The Case of the Dead Diplomat (4 page)

“If you don't mind coming up, doctor, we'll tell the ambassador; he's in rather a nervous state about this business and you may be able to soothe him.”

They found Sir Wilfred Bryant at his table. He was plainly in a nervous state, but he laid down his pen on seeing who his visitors were. “You're just in time, doctor. I'm drafting a dispatch to the Foreign Office telling them how the matter stands. I shall try to get it away to-night, because the correspondents of the English papers are sure to telephone the news of the death. I am saying that in the opinion of the police it was a case of murder.”

“I think,” said Hoskyn, “that we can quite dismiss the theory of suicide. If a man attempts suicide with a pointed weapon he plunges it into his chest, not into his throat; if he injures his throat at all he tries to cut it with a sharp blade in a sawing fashion.”

The ambassador shuddered and cowered in his chair; if Hoskyn had a fault, he thought, it was in bluntness of speech.

“Besides,” continued Hoskyn, “the police described to us the state of the room—chairs and tables thrown over, lamp lying smashed on the floor, all the marks of a violent struggle. They had gone some way towards reconstructing the crime. The late visitor had not been unknown to Everett because Everett had let him in. As far as they could judge there had been no robbery, because the contents of Everett's pockets had not been taken. For some reason the men had quarrelled; the visitor had snatched up this German dagger and had plunged it into his victim's throat while he was lying on the ground. I may say that in the course of the post-mortem we found evidence that the deceased had received more than one blow in the face from a fist.”

“You will let me have a complete report of the post-mortem as early as you can, Dr. Hoskyn? Everett's parents may be over here to-morrow, and we ought to be in a position to tell them all that is known.”

“You shall have it at the earliest possible moment, Sir Wilfred,” said the doctor as he followed Carruthers out of the room.

Chubb met them at the bottom of the stairs and told Carruthers that a police officer was waiting to see him.

“Bring him into my room,” said Carruthers, shaking hands with the doctor.

The policeman was in plain clothes. He was a nice-looking, pleasant-spoken man of between thirty and forty. He saluted and took the chair indicated by Carruthers.

“I should explain, monsieur, that I am the officer charged with the inquiry into the murder in the rue St. Georges, Inspector Bigot. My chief thought it well that you should be informed of the latest development, and that you should be asked to help up as far as you can in following a new line of inquiry.”

“Have you traced the woman mentioned in the newspapers as Mademoiselle X?”

“We have, monsieur; indeed she herself came to the station to ask whether what she had seen in the papers was true. I myself took a statement from her.”

Carruthers leaned forward. “What type of woman was she?”

“A perfectly respectable young married woman, monsieur, the wife of a civil servant stationed in Algiers. Her father is a retired business man who was able to give her a considerable dot at her marriage. It was clear to us that she was very much attached to M. Everett.”

“How did they first meet?”

“At the first night of a new French film, where the house was filled with critics and journalists. She had been taken there by a journalist friend who knew M. Everett well. He presented him to the lady. Unfortunately, it seems he called her ‘mademoiselle', and did not explain her real name and position to Mr. Everett, who seemed to think that she was unmarried. That was the starting-point.”

“How long ago was this?”

“A little over two months ago; we verified the date at the Cinema House.”

“And they met frequently afterwards?”

“Very frequently. If her story is correct, they met every day; sometimes for lunch, sometimes to dine and go to the theatre together. He proposed marriage to her, and then learned for the first time that she had a husband.”

“Ah!”

“We thought that perhaps this was a crime of passion, of jealousy on the part of the husband, but no. Inquiries made at the Ministry show that the husband is still in Algiers and therefore could not possibly have been in Paris at the time of the murder.”

“Had she any other admirer who might have been jealous of Mr. Everett?”

“I think not, monsieur. She was very much attached to Mr. Everett, and if she had had any suspicion of a possible murderer she would have been anxious to bring him to justice.”

There was a pause. Bigot dropped his voice mysteriously. “I have come to inquire whether the late Mr. Everett was employed by your Secret Service to make reports upon German re-armament?”

Carruthers showed his astonishment. “Certainly not,
monsieur le commissaire
. Anything of that kind was quite outside his functions.”

“Of course you will understand that anything that you tell me will be treated as entirely confidential.”

“If he had been engaged in any work of that kind I should not hesitate to tell you. His duties were of a routine character.”

“You may not be aware, monsieur, that the weapon used in the assassination was a German Nazi dagger, ground to a fine edge and bearing the words in German, ‘Blood and Glory'; the swastika device is on its handle. This certainly suggests that it was a political murder.”

“It might suggest that to anyone who was not aware that the dagger in question belonged to Mr. Everett himself; that he had had it in his apartment for weeks past, and that his concierge had seen it every morning when she dusted his sitting-room.”

“I am aware of that, monsieur; I am aware also of the fact that the weapon was sent to Mr. Everett by a friend on the other side of the frontier, but it has occurred to me that in sending this dagger Mr. Everett's friend hoped that it would be used as anti-German propaganda, and that the Germans have heard of it and have taken their usual remedy by secretly murdering the owner of the dagger.”

