The Case of the Dead Diplomat (28 page)

“I had forgotten it, monsieur,” stammered Pinet.

Bigot laughed cynically. “Tell me this: you, like other Parisian journalists, were present at the drawing of the second
tranche
of the National Lottery. Is that not so?”

Richardson saw the man cower in his chair. He nodded.

“You and the dead man were sharing a ticket between you?”

“No, monsieur, you are wrong. Each of us had a whole ticket.”

“Then tell me this. M. Everett had the ticket that won five millions. You were present when that ticket was drawn.”

“I did not take note of the number.”

“No? And yet you were present as the representative of a financial paper?”

“Well, I may have heard the number, but it has since escaped me.”

Bigot thumped the oak table with his clenched fist. “Understand, monsieur, this is not the moment for telling imaginative stories. You are here to give true answers to my questions. Was not the winning ticket number 070564 series 18?”

“I believe that it was, monsieur.”

“And that was the ticket held by the dead man. How, then, do you account for having sent the woman Thérèse Volny to the Pavilion Flore with that ticket to collect the money and pay it over to you? How do you explain that?”

The man in the chair swallowed painfully, but made no reply.

“She did not know M. Everett; therefore, she must have got the ticket from you, and that means that you murdered him and stole it from him.”

Pinet had turned very white and his lips were dry; he moistened them with his tongue. “I didn't murder him; I defended myself. He attacked me first.”

“Why should he attack you?”

“Because I was looking at his ticket, and I suppose he thought…”

“…That you were stealing it?”

The young man began to catch his breath as if he were about to sob. “I'll tell you the whole truth, monsieur. I called on M. Everett that night, partly on business, as I told you. I said to him that I had been present at the draw and had noted the numbers of all the big prizes. He went to a drawer and took out his lottery ticket and laid it on the table, and then, with true British phlegm, instead of immediately examining the numbers, he said, ‘We must have a drink to give us strength for the shock of not winning.' He turned to the buffet, which has a mirror behind it. I did not notice the mirror, and on a sudden temptation I tried to substitute my ticket for his, which bore the winning number. Then he attacked me; tried to drag my papers out of my pocket. He was stronger than I was; I felt my strength oozing away and his fingers feeling for my throat. I snatched up a dagger, meaning only to threaten him with it, but he caught at my wrist and I struck at him with it. There was a rush of blood which stained my clothing. He fell on the floor and I left him, slamming the door behind me. That is the whole story. If he had not attacked me he would be alive to-day. Anyone in my place would have done the same.”

At a sign from Bigot, Verneuil took the rough notes of the statement out with him to the typist and signed to Pinet to follow him. “When we've got this typed out you will sign it,” he said.

Fortunately Cooper also had made a copy of the statement, and the two British officers half rose from their seats. An abrupt leave-taking was far less than M. Bigot thought that he had a right to expect.

“
Eh bien!
” he said, “you gentlemen have seen how we conduct our business in France. If an interrogation be properly handled, a full confession is the result. You have seen this for yourselves.”

“Indeed, monsieur, it was a remarkable success for the police,” said the diplomatic Richardson. They parted cordially.

“You will leave the case in our hands, knowing that justice will be done?” were Bigot's parting words.

Safe out in the street Richardson breathed a sigh of relief. “I am glad to have seen for myself how the French system works, and I'm glad that interrogations are not allowed in England.”

“The system suits these people all right,” remarked Cooper, “but that self-satisfied Bigot would never have got Pinet to cough up if he hadn't had the evidence we collected for him up his sleeve. Where are we going now?”

“First to the Embassy to make our verbal report; then to our hotel to pack up. We'll catch to-night's boat train.”

At the Embassy they found that Gregory was in his room. To him they recounted Pinet's confession.

“You mean to say that they got all that out of him without using the thumbscrew?”

“There seemed to be threats looming in the back-ground. They assured us that justice would be done.”

Gregory permitted himself to laugh. “You know, of course, what will happen? The
procureur
de la République will formulate a charge of murder; Pinet's counsel will draw tears from the jury by representing his client as the victim of a brutal Englishman who would have killed him had he not defended himself. The jury will give a verdict of justifiable homicide without leaving the box. Pinet will be set free to enjoy the remainder of the five millions and become a deputy.”

“I don't think that he will get a very large share of the five millions, sir—not if I know the Brigadier Verneuil, who did the searching.”

“Well, they must settle it among themselves. We can't claim any of it for poor Everett's heirs, because technically he had no business as a British subject to take part in a lottery. Do you think that the confession was a true one?”

“Yes, sir, I do,” said Richardson. “When I first visited Mr. Everett's flat and found a glass half full of whisky and an uncorked bottle, I happened to stoop, and in the mirror behind the buffet I saw the entire room. It occurred to me then that the visitor, whoever he was, had been caught in the act of robbing his host.”

“You'll let us have a report for the ambassador before you go?”

“Not before we leave, sir. We propose to cross by the night boat, but the ambassador shall have a copy of our full report to-morrow from London.”

“You take my breath away. Surely you're going to say good-bye to us here.”

Richardson looked at his watch. “If any of your colleagues would like to see us, sir, but probably they are all busy at this hour.”

