details. You must use your own discretion, but you must get out of them their reason for going to Pinet's villa in le Pecq.”

“I'm supposed to give them a final answer about that gold from Russia.”

“Well, then, you've got a good excuse for putting off any final answer—that you want a full explanation as to the business that took them to Pinet's house in le Pecq. When you get the explanation out of them you must stipulate for another two days before giving your answer. If they haven't been taken in by our friend Verneuil before Monday and they come round to see M. Rivaux at this hotel, they'll find that the gentleman has left for Canada without giving an address. But from what I know of Verneuil, I fancy that they will all be safely under lock and key by Monday.”

“Can I leave this hotel to-morrow night? I shan't be sorry, I can tell you.”

“Yes. As soon as you've bowed your friends out, you'll take a taxi round to Mr. Gregory's flat. I'll warn him to expect you. There you will take off your fancy dress and come round to our hotel clothed and in your right mind. I'll ask Mr. Gregory to come round to this hotel to collect your baggage, and tell them that you've been summoned home by cable. How does that strike you?”

“It strikes me that since I saw you a few hours ago you seem pretty sure that you're on the right tack; that we're going to clear the business up.”

“There's many a slip, my friend; it's better not to feel sure until success falls into your lap.”

“I'm entitled to my own view, inspector. Whenever I've known you with that confident look in your eye, everything is coming out right.”

“Never mind what you notice in my eye, because I want to shut both of them for the next eight hours. Good night.”

Before ten o'clock next morning Richardson presented himself at the headquarters of the ninth
arrondissement
and asked for M. Verneuil.

“I have some news for you, M. Verneuil,” he announced.

“Perhaps I've something for
you
, monsieur,” replied Verneuil, screwing up his eyes. “We shall find M. Bigot ready to feed out of our hands this morning.”

“Indeed? What has happened?”

“Ah! That one can only guess at. He had an interview yesterday with M. Quesnay. What passed at that interview is known only to M. Quesnay, M. Bigot, and the all-seeing eye above us—but Bigot has now changed his tune a little. What have you to report?”

“I went down to le Pecq last night and I made a little discovery. You remember how that bundle of notes we saw in that sick woman's room was tied up?”

“Perfectly; with a new-fangled black and white shoe-lace that a few women are wearing now.”

“Exactly. That woman of Pinet's at le Pecq was wearing the same kind of shoe-lace last night.”

“Very possibly. It's the kind of novelty that captivates women of that class.”

“That's not all. I followed the lady up to Paris; she parked her car in the Place Vendôme, and the woman Thérèse, whom we had seen in the morning, came to meet her there.”

Verneuil's eyes narrowed to mere slits. “So they know one another, those two?”

“Yes, and they went off together to the Café de la Paix and had a drink together.”

“Very possible, that. It doesn't surprise me.”

“And while Thérèse was away a moment from their table the waiter brought their drinks. When she returned she insisted on exchanging glasses with Pinet's woman.”

“She did?”

“Yes, and Pinet's woman tried to laugh it off.”

“You haven't wasted your time, monsieur,” said Verneuil. “You may not be actually on the track of that murderer you're in search of, but you have brought me something to look into. I shall have to see that woman Thérèse again.”

“Stop, I haven't finished. You don't know, perhaps, that the woman Thérèse is acquainted with those swindlers with the gold brick.”

“How do you know that, monsieur?”

“By pure luck. While I was in the Café de la Paix watching the woman, in walked Polowski; she went over to his table and greeted him.”

“She may have had an eye to business.”

Richardson shook his head. “No; he was an old friend of hers, I could see.”

Verneuil scrutinized Richardson with an appraising eye. “You may not be so far from a solution of the murder mystery as we thought, monsieur. M. Bigot is in his room at this moment. He expressed a wish to see you when you called at the station again. I suggest that we go and see him now.”

It was quite a different Bigot who received them in his room—a chastened Bigot who had little to say about the work that had occupied him. “I regret, monsieur, that some very pressing work which called for tact these last few days prevented me from giving full attention to the work you are doing. Now that I am more at liberty I suggest that we sit down and go over together everything that you have discovered so far.”

For an hour and a quarter they discussed what the reader has already heard. Bigot, dismounted from his high horse, proved to be quite intelligent and ready to entertain suggestions from his colleagues of the Metropolitan Police in London; indeed, he was a thought over-ready to take decisive action in respect of Richardson's friends with the gold brick. Richardson tried to restrain him by pointing out that the most useful act for the moment would be to get the truth out of the woman Thérèse.

“H'm,” remarked Bigot dubiously. “To get the truth out of a woman like that…”

Richardson stooped to flattery. “I am sure, monsieur, that if you undertake the interrogation, even of a woman like that, you will make her talk.”

“I think that if I have her down here to interrogate, we shall get more out of her than we should if we went to see her in her own lodgings. M. Verneuil, let it be your task to bring her down here. As for the men with the gold brick, what is your opinion, M. Richardson?”

“I should like to let my colleague have his interview with them before they are detained by the police, because my colleague may elicit good grounds for arresting them. To-morrow, in any case, they might be detained for interrogation.”

“Very well, let it be as you say, monsieur. A ring on the telephone from you will suffice to bring about their detention.”

“Very good, monsieur. I have some business to attend to at the British Embassy, so I will leave you, but if you will allow me I propose to come round later in the day—say at six o'clock—to hear what that woman has had to say.”

“I hope you will tell the Embassy that we police of the ninth
arrondissement
are doing all that we can to help you.”

“Certainly, monsieur; I shall not fail to convey that information,” said Richardson, taking his leave.

On his arrival at the gate of the British Embassy, Richardson received a shock. The uniformed porter at the gate lifted his eyebrows in astonishment at the request to see Mr. Gregory. “I'm sorry, sir, but Mr. Gregory does not come here on Sundays unless he's taking his turn for duty.”

“Sunday!” exclaimed Richardson. “I've been so busy that I had quite forgotten that it was Sunday.”

“That is nothing to be surprised at, sir. Here in Paris they carry on exactly as if it was a weekday all the morning, but I fancy that you'll find Mr. Gregory at his flat until lunch-time. Would you like me to telephone to him that you're coming?”

“I wish you would.”

The porter retired to his lodge and engaged in conversation with an unseen speaker. He came out nodding his head. “You'll find Mr. Gregory at home and expecting you,” he said.

A taxi conveyed Richardson to the flat. On Sundays, he gathered, the third secretary was not an early riser. He found him still in dressing-gown and slippers.

“Sit down, inspector, and tell us what you've been doing for us and what we can do for you.”

“You've done so much for me, sir,” replied Richardson, “that I scarcely like to ask for more, but the important point is that I think we are getting on, and that I can now safely recall my colleague, Sergeant Cooper, from posing as a Canadian capitalist.”