This Traitor Death

by Desmond Cory

  After perhaps five minutes of silence, broken only by the quiet bumping of the engine, Antoine turned his head slightly sideways and moved his shoulder to a more comfortable supporting position. Three feet away he could see the back of the girl’s head, her hair attractively dishevelled by the wind that was entering by the side window; the side of her face was just visible, with the indentation beside the eyes and the firm swell of the cheek-bone. He noticed the smooth but determined line of the jaw with approval and said:

  “You seem to be very much of a creature of impulse. Are you always that way?”

  He saw from the movement of her cheek that she was smiling. She said: “Surely that needn’t concern us yet.”

  “I don’t know the answer to that one,” said Antoine. “If I say ‘yes’, it’ll be impudent; if I say ‘no, rather not’, it’ll be ungrateful. Let’s change the subject. “

  “All right. You’re married, I believe?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “I’ll try to get word through to your wife that you’re safe. But I don’t think you should try to contact her; they’re bound to be watching your house. Do you agree?”

  Antoine said: “Yes, entirely.”

  “As soon as we get to my flat, you’d better have a bath and go to bed.” she continued. “I’ve got to be at the office at two o’clock and I shall have to leave you almost at once. You must take what you want to eat if you feel hungry; don’t, on any account, go out to buy anything. I’ll try to pick up some pyjamas and so forth this afternoon – incidentally, you could do with a shave.”

  One of Nature’s planners, thought Antoine.

  “Is there any doctor you can trust to have a look at that wound of yours?”

  “I can’t think of one,” said Antoine. “It’s only a flesh wound and I don’t think it really needs a doctor; if it’s clean, it’ll heal itself in no time.”

  “All right,” said Marie-Andrée. “We’ll give it couple of days to see how it heals; but if it gets septic, you’ll have to have a doctor.” .

  Antoine said: “Yes, I agree to that.” He raised himself on his elbow to look out of the window. “We’re making very good time. Where in Paris do you live?”

  “The Avenue Henri Martin. Almost opposite the Porte de la Muette.”

  “I know it,” said Antoine, relaxing in the seat again. He was once more beginning to feel sleepy. “Very near to my restaurant. You know the ‘Méridien’, on the Avenue Victor Hugo?… Mine.”

  “I didn’t know you were a restaurateur,” she said. “That gives me an added incentive, doesn’t it? If you ever get out of this mess, you can give me free meals for life.”

  Antoine yawned. He said: “I think I’ll have a nap. Tell me when to hide under the rug.”

  She nodded, concentrating on her driving. Antoine rested his head on his right arm and went once more to sleep; while the car traveled at forty miles an hour along the road to Paris.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ROSTAND’S stands on one side of the Avenue Hoche, not far from the Place de l’Etoile. Inside Rostand’s was Johnny Fedora, sitting at a corner table and reading the morning paper; and inside Johnny was the greater part of three glasses of Pernod. Johnny was doing some hard thinking which – as was usually the case – meant that he was doing some very hard drinking, as well.

  The paragraph in the paper that had so excited his curiosity was a small, single-column comment that was headed: “Gervais Still Missing.” It stated briefly and succinctly that Captain Antoine Gervais, wanted by the police on a charge of collaboration with the Nazis, was still unapprehended five days after his vanishing from a party and the subsequent demand for his arrest by ex-officers of the Dupont Brigade of the F.F.I. This was not in itself news to Johnny, for some information on the matter had been sent to him by the invaluable Nicole; information that he had examined carefully before proceeding to Paris by air that morning. He had then gone straight to Rostand’s and, having established an entente cordiale with the hotel’s liquor, was now considering his next move with the care of a swimmer about to dive into a pool from which he knows all the water has been emptied.

