by Desmond Cory
Delacroix said softly; “But, Antoine, never for a moment have I really thought you to be guilty.”
Antoine looked down at the pistol, disconcertingly steady and once more pointing at his stomach. “I see.”
Delacroix’s mouth twitched once more in quietly sadistic enjoyment. He said: “Yes, that’s how it is. This is purely for my personal pleasure. I am sorry for Monsieur Fedora and for the young lady; but they should really have kept their noses out of our business. They have only themselves to blame.” He hesitated for a moment. “Well, Antoine, I am not a religious man, but I will allow you the space of thirty seconds in order to say a prayer to whatever God you wish to nominate as your auxiliary.” His mouth broadened once more; and the pistol inclined slightly upwards until the sights lined themselves up with Gervais’s left ventricle.
There was another silence. Gervais remained completely calm; but Johnny saw, out of the corner of his eye, the thin moisture gathering on the side of his forehead. He rested his back against the wall and began, slowly and deliberately, to estimate his chances of a draw… For thirty seconds Delacroix would be watching all three of them, ready to shoot at the slightest move. Then he would shoot Gervais, and for a split second his attention would have to be focused on placing the shot. The recoil of the gun would inevitably disturb his aim for another decimal point of a second; and re-levelling it at Johnny would occupy a slightly greater fraction of time. Johnny, used to thinking in terms of hundredths of a second, felt that he had a chance. His eyes focused dreamily on Delacroix’s right wrist and on the fingers that cuddled the pistol; in perhaps ten seconds from now there would be the slightest movement of the wrist muscles, telegraphing in advance the tightening of the trigger-finger; and in the time between that most infallible of signals and the hot blaze of the revolver, Johnny’s own hand must be inside his coat and flicking his own pistol up and outwards. Then it would be an even bet…
Gervais had had it, anyway. That was too bad. It seemed pretty certain that he himself would have to take one before he could put one back in the right place. But he thought that the girl would be all right. The idea amused him… Of the four people now in the room, in five more seconds’ time only one would be unharmed. He was sufficiently self-confident not to hold out much hope of Delacroix coming through completely in one piece.
Then, just as Delacroix’s hand seemed to be hesitating before it squeezed, somebody kicked the door open behind Johnny. He had no clear idea of the subsequent events, because exactly half of them took place behind his back; he saw Delacroix twist in his seat and saw the revolver jump twice with a noise like a stifled cough, heard the horrible blood-choked grunt of a man with a bullet through the throat coming from just behind him, then a burst of angry plops, the unmistakable hiss and thump of revolver bullets hitting flesh and a sudden vision, like a shot from a surrealist film, of Delacroix lurching giddily from the piano stool and sending it spinning wildly round as he fell, his eyes half-closed and a thin trickle of blood unaccountably coming from his mouth.
Then the room was still, full of the harsh tang of cordite fumes, and two macintoshed men were coming across it, stepping almost daintily across the prone body of the man who lay in the doorway and with whom Delacroix had made no mistakes at all.
The smaller of the two went straight across the room to Delacroix’s body and surveyed it thoughtfully. Apart from keeping their pistols lazily swinging in the general direction of Gervais, they seemed to be ignoring the other occupants of the room. Then, after staring at Delacroix’s face for some time – one would have thought, by no means a rewarding spectacle – the smaller man sighed quietly and said to his companion:
“That was him all right.”
The other fumbled in his inside coat-pocket and produced a photograph; and for a further two seconds they compared it with the supine Delacroix. Then they nodded together and the larger man replaced the photograph tenderly.
“That,” he said, “would have meant an Iron Cross for us a few years ago, Paul.” He gave Delacroix a disinterested kick and, for the first time, eyed Gervais and Johnny in a somewhat malignant manner.
“Fast!” said Paul, still unable to move his gaze from the recumbent Frenchman. “Talk about fast! I’ll swear he had the gun in his hand before Georges was in the room. But he won’t be fast any more.”
“No,” agreed the larger man morosely. He made a slight motion of his pistol towards the others. “You’d better have a look through the pockets of this lot; I’ll keep an eye on them.”
Johnny watched them as they turned from Delacroix and commenced the operation beloved of gangsters and Customs officials but otherwise discountenanced by the civilised world.
Both men had hard, stony faces, with the wary, thinly-lined mouths of professional killers; neither looked particularly intelligent, but both exuded the cold-blooded, unexcited confidence of men who know exactly what they are doing. Maybe they did. But Johnny had a pretty good idea who they thought they had killed and whom the photograph that they had studied represented. It could hardly be anyone other than himself. He prepared to enjoy himself and allowed Paul to remove from its shoulder-holster the light Mauser automatic pistol of which Delacroix had not