The Toff and the Deep Blue Sea (14 page)

He turned the handle of the door, hesitated, and then pushed it gently.

The room was in darkness.

He listened intently, and heard nothing. He felt sure that he would have detected it if anyone were breathing inside this first room. He went in, closed the door, and took out a small pencil torch. He shone the beam round. It shone upon armchairs, a carpet, a table. He found the electric light switch and pressed it down, and went in further.

Lying on a couch by the curtained window was Gérard Bourcy.

He was most obviously dead.

 

 

Gérard had been strangled. There were the dark bruises on his neck, to show it. His eyes were slightly open and glazed, and his mouth was slack. One hand drooped, the fingers touching the floor. His fair hair was untidy, and his knees were bent. His flesh wasn't yet cold.

Nothing moved; there was no sound.

Rollison turned round, reached the door again, paused, and then opened it. The
gendarme
was outside.

“Pardon, m'sieu.”

“I shall be here for some time. Don't let M. Leclair see you when he comes back.”

“Very good,
m'sieu.”

“Thank you,” said Rollison.

He closed the door. He didn't greatly care what Panneraude thought or what the police thought; he wanted above everything else to be here when Simon returned, and to hear his comment.

If Simon had killed—

It wasn't possible to shut the thought out.

He moved from this room into the next, a large bedroom.

There was no kitchen and no bathroom, but another door led off the bedroom, which had a large single bed and would have been up to date in the middle of Queen Victoria's reign. Everything was Victorian, heavy, dark, typically provincial French.

He tried the handle of the communicating door. It turned and the door wasn't locked. He opened it, cautiously. The dim light from this room fell on to a big wardrobe, a chair, and some oddments of woman's clothing. There was a whisper of even breathing.

He stepped inside.

Violette lay on the single bed in here, fast asleep, her hair looking strange because it had been bleached; there was no shadow of doubt that it was Violette.

Did she know that she was sleeping next to dead Gérard.

Should he tell her?

He went nearer the bed. There was a lamp at a bedside table, with a thick red silk shade. He switched it on. The light reminded him of the red lighting in the narrow room at the Villa Seblec. The way it fell upon Violette made her look younger. No, she wasn't a beauty, in the accepted sense; she just had – something.

He put a hand on her forehead.

“Violette,” he said softly.

She didn't stir.

He moved his hand, touched her shoulder, and squeezed gently, ready to thrust his hand over her mouth if she should cry out.

She was heavily asleep.

He shook her more vigorously, and called more loudly:

“Violette!”

She didn't take the slightest notice. He drew back, breath hissing, then went forward again, putting a thumb to her right eye, and raising the lid enough to be able to see the pupil. It was very small, as it might be if she had been drugged with morphia or a kindred drug.

Gérard dead and Violette drugged, and Simon and Fifi missing.

 

They did not return that night.

Rollison dozed much of it, in an easy-chair, with upright chairs at the doors, to make sure that he would be disturbed if anyone came in. No one did.

Violette woke just after seven o'clock.

 

She looked on Gérard's body, without saying a word. Rollison watched, and felt quite sure that she was utterly surprised. And it hurt her. She put her hands to her eyes and turned away blindly, took a step, then snatched her hands down fiercely, as if ashamed of the weakness.

“He was a coward and he is dead; who should worry?”

“Was he here when you went to bed?”

“No.”

“Was Simon Leclair?”

“But of course, Simon and Fifi.”

“What time did you go to bed?”

“It was early, I was very tired. Ten o'clock, when I came back from the hotel.”

“Did you take a sleeping draught?”

“Fifi gave me some pills.”

Fifi, Rollison remembered, had always slept badly, and always had a supply of sleeping pills.

“Did you talk about M. le Comte de Vignolles?”

“A little—nothing of importance. Why?” She stirred herself from a kind of mental numbness. “Why do you ask all these questions?”

“Better I than the police.”

“The police! Are they—”

“They're outside,” Rollison said, “but they don't know about this yet; we've a little time. You're quite sure that de Vignolles isn't a friend of Chicot?”

“Of course I am sure,” she said. “Chicot has often talked of his dislike.”

“All right,” Rollison said. “I want you to get out of here. Leave a minute after me, and follow me to the covered market. Do you know it well?”

“I have been there.”

“Are the flower-sellers all in one spot?”

“Yes.”

“Meet me there,” ordered Rollison. “Ignore the police if any are outside. Don't show any interest in me, but don't let me get out of your sight until we're at the market. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good, hurry.” He let her think that he had finished, and then took her arms swiftly, gripped them tightly: “Another thing, Violette.”