  His choice of Rostand’s as his headquarters was not arbitrary. During the war that hotel had been the meeting-place of two large groups of francs-tireurs, and was still the centre of the Communist grapevine that had been built round the old Maquisard’s hotel, and its patrons were almost entirely ex-partisans. It was above all the place for finding out what old so-and-so was doing now, for the retelling of tall stories of impossible exploits against La Geste or one’s personal smuggled-airman yarn. There were bound to be there several of the men who had known Johnny in the days when le Fedora had ranked almost as a legend in the Maquis; and Johnny, equipped with a new face by one of the greatest plastic surgeons in Europe, was anxious to test its efficiency… There was also a secondary, almost a subconscious, reason; and it was the ramifications of this that he was endeavouring to work out.

  Eventually he finished his drink, rose from the table and passed into the vestibule. He walked over to the reception-desk and said pleasantly:

  “A single room, please, preferably on the first floor. I shall be staying for a week, perhaps more.”

  The reception clerk glanced at him with some curiosity, but replied courteously that such a room was indeed available and that he would be pleased to do monsieur’s pleasure.

  Johnny said: “Thank you. My luggage will be arriving later in the afternoon. Perhaps you will see that it is sent up to my room.”

  “Certainly, m’sieur,” agreed the clerk. “I shall see to it personally.”

  Johnny nodded and reached for the register. He took a fountain-pen from his breast-pocket and signed in his clearest handwriting:

  “Pierre Darreaux. French. Marseilles.”

  The clerk swivelled the book around adroitly and glanced at the signature. “Ah!” he said, enlightened. “Welcome to Rostand’s, Monsieur Darreaux. We have heard of you, of course, but I believe this is the first time you have honoured us by staying here… Your key, m’sieur. The room number is twenty.”

  Johnny said: “Thank you, thank you. You’re right. I have seen little of Paris for some years. This will be a pleasant excursion.”

  “But naturally,” said the clerk. He seemed disposed to be talkative. “It is terrible to think so many of your friends are gone – the Diamond Group, wasn’t it?”

  “You must have a remarkable memory,” said Johnny.

  “Ah, m’sieur! In this place one continues to live the old days. I myself, now, I was a partisan in the area of the Bois de Boulogne. Every day I see my old friends here, my comrades-in-arms – but your group, now, that is very different. All dead, I believe, except for Monsieur Auguste – but I am forgetting, he joined the F.F.I. and was killed later, is that not so?… And, of course, Antoine Gervais; you must have read about Antoine in the papers? Sad, incredibly sad – a man so much admired.”

  Johnny said: “Strangely enough, I chanced to read the news in my paper this morning. Frankly, I find it unbelievable.”

  “There! What would you? They say that his guilt has been proved beyond all doubt. Certainly the order has gone round that he is to be brought in – m’sieur will not deceive himself as to the meaning of that. So far, however, he appears to have made his escape.”

  “You think that likely?” asked Johnny.

  “So far, m’sieur! So far! I have no doubt that he will be found as the rest have been found. Only if he leaves the country will he be safe, and that is, as you know, difficult.”

  Johnny nodded.

  “Difficult,” repeated the clerk. “Now, if you will excuse me, m’sieur” – he smiled professionally – “my duties.”

  Johnny said: “Of course. Thank you for your attention.”

  The clerk bowed and Johnny walked over to the telephone in the corner of the room. As he went he saw out of the corner of his eye the clerk turn again and whisper something to the pageboy, and he smiled to himself. In a
few hours’ time the news that Pierre Darreaux was staying in Paris would be widely known – widely enough, perhaps, for some result.

  He picked up the telephone directory and flipped through the pages to the Gs. After a moment’s searching he discovered the name he was looking for, and the address was 9, Avenue Montagu.

  That meant a brisk walk down the Champs-Elysées, and Johnny, still a trifle cramped after the air journey, felt in the mood for one. He tapped his hat a shade more firmly on to his head and made for the door.

  The flat in the Avenue Montagu was on the ground floor, was well-decorated outside and was just clear of the hum of traffic around the Place de l’Alma. Johnny paused for a moment outside to take stock of the surroundings, then walked up the steps and pressed the bell. From a long way off he heard an answering tinkle, muffled as if by a dozen luxurious carpets, and after a pause a contradictory tap of high heels on the floor as someone came to the door. Johnny removed his hat and made a somewhat abortive attempt to straighten his tie. He hoped he was looking respectable and trustworthy, for if ever he had needed his celebrated charm of manner he felt that this was the moment.

