The Case of the Dead Diplomat (26 page)

The spectacle of the men seated at the head of the table seemed to sober her. Her eyes dwelt specially on Richardson, whom she seemed to recognize as someone whom she knew.

“I ask pardon, messieurs, but truly this police gentleman was hurting me.”

“Sit down,” commanded Bigot from the head of the table. He liked to show these British confreres how interrogations ought to be conducted. There was a mixture of brutal insistence and low cunning in his manner. “Your name is Thérèse Volny, I think,” he began. “You live at 109 rue Vidal.”

“Yes, sir.” Her air of bravado had died out of her.

“How shall I describe your occupation? As a lady of leisure?”

“You can describe it in any way you think fit, monsieur.”

“You carry a card, I suppose?”

“That goes without saying, monsieur. I am one who complies with the law.”

“You have friends among the Paris journalists, I think.”

“
Tenez!
Friends who are journalists! I do not stop to ask gentlemen what their occupation is. I take them as I find them.”

“Come, come. You are perfectly aware of the occupation of one of your friends—a M. Pinet.”

She furrowed her brow and shook her head. “I've never heard that name, monsieur.”

Bigot assumed his most magisterial tone.

“I am asking you to confirm what we already know—that you are well acquainted with a gentleman who lives at le Pecq in the Seine-et-Oise.”

She shook her head. “I can only repeat, monsieur, that I am acquainted with no such gentleman.”

“You mean that I must bring M. Pinet into this room before you will admit that you know him? At that rate we may have to continue examining you until after midnight. Come, you have more sense than that?”

“Are you alluding to a gentleman who associates with a lady with blonde hair—blonde, I should say, from a few inches about the roots—black, or turning grey, nearer the scalp. Is that the gentleman you mean, monsieur? I am glad to learn from you that he is called Pinet.”

“You knew perfectly well what his name was. And now you will have to tell me under what circumstances you first met him.”

The woman screwed up her features. “How I first met him? We are then embarked upon ancient history. How does one meet a gentleman? When one asks him the time? When one finds him sitting all lonely in a café? Upon my word, I can't remember; it was so long ago.”

“In any case you know him, madame, and you also know the lady he is now living with—the lady with blonde hair.”

“Ah! That one! Who should not know her? At the cafés in Montmartre everyone knows Marthe Lacour. But if you ask me whether she is worth knowing I might reply in terms unfit for polite ears.”

“You do not seem to like her? When you ask her for more money she is close-fisted?”

“What will you? The woman has millions, but would rather buy a new car than pay me what she owes me. How could she have touched a
sou
of this great fortune but for me?”

“And so she tries to stifle your lawful requests for more money by putting something in your drink?”

The woman fired up. “If I was sure that she had done that I'd—”

“Well,” said Bigot, interrupting her, “you remember what happened the night before last. A woman doesn't suffer as you did unless someone had tampered with her liquor. And she had a motive, hadn't she? You had forced her to give you more money—you remember—the money that was tied up with a black and white shoe-lace. Now, if you want to be even with her, you have only to tell me the whole truth about what you did for M. Pinet.”

“I have nothing to reproach M. Pinet with. It has been that woman all the time. I've done with her. What do you want to know, monsieur?”

“I want to know this. We are aware, of course, that this money that is being paid to you is hush-money. What service did you render to M. Pinet to give you a claim upon him?”

“Wouldn't you feel that you had a claim on a man if you'd brought him five millions? That's what I did for M. Pinet, monsieur, and then they dole me out a beggarly few thousands.”

“But how did you bring him five millions?”

“By taking his lottery ticket to the Pavilion Flore and drawing out the money. How else?”

“Why didn't he go and draw it out himself?”

“Listen, monsieur. M. Pinet is an old friend of mine, though I hadn't seen him for months. A few days ago he came to look me up again and told me that he had the winning ticket for the National Lottery, but that he didn't dare to present it for fear that the other journalists would get to know of it and that every company promoter and beggar would be on his track. Would I take his ticket and claim the money? He would make it well worth my while if I would.”