She made no attempt to free herself. “Yes?”

“You haven't lied to me, have you? About anything?”

“I have told you everything I can,” she said, and the lift of her chin told of her pride.

“How often were you at the Villa Seblec?”

“Often.”

“You didn't live there?”

“Some of the time. Sometimes in a hotel.”

“How many other girls lived at the villa?”

“There is Gérard's sister, Raoul's wife,” she said. “At times, others visited us, and disappeared. That is all.”

He found himself believing her, because he wanted to. She turned away, and seemed to shrug herself into her clothes. He rasped his hand over his stubble, took a drink of water from a carafe, and went into the other bedroom.

The sight of Gérard still shocked him. The absence of Simon and Fifi worried him even more.

When he went back, Violette was ready. She wore a wispy scarf over her head, and a bottle-green suit, which was a little too tight for her.

“What will you do if anything goes wrong with me?” asked Rollison.

“What shall I do?” she echoed. Her lips curved, she smiled with a touch of mockery. “I told you once before,
m'sieu,
that I do not think that I want to live. But you have your business to finish first, and Simon and Fifi have been very kind to me. I would like to help them.”

Rollison said: “Why keep talking of dying?”

“It is the good way out.”

“The police would certainly like to get you, Violette,” said Rollison mildly. “Is it for anything more than you have told me?”

The smile played at her lips.

“No,” she said. “And—I did not kill Gérard. I do not kill any of your friends. Do you wish me to follow you, or will you call the police?”

“Follow me, Violette,” he said.

He left the house, and as he reached the stairs, saw a little bustling
madame
in the hall. She gaped at sight of a stranger. He ran down the stairs, bowed, murmured: “Madame,” politely, and pushed past her into the street. The sun was already warming the morning air. A
gendarme
leaned heavily against the wall of a house opposite; he straightened up sharply when he saw Rollison. Rollison raised a hand in greeting, turned right, and strode towards the main road, the market, and his car.

At the junction of roads near the market, a group of people was held up by a
gendarme
who flashed his baton and shrilled on his whistle, and let trams and lorries rumble by. They were trundling away from the market, having emptied their loads of morning vegetables. A dozen passed; and as they went, Rollison glanced over his shoulder. The policeman who had followed him was just behind; Violette was only a hundred yards away.

He did not go to the car.

He sauntered among the stalls, and no one took much notice of him. The smell of fresh vegetables and fresh-cut flowers was like a heavy scent beneath the big iron roofs of the market. Great piles of cabbages, baskets of beans, onions, artichokes, leaf spinach, and potatoes were being wheeled on little trolleys. The cobbled roads were crowded with vans, mostly with hotel markings on them. Small traders haggled with farmers who had a site and were trying to get the last
sou
for their wares. Only here and there did an old man or an old woman just sit, silently offering goods for sale, saddened and bowed down by the hustle and bustle and the ferocity of the competition. A thousand voices were raised in a thousand excited shouts, and judging from the way many of them behaved, they were on the point of violence.

Rollison sauntered through all this.

The policeman followed.

Violette wasn't in sight.

Rollison moved right through the market, past a little girl who offered him a bunch of roses from a flower-stall which was near the sea, and then went towards his car. Panneraude's man moved to a police car, and that told Rollison how thoroughly they were watching him. He got to the wheel of the Jaguar, started off, then swung round towards the main part of the town. Suddenly he turned a corner, trod on the accelerator, and made the car leap forward. He turned two corners on two wheels, then saw a garage, with a lad outside, at the two yellow pumps. He turned into the garage, jammed on the brakes, jumped out and hurried to the lad.

“A back way out, please.”

“A back way,
m'sieu?
”

“I am hiding from my friends—a joke, you understand.”

“A joke,
m'sieu!”
Young eyes lit up.

The joke and two hundred francs took Rollison to a little doorway which debouched on to another narrow street. He took his bearing by the sun, slid down two side streets, and came upon the market.

There was no sign of his policeman.

He hurried across the road and made for the flower-stall section, searching for Violette. She might have run away. She might have decided that he wouldn't come back. She might have been followed, by brown-skinned men—

She was standing close to one of the market pillars, tall, proud and aloof. When he came up, her eyes brightened; he was sure that she had not felt certain that he would return.

“Hallo, Violette? Ready?”

“Of course.”