  Then the door-handle rattled and the door swung easily open.

  “Er –” said Johnny ingratiatingly, surveying the figure that stood neatly framed in the entrance.

  She was surprisingly tall, and from the advantage of a single step, her eyes were on a level with his own. They were green in colour and were brought into prominence by high, gently curving cheek-bones, partly concealed by masses of loose, wavy, brown hair. Johnny was exhilarated to notice behind those eyes the faint flicker of mildly curious approbation that he had seen frequently before, but his pleasure was mixed with a vague apprehension of his own conceit. After all, it was not at Johnny that this decidedly attractive woman was looking, but at a stranger miraculously equipped with Johnny’s figure and hands, yet with a different face. How very strange it all was…

  “Yes?” asked the woman, effectively cutting short these speculations.

  “Er – yes. You are Madame Gervais?”

  “Yes, I’m Simone Gervais. What can I do for you?”

  “I should much appreciate a few moments’ conversation with you, madame – concerning your husband.” .

  “Oh!” she said sharply. Johnny saw her eyes move restlessly across the street. “Yes. Will you come in?”

  “Most kind,” murmured Johnny. He stepped inside the house and pushed the door to behind him.

  “This way, please,” said Simone, walking down the corridor.

  Johnny followed her, noting as quickly as he could the details of her appearance that had escaped him. She was wearing a powder-blue housecoat with a complete absence of trimmings, sun-tan silk stockings and high-heeled court shoes. Her figure was magnificent – nails lightly varnished, small filigree earrings – scent, yes, what kind he didn’t know. He liked it, though. Wedding ring on the conventional finger, no jewellery. Lipstick almost certainly Chen Yu. Touches of rouge, perhaps – eyelashes, no. Naturally black.

  He turned into a sitting-room on the right of the corridor, followed her across the carpet and sat down in the chair she indicated. She walked across to the window, picked up a box of cigarettes and brought them across to him. Johnny, watching her closely, decided that he hadn’t been the first to notice that figure. She knew quite a lot about it herself.

  He took a cigarette and said: “Where are they?”

  She said: “‘They?’ Who do you mean?”

  “The people watching the house,” said Johnny. “Down there you glanced across the street when you let me in, and now we’re here the first thing that you do is take a look out of the window. You mustn’t let this little affair get on your nerves, you know.”

  “You’re an observant type.”

  “Yes. I see, for instance, that you’d like a light for your cigarette. Here you are. On the other hand, I didn’t notice anyone hanging around outside here, so, unless you know there’s somebody there, I should forget all about it.”

  Simone leant forward to light her cigarette, then leant back again and crossed her legs. She said: “It’s nice of you to try to cheer me up, but there’s somebody out there all right. They’re keeping an eye on this place. And, in any case, you don’t look to me like a member of a Charitable Institution devoted to the Consolation of Worried Wives. What is your worry?”

  Johnny said: “I want to find Antoine Gervais.”

  She blew out a thin trail of smoke and smiled, rather unconvincingly. She said: “So would quite a lot of people, as you seem to have noticed. I’m afraid I don’t know where he is.”

  Johnny said: “That’s a pity. It’s most important that I find him, and – if you’re interested – I’m not looking for him for the same reason as those others.”

  Simone contemplated the end of her cigarette; she seemed about to say something, but changed her mind. She looked up at Johnny again.

  “I knew Antoine a long time ago. My name, by the way, is Darreaux – Pierre Darreaux.”

  “I’ve heard of you.”

  “Yes. I had hoped Antoine might have mentioned my name to you. You will know, then, that I have no connection with the Dupont Brigade, and certainly have no wish to see your husband dead. I owe him my life.”

  “That,” she said, “I have never heard.”