If the matter had not been so serious Carruthers would have laughed at the fantastic credulity even of French officials. He decided to give a grave warning to the man. “So far,” he said, “the reporters who have called at the Embassy know nothing about this German dagger. You yourself know that if they get hold of that there will be no end to the inventions of the newspapers. The murderer will become a German spy sent to steal a document of the highest importance; the cry will be taken up by the entire Press; we who know how the dagger came into France shall be accused of hiding the truth. I hope earnestly that nothing will be said about the dagger to any journalist who may call at the police station.”

“You need have no fear of that, monsieur.”

In spite of this comforting assurance there was something in the man's manner that made Carruthers uneasy. Bigot tried to cover his retreat.

“Could Mr. Everett have had any important official paper about him which other journalists might covet?”

“No, I can reassure you on that point; it was no part of his duty to carry secret papers out of the Embassy. In fact, no secret papers passed through his hands.”

The brigadier rose to take his leave. Carruthers shook hands with him and opened the door to show him out. He narrowly escaped colliding with Gregory, who was on his way in with an open newspaper in his hand. He was unusually excited.

“I want you to look at this.” He produced the latest edition of
Le Témoin
and pointed to the headlines in heavy type.

“Good Lord! The ambassador will never get over this. How could that reporter have got hold of it? That police commissary said that they were as anxious as we were that nothing should get into the Press, but I didn't believe him.”

“The ambassador will have to be told and the news must be broken to him gently. I suppose you will see to that?”

“I suppose I must,” muttered Carruthers gloomily.

With the paper in his hand he was half-way up the stairs when he met the ambassador coming down.

“I was coming down to see you, Carruthers,” he said. “Let us go up to my room. I've sent the draft of my dispatch down to the Chancery; I should like you to look through it and see that it covers all the ground.”

“I will, sir. I was coming up to show you this that has just been brought to me.”

The ambassador read it with a sharp intake of his breath.

“That settles it. Please telegraph to the Foreign Office saying that in my opinion a competent French-speaking officer should be sent over from Scotland Yard to assist the French police. This is going to be a horrible business for us all.”

A
MONG THE
various changes entailed by re-organization at Scotland Yard had been the translation of Morden to a vast room on the first floor, and the dispersal of the senior staff of the central C.I.D. body to various rooms in other parts of the building. Morden's messenger entered, carrying the printed form which visitors to the building are required to fill up, together with a visiting-card on which the name, “Mr. Ralph Nugent, Foreign Office,” was inscribed.

“Where is he?” asked Morden.

“Just outside, sir. As I knew you would see him I brought him upstairs with me.”

“Show him in.”

Mr. Nugent proved to be a tall young man, irreproachably groomed and tailored. He was the latest recruit to the office which conducts diplomatic correspondence with the country's representatives abroad, and is gently pushed aside in a crisis to make room for the men of action that Ministers imagine themselves to be until they find their level in the talking-shop at Geneva.

“I've come on rather a delicate mission,” explained Nugent. “Our ambassador in Paris has asked for the help of one of your officers who can speak French.”

“Why, has somebody been robbing the Embassy till?”

“Worse than that, I'm sorry to say. Somebody has been unkind enough to murder a member of the Embassy staff.”

“I saw something about it in this morning's paper. Surely the Paris police are at work on the case.”

“They are, but apparently that does not satisfy the ambassador. He seems to be afraid that the Paris papers will try to turn the case into another political scandal like the ‘
Prince affaire
.' That was all worked up by the newspapers.”

“Our men proved to their own satisfaction that it was a suicide.”

“And so they did to the French police, but the French police do not dare to say so for fear of being accused of being in the scandal themselves. My instructions are to ask you unofficially whether you would lend us a man, nominally to help the Paris police, actually to find out who committed the murder and why. The French police have already gone off the deep end by trying to connect the death with a Nazi plan of revenge, on the strength of a Nazi dagger which had been in the man's possession for months. If we know that your reply will be in the affirmative, an official letter to the Commissioner will follow.”

Morden reflected, drumming with his fingers on the table. “There will be the question of his expenses…” He said.

“Those would be met from Foreign Office funds.”

“Our men hunt in couples; there would have to be two of them.”

“I fancy we could run to that too.”

“If the Commissioner agrees, the man I should send is one of our younger inspectors who has done work in France before. He does not speak French, but the man who would go with him is fairly proficient. If you will sit tight for a moment I will speak to the Commissioner.”

Nugent had not long to wait. In two minutes Morden returned to say that all was serene; that the official letter could be sent over whenever the Foreign Office pleased.

“I am sure to be asked the name of the man you will send.”

“The leader of the expeditionary corps will be Inspector Richardson. His second will probably be Sergeant Cooper, who speaks French fluently.”

As soon as Morden was left alone he rang for the superintendent of the Central Division.

“The Foreign Office is going to ask for officers to work in Paris for a few days, Mr. Longden; to work with the French police on that case you may have seen in the papers—the murder of the Press attaché to the Embassy. Has Richardson anything important on hand?”

The superintendent wrinkled his brow. He was considering less what Richardson had on hand than what his seniors would say if their junior were given a trip to Paris at the public expense. “Richardson doesn't speak much French, sir,” he objected.

“Quite true, but I thought of sending Sergeant Cooper as his understudy, and Cooper speaks French quite well. Besides, Richardson ran that Liverpool solicitor, Maze, to ground through the evidence he got in France without any cost to the department. We mustn't forget that.”