“Go ahead this time,” he said. “I'll follow at a distance. The Cafe Mulle, not far from the Cafe Lippe. Once you're in, I'll come in by the side door. Don't ask for me, just ask for the private room.”

“Very well,” said Violette.

 

He followed her, but no one followed him. The ten minutes' walk to the Rue de Sauvant, which ran along the back of the Hotel San Roman, seemed to take hours; every
gendarme
he passed, everyone who looked at him or at the girl, seemed to have some sinister intent; but nothing happened, and he watched her turn into the cafe.

Three minutes later he entered by a side door.

This was a place he knew well, and he had come to an arrangement with Papa Mulle, to take messages for him. He could rely on the old man who owned the cafe.

Well, he thought he could.

The cafe itself was dark. Two or three people were sitting at glass-topped tables, sharing coffee and rolls with advertisements for wines, vermouths, and cigarettes. Mulle's eldest grandson, Jean, was behind the little counter; a bright-eyed youth. He pointed towards the door which led to a small private room.

So Violette was there.

Rollison brushed aside the tapestry curtain which hung in the doorway, then stepped inside. Violette wasn't alone. Fifi was with her.

 

 

Fifi was very pale, and looked as if she had not slept. Her hair was pathetically untidy. She watched Rollison coming in, her eyes lack-lustre. It was obvious that she had been crying; little dry tracks of tears showed on her shiny skin. Sitting there with coffee, rolls, and butter in front of her, she looked a round dumpling of a woman.

Jean appeared at the doorway.

“Petit déjeuner, m'sieu?”

“In ten minutes, Jean, please,” Rollison said. “Close the door.”

He waited until he heard it close, and drew nearer to Fifi. Violette was leaning against the wall, one hand at the V of her blouse, playing with a brooch which glinted in the one electric light. Go to Montmartre, to the
demi-monde
of any city of France, and you would find women leaning against a wall like that, as if defying not only men, but the world.

“What is it, Fifi?” asked Rollison.

She made herself speak.

“You were right,” she said in a toneless voice. “We should have gone back to Paris, but we would not listen to you. That is one good thing: you cannot blame yourself for what has happened to Simon, can you?”

The tonelessness touched her words with horror.

“What has happened?” Rollison asked stiffly.

“They have taken him,” Fifi said. She rested her hands on the glass-topped table, and Rollison saw them clenching and unclenching. “It was because of Gérard.
How I hate Gérard,”
she went on savagely.

Had Gérard been alive, he would have been in danger then.

Could Fifi speak of him like that if she knew that the lad was dead?

“What happened?” Rollison asked again.

“Simon made one simple little discovery. I do not know what it was at first. He refused to tell me. He said—” Fifi seemed to flinch, fists and body cringed as if some pain stabbed through her. “He said that the knowledge was too dangerous for me to have, and he would keep it for himself. He was going to tell you, and met Gérard near your hotel room. Simon had gone to see you, and you were not there. Gérard went with us. He had to hide, because after he had failed to take you prisoner from your hotel he was too frightened to go back to the Villa Seblec. Men who had followed Gérard found him with Simon. Simon tried to see you; it was after you had left the Count at dinner, perhaps while I was talking to you. Then Gérard and Simon were
forced
to go away with two men. I do not know how, but he went. I returned to the
pension,
not knowing what had happened, and Simon telephoned me and told me all this. Someone was standing over him with a gun or a knife, he said. I was to leave the
pension,
and stay somewhere else. They were orders, and I—I obeyed them.”

Tears began to fall.

“Did he say why?”

“No,” Fifi said, “no. But I could guess, or I believed I could guess. I thought that they wanted to kill Violette. I thought if I let them, they might not hurt Simon. So I left her.”

“Was Gérard in your room?” Rollison demanded.

“He was not,” said Fifi, through clenched teeth. “If ever I see the beast again, I—”

Violette looked at Rollison; she hadn't moved. Fifi had deserted her, but who could blame Fifi?

And why had Violette been left alone at the
pension?
Had the men of the Villa Seblec changed their minds about wanting her dead?

He brushed the question aside.

“I came here because I knew you would come sooner or later,” Fifi went on. She sounded choky. “You remember the first time we met in Nice? It was in the Cafe Mulle. I will tell you another thing. Here in this room Simon began his career, here he received his first payment. Here—”

She broke off, fighting back tears.

“Do you know anything to help us find him?” Rollison asked, and made himself sound calm. “Have you any idea why they took him away, or what it is that he knows?”