  “No? Well, perhaps not. Antoine is not one to boast, as you know; nevertheless, it is a fact,” lied Johnny. “And obligations must be paid. That is why I am here.”

  She stood up again and leant against the mantelpiece, still watching him with those cold sea-green eyes. She said: “You’re not a Frenchman, are you?”

  “I certainly am.”

  “That’s strange. You speak French with the slightest of accents, one that I can’t put a name to. You have the Provençal accent, of course – I don’t mean to be rude – but there is something else. It’s curious.”

  Johnny said: “I spent my childhood in England, you know, and it seems to have affected my accent. You’re by no means the first to notice that.”

  “You speak English?”

  “Fairly well,” said Johnny modestly.

  She said in English: “And what part of England did you live in?”

  Johnny raised one eyebrow and smiled. He said in the same language: “So you’re a linguist, too. How many of these – er – tests do I have to pass?”

  “I suppose this conversation bears more than the usual resemblance to a fencing-match,” she said moodily. She had returned to French, for which Johnny was grateful; it is not easy to speak one’s own language with a convincing foreign accent, and this woman seemed to have an alarmingly true ear for a false stress. “I don’t even know why it’s taking place. I’m sorry that I can’t help you, but I honestly don’t know where my husband is. And in any case, he seems to be looking after himself with his usual competence. I don’t think you could be of much assistance to him.”

  Johnny said: “I’m pretty competent myself.”

  “Yes, I can believe that. You know, you remind me of my husband. Very quiet and placid, soft voice and all that, with something underneath that you can never quite make out. I suppose you’re something of a success where women are concerned?”

  “I don’t seem to be making much headway at the moment.”

  “Yes, you are. Again like my husband… I like you, Monsieur Darreaux, and I think I might trust you. Not too far, but a little. Would you like to reciprocate?”

  Johnny said: “I don’t quite follow you.”

  “Tell me the real reason why you’re looking for Antoine.”

  Johnny was amazed to find himself giving this suggestion serious consideration. As Simone had recognised, he was attractive to women and had often been attracted by them; but his susceptibility had always been cloaked by a distrust of women that verged on the pathological. Johnny trusted men when he had to; women, never. In this case, moreover, it was difficult to see what he had to gain.

  He said: “I
’ve already told you my reason, madame.”

  “Yes. But you thought that out just a little too long. I don’t believe you.”

  Johnny grinned at her and took another mouthful of smoke.

  “There is another reason,” she said thoughtfully, “and, as you say, it’s not that you are hunting him. You weren’t wondering what to tell me then, you were wondering whether to tell me or not. And you decided ‘not’.”

  Johnny continued to smile. The position of foil to another person’s brilliance was an unusual one for him, and he had always found unusual positions entertaining.

  “You, madame.” he said, “seem to be in a similar position.”

  She looked at him slantwise, the left eyelid half drooping across the pupil. Then she began to laugh.

  “I must say,” she said, “we seem to be a remarkably psychic pair. We should be doing demonstrations of telepathy on the radio.”

  “I should welcome the opportunity.”

  “Thanks for nothing. Well – I’m afraid you must go, Monsieur Darreaux. I have dozens of things to attend to. It’s been a most interesting conversation, and, if you should ever remember why you want to find my husband…”

  Johnny nodded and got up. He stubbed out his cigarette and reached for his hat. He said: “I’ll explain it to him when I find him.”

  “You think you will?”

  “Yes,” said Johnny simply.

  They looked at each other for perhaps ten seconds, rather in the manner of two tom-cats eyeing each other before the combat. The image amused Johnny, for those slanting green eyes had something unquestionably feline about them. Then she turned away and went down the hall, and he followed her. She turned with her hand on the door-handle and suddenly said:

  “Go and see Marie-Andrée Duveyrier, she may help you.”

  They looked at each other again, and this time her eyes held an unmistakable glint of humour behind their green inexpressiveness. As she opened the door she did that involuntary trick with the left eyelid again.

  “Good-bye,” she said. “Thanks for looking in.”

  Johnny said: “Thank you. I shall be seeing you again quite soon.”