“And you did?”

“I did, monsieur. He followed me to the Pavilion and watched me draw the money. He waited for me outside. I paid it over to him and he put ten thousand francs into my hand, telling me not to speak to any journalist. Naturally I wasn't going to be satisfied with a beggarly ten thousand. I told him so and he was inclined to be more generous, but he let that woman come to the rendezvous instead of coming himself.”

“What rendezvous?”

“The second rendezvous that we made. That was how the trouble began, and that's the whole story, messieurs.”

Richardson pushed a written question over to Bigot. “Please ask her what she knows of a man named Novikoff,
alias
Polowski.”

The question was put.

“Novikoff? I know no one of that name, and this time, messieurs, I assure you I
am
telling the truth.”

At a sign from Bigot Verneuil left the room and two minutes later marshalled Polowski to the open door.

“Look, madame,” said Bigot in a friendly tone. “Have you never seen this gentleman before?”

The woman looked round and broke into a laugh. “Ah! It's you, monsieur, that they are asking about. Of course I know that gentleman—only one does not waste time by asking gentlemen their names.”

“Bring him in,” said Bigot to Verneuil. “Now, madame, tell us how you met this man.”

“There's very little to tell, monsieur. I was at the Café Weber one evening, not feeling at all well, and this gentleman and his friend put me into a taxi and took me safely home.”

“Was it the evening when you met Marthe Lacour?”

“No, monsieur, it was the evening of the day when I did that little service for M. Pinet.”

Bigot whispered to his subordinate, “You had better take her into the waiting-room and let her rest for a little, while I question this man.”

“Come, madame,” said Verneuil.

“Can I go home, then?”

Verneuil laughed sardonically. “Always thinking of going home, aren't you? No, you can't go home yet a while, but the sooner you come with me, the sooner we shall let you go.”

“
Mon Dieu!
” exclaimed the woman, rising. “When one tells them the whole truth they will not let you go.” She followed Verneuil wearily towards the waiting-room.

“Now, monsieur,” exclaimed Bigot. “We should like to hear from you what happened on the night when you escorted that woman home.”

“N
OW,
M
ONSIEUR
, you are a foreigner. What is your nationality?”

“I am a Pole, born at Warsaw forty-three years ago. My name is Polowski.”

“Your first name?”

“Ivan.”

“But when you registered at your hotel you gave the name of Ivan Novikoff.”

“Ah! Yes, that is my professional name.”

“It is an offence, nevertheless. Show me your passport.”

“Your officers have taken all my papers away to examine; my passport was among them.”

“I'll look at your papers later. Carry on. When did you arrive in Paris?”

“About five weeks ago.”

“What business are you doing in Paris?”

“I am a travelling jeweller. I am here on business.”

“Selling jewellery, do you mean?”

“Yes, jewellery and precious metals. Perhaps you will allow me to put a question to you. A police officer stopped me and my friend in the street and brought us here as if we were criminals. That is not in accordance with traditional French hospitality to foreigners. I ask you why we were brought here.”

Bigot waved the question aside. “The point is, monsieur, how you came to know that woman who has just gone out.”

“What she told you just now was true.”

“I want to hear the story in your own words.”

“Well, it is soon told. We went to the café rather late in the evening, my friend and I. That woman was having an argument with the waiter as we came out; she was the only person sitting in the chairs on the street. As we passed the waiter stopped us and said in a low voice that the woman had drunk more than was good for her and was displaying a big roll of notes; he did not think that it was safe for her to go home alone. The woman overheard him and said, ‘I am all right; there's nothing the matter with me. If these gentlemen will call a taxi I'll get into it and go straight home.' A taxi was passing at the moment, and my friend hailed it. I asked her for her address to give to the driver; she pushed the door open and invited us into the taxi, saying, ‘If you don't come, I may fall out, and then how will you feel?' People were collecting to listen, and so we jumped in, and she gave her address.”