“Sit tight and I'll see.” Gregory left the room at a run and came back to say that the first secretary, Mr. Eric Carruthers, would like to see them. He conducted them along the passage to Carruthers' room and ushered them in. “They want to catch to-night's boat,” he said.

“We can't let you go, Mr. Richardson, until you've seen the ambassador; it won't take five minutes. Come along; I'll take you upstairs.”

They found Sir Wilfred Bryant in his pleasant room, overlooking the Embassy garden.

“The police officers from Scotland Yard, sir,” announced Carruthers. “They propose to leave to-night.”

The ambassador swung round in his chair. “You've had to give the case up?” he asked querulously.

“No, sir,” replied Carruthers; “they've cleared the case up and they've got a confession from the murderer.”

The ambassador stared at him incredulously. “Got a confession after barely a week's work?”

“Ten days, sir,” corrected Richardson, a stickler for accuracy.

“Well, ten days. Thank heaven I sent for you. When am I to have your report?”

“It will go to the Foreign Office to-morrow, Your Excellency. I am afraid that I have no copy to leave with you, because it is not yet written.”

“What would happen to us all if we worked at such high pressure?” murmured the ambassador under his breath. “I'm very much obliged to you, and if you are really going to-night I mustn't detain you longer.”

When the two detective officers had bowed themselves out the ambassador said, “Now, perhaps, you'll admit that we did right in sending for those men. But for them and their energy, think what would have happened. Those ghastly newspapers would have worked the case up into a political assassination, whereas it was in reality nothing but a squalid crime of robbery and murder.”

THE END

S
IR
B
ASIL
H
OME
T
HOMSON
(1861-1939) was educated at Eton and New College Oxford. After spending a year farming in Iowa, he married in 1889 and worked for the Foreign Service. This included a stint working alongside the Prime Minister of Tonga (according to some accounts, he
was
the Prime Minister of Tonga) in the 1890s followed by a return to the Civil Service and a period as Governor of Dartmoor Prison. He was Assistant Commissioner to the Metropolitan Police from 1913 to 1919, after which he moved into Intelligence. He was knighted in 1919 and received other honours from Europe and Japan, but his public career came to an end when he was arrested for committing an act of indecency in Hyde Park in 1925 – an incident much debated and disputed.

His eight crime novels featuring series character Inspector Richardson were written in the 1930's and received great praise from Dorothy L. Sayers among others. He also wrote biographical and criminological works.

Richardson's First Case

Richardson Scores Again

The Case of Naomi Clynes

The Dartmoor Enigma

Who Killed Stella Pomeroy?

The Milliner's Hat Mystery

A Murder is Arranged

“I'm writing to you about the death of Mr. Dearborn. You bet the murderer's laughing up his sleeve now that he's got away with it.”

An inquest is held in South Devon on the death of a man apparently killed in a motor accident on Dartmoor: the verdict is “Death from misadventure.” But soon afterwards Scotland Yard and the Devon Chief Constable receive anonymous letters alleging that the verdict was wrong; that the death was caused by blows inflicted by a person, or persons, unknown.

The Chief Constable asks for help from Scotland Yard. Richardson is detailed, as Chief Inspector C.I.D., to unravel the case. A discharged quarryman is suspected by the local police; Richardson clears him. He finds the writer of the anonymous letters, but he also finds that the dead man had shrouded his own past in mystery and was going under an assumed name. It looks like the most difficult case he has had to unravel, but Chance steps in to provide him with a clue…

The Dartmoor Enigma
was originally published in 1935. This new edition, the first in over seventy years, features an introduction by crime novelist Martin Edwards, author of acclaimed genre history
The Golden Age of Murder
.
“Sir Basil Thomson's tales are always good reading, and he has the knack of being accurate about Scotland Yard.”
Dorothy L. Sayers

S
UPERINTENDENT
W
ITCHARD
was checking expense-sheets in his room at Scotland Yard when his clerk looked in.

“Anything fresh this morning?” he asked.

“Nothing out of the ordinary except this letter, sir.”

Witchard read the letter carefully and turned to the envelope. “A Devonshire case? Do we know anything about it?”

“No, sir. In ordinary course the Registry would send it down to the Chief Constable of Devon, but I thought you had better see it first.”

“Quite right. One can never tell where one of these anonymous letters will land one.” He read through the letter again. “Quite a lot of the big cases have come to light first through anonymous letters. I'll let Mr. Morden see it before it goes to the Registry to send off.”

Left to himself, the Superintendent read the letter through again.

Witchard turned to the envelope, which was addressed to the Chief Constable, Scotland Yard, and bore the postmark, Tavistock. It was of the commonest paper and showed no indication of the maker's name. He carried the letter to Morden's room.

“I thought that you had better see this, sir, before it goes down to the Chief Constable of Devon. So far, it's not a case for us, but it's a curious kind of letter.”

Morden read it and handed it back. “Better get it off at once, Mr. Witchard,” he said.

But before the letter had time to leave the building the second post from the provinces had reached Scotland Yard and the case began to take shape. The Superintendent of the C.I.D. brought Morden a letter from the Chief Constable of Devon which threw a new light upon the affair.