She said: “I think he knows who Chicot is.”

 

For the first time since Rollison had been in the back room, Violette moved. She took a few steps forwards, pulled up a chair, and sat down. Close to Fifi, she looked at her with infinite sympathy.

“He knows who Chicot is,” Violette said, “and I would recognise Chicot if I saw him. So both of us are to be killed.” Her hand touched Fifi's, but she looked up at Rollison. “Unless you have some good idea to save us,
m'sieu.”
There was bitterness but no mockery in her tone. “Chicot is not M. le Comte. He is not Raoul. He is not Dr. Morency. Certainly he is not Sautot. He is very anxious not to be found out, isn't he? It would be interesting to know why?”

“All trails lead to Chicot,” Rollison said softly. “Everyone blames Chicot. Gérard made a statement that involved him. I think Gérard died because he knew Chicot, but Chicot is just a name.”

“Gérard
is
dead?” Fifi looked up sharply.

“Killed, Fifi,” Rollison said. He didn't say where the youth's body was; or that when the police found it, they would be on the look-out for them all. “Know Chicot and die. Know Chicot—”

He broke off.

The door from the cafe opened, and little Jean came in, carrying a tray with fresh coffee, croissants, butter, and a white dish of marmalade. Behind him came Papa Mulle himself.

Mulle was an old man now. There had been a time when he had been called the Father of All Clowns, but nothing in his expression or his face suggested that as he came in. He was almost bald, and the fringe of hair at his temples was snowy white; so were his eyebrows and his moustache. But he had a fresh complexion and eyes almost as bright as Jean's, his grandson's, and his step was sprightly. He came with both hands extended to greet Rollison, and he did not seem to notice any tension in the air. His smile encompassed Fifi and Violette, but his interest was only in the Toff.

“To see you again, my friend, is one of the pleasures of living! I wish you had come later in the day; we could have opened a bottle in your honour. Tonight, perhaps, or another night?” He stopped pumping Rollison's hands. “You look very well. Are you?”

“Fine, Papa, fine.”

“Oh, there is doubtless something in being an Englishman,” Mulle said off-handedly. “Did I hear you speaking of Chicot?”

“Do you know Chicot?” Fifi burst out.

Papa Mulle looked at her with mild surprise.

“But of course I knew Chicot, as we all did. Even M. Rollison has seen Chicot, the master of us all. Poor Chicot! He died in poverty; everyone is aware of that. He died a bitter man also, betrayed by his friends. Perhaps, betrayed is too strong a word,” went on Papa Mulle sadly, “but not to Chicot. There were seven men who were to finance his great dream: a theatre of his own, in Paris, in London, and in New York. One of them betrayed Chicot's only daughter, and she killed herself. In his bitterness and despair, Chicot could think of nothing else. He lost his magic, and they all deserted him. His friends disappeared, he died unloved and deserted. Poor Chicot,” Papa Mulle said softly, and raised his hands and sighed. “It is said that he had a son, but no one has ever seen him.”

Violette breathed: “A son for Chicot?”

“A son!” gasped Fifi.

“Is there so surprising in having a son?” demanded the old man mildly.

“No,” said Rollison, “or even a grandson, Papa Mulle. Or friends. What was the name of the man who ran off with Chicot's daughter?”

Papa Mulle said: “You may know, I suppose. It is an old, old business now, the first of the many
affaires
of M. le Comte de Vignolles. You are not surprised?”

“No,” said Rollison softly. “Not at all surprised. Are you strong enough to be given a shock?”

Mulle looked startled. “Strong enough to—” He broke off, and chuckled. “It will take much more than a shock to harm me, my friend. Try it.”

“Simon Leclair is in grave danger,” Rollison said abruptly. “So are other friends of mine. I can't be sure; but I think M. le Comte de Vignolles could help to remove the danger.”

Papa Mulle did not speak.

“One way to find out is to talk to M. le Comte,” went on Rollison dryly, “but on my ground, not his. Can you find me some helpers, lend me two cars, and also find me a place where I can talk to him?”

The coldness faded from Mulle's eyes; they grew warm until eventually they glowed. “Yes, my friend, I can,” he said.

 

M. le Comte de Vignolles was in the library of his villa, which was built on the hills overlooking the sea, between the middle and upper corniche from Monte Carlo to Nice. He was alone. The room was large, but the most striking feature was the huge window, stretching the whole width of one wall, and overlooking the promontory which jutted into the sea at Cap Mirabeau and the He de Seblec. It was often said that his villa had the finest views in France.