“Did you try to sell her any jewellery on the way?”

“No, I did not. I asked her if it was true that she had a big roll of notes on her, and she pulled out of her handbag a thick wad of notes. I told her to put them away quick; that if anyone saw them at that late hour she might get robbed.”

“Did she tell you where she got the notes?”

“I asked her that. She said that they were given to her by a friend for what she had done for him, and after a little pressing she told us the name of the friend, a M. Pinet, a French journalist who lived in a house in le Pecq. I don't know why you are asking me all these questions. If it is that you think that we received any money from the woman, you are quite mistaken. She was quite equal to guarding her fortune literally by tooth and nail. When we put her down at her own door she did not even offer to pay for the taxi; she went off leaving us to pay her fare.”

“And having got this information that M. Pinet had won the first prize in the lottery, you called on him at his house in le Pecq?”

“Yes—on a matter of business.”

“Did you know the names of any other winners of big prizes?”

“No, I did not know the names of any other winners.”

Richardson had handed up another question. Had he heard that a Mr. Everett, an attaché to the British Embassy, had won a prize? The question was put. Novikoff shook his head and said that he had never heard of the gentleman.

“Where were you on October 6th?”

“On October 6th? I should have to look up my diary to answer that question.”

“We can look it up in your diary, monsieur. We have it here.”

“Oh! Then you have searched our rooms at the hotel? I see, but I should like to know on what ground you embarked on this strange proceeding.”

Bigot made no reply to him. He turned to Verneuil. “Very good, brigadier, you can take the gentleman back to his companion and let him wait for the present.”

When the witness had been removed Bigot turned to Richardson. “You may have guessed from my last questions to that man that I was trying to get an admission from him that he had been to M. Everett's flat on the evening of the murder. As you thought it possible that M. Everett might have been the winner of one of the other big prizes, I put inquiries, but as you saw, I drew blank. It may be true, indeed, that Polowski has never seen Everett.”

“I ought to tell you, M. Bigot,” said Richardson, “that in the desk used by Mr. Everett at the British Embassy I found a number in a notebook that might have been the number of a lottery ticket. The figures puzzled me at the time. Would it be possible for you, between now and to-morrow, to procure the winning numbers of all the big prizes?

“Oh, yes, monsieur, that can be done. And now I should like to ask you whether we shall charge the two men downstairs with attempted fraud in trying to sell gold to M. Cooper when he was posing as M. Rivaux from Canada?”

Richardson was horror-struck, though no one would have guessed it from his expression.

“Oh, no, monsieur. We don't want to bring Mr. Cooper forward as a witness.”

“It's of no consequence, monsieur. We have that gold brick of theirs, found in their rooms, and that will be sufficient to support a charge of cheating.”

“Before we separate,” said Richardson, “would it not be well to look at that diary of his?”

“Certainly,
 chère camarade
. Here it is.”

Richardson fluttered through the leaves. “Here is the date—October 6th. Why, according to this entry the man was in Marseilles on October 6th and did not reach Paris until the 7th.”

“If that entry is correct he is cleared of all complicity in the murder. And now, messieurs, I think you will agree that we've done enough for this evening. To-morrow I propose to bring in Pinet and that platinum blonde lady of his for interrogation. We may be able to formulate a charge against the woman of trying to poison Thérèse Volny.”

“Yes, monsieur; and we must not forget to question her about the photographs she took at Vincennes, for those photographs were afterwards found undeveloped on the scene of the crime.”

“True, but if I have those two brought down we shall also search their villa from top to bottom, and I shall be surprised if we do not find the camera that she used. Yes, we will have a field day with those two to-morrow.”

The two English police officers took their leave, and as they were walking back to their hotel Richardson said, “I wonder whether we could catch Mr. Gregory at his flat now. I should like to have a word with him about those figures we found in the note-book. They may not have been those of a lottery ticket at all.”