He was writing.

Some movement caught his eye, and he saw a car turn into the drive off the corniche road. It made him frown, for it was a gleaming cream-coloured car, and he did not recognise it. He was not expecting strangers. He shrugged his shoulders and tried to put it out of his mind, but it would not go. When a tap came at the door, he said at once: “Yes, come in.”

A middle-aged man dressed in black entered.

“M. le Comte, an English gentleman, one M. Rollison, asks if you will be good enough to see him.”

“Who?”

“An English gentleman, M.—”

“Beautifully said,” said Rollison, and startled the flunkey by appearing behind him. He put him gently to one side, and entered the room. “Good morning, good morning. My, what a view!” He moved across to the window and stood looking out, marvelling. “Wonderful! What a lucky man you are.”

“M. le Comte,” said the servant tautly, “is it your wish to have M. Rollison shown out?”

“Shown or thrown, they scan at home,” said Rollison brightly. “But I don't think that my host will be as unkind as that. Circumstances have changed. Will you leave us to talk together?”

The servant said: “In one moment, M. le Comte, I can call Charles and Paul. Together they—”

“Wait outside,” de Vignolles said abruptly.

“As you wish,
m'sieu.”

“But they can come and throw you out at the touch of a switch,” de Vignolles said to Rollison. The anger in his eyes might have been there since the previous night. There was disquiet, too; a sense of fear. “What do you want?”

“Some friends of mine,” said Rollison promptly. “Simon Leclair, known as the natural successor to the original Chicot; Daphne Myall, just the daughter of an unhappy woman, and a few other daughters. Not very much, after all.”

“You must be mad! To come here and talk to me and—”

“Burble,” said Rollison brightly. “I agree with you. In your position I would be angry, too. But there isn't anything you can do about it now, for you're in trouble. You're in
big
trouble. You see, I think you know who Chicot is. I think he blackmails you into helping him, perhaps into providing these pretty girls. You hoped I would trace and kill Chicot. You dare not name him, but you thought a thousand pounds would make me keener to find out who he is. Well, you're going to name him, M. le Comte.”

“I do not know him!”

“I don't believe you. Send him a message, will you? That I'm prepared to keep away from the police and give him time to get away, provided Simon Leclair and the girls are freed.”

“It isn't true,” de Vignolles said shrilly. “I do not know who Chicot is!”

Rollison grinned.

“Chicot, son of Chicot,” he declared. “Bright idea, too. Lure the girls down here with bright lights, turn their heads, use them as decoys to fleece wealthy old fools, then keep them prisoner, use them as the bait in more big swindles. When they're guilty of that, they're in Chicot's hands. Villa Seblec is kept as a kind of home from home for the young ladies until they can't stand the confinement any longer, and ‘volunteer' to go to the African coast. Wealthy sheiks like pretty white ladies, no? Violette Monet was an exception, because Chicot fell in love with her.”

He paused. Then: “Who
is
Chicot?”

“I do not know!” cried de Vignolles.

Rollison felt quite sure that he did; quite sure that he lived in terror of Chicot, and dared not name him.

“M. le Comte, what would happen if I were to tell Morency or Raoul, at the Villa Seblec, that you have named him?” Rollison inquired mildly.

“No!” cried de Vignolles.

“He wouldn't be surprised, as we dined together.”

De Vignolles was sweating, and breathing in short gasps; a frightened man. A little more pressure, and he would crack; but Rollison did not want him to crack here.

The manservant was at the door.

The Toff relaxed, as the door opened, and touched his forehead lightly.

“
Au revoir,
”
he beamed, and flicked a card towards the desk so dexterously that it lay on the blotting-pad on which de Vignolles had been writing. “My card.” He bowed, moved to the door, and went out.

De Vignolles saw him chuck the manservant under the chin.

De Vignolles did not close the door, but stared after the Englishman, who moved lightly as a ballet-dancer and who suddenly began to sing a
risqué
song in rich Paris argot.

Then he disappeared.

Ten minutes later, M. le Comte de Vignolles left his villa in a chauffeur-driven Cadillac, an exquisite sea-green in colour, and was taken safely to the drive and on to the main road. A few hundred yards along, round a corner, the driver was forced to slow down. Workmen were blocking half the road, and a car was coming towards them on the other half. De Vignolles glared at the driver of this, who looked a very old man in beret and blouse. The man was swearing at his engine, which was at least as venerable as he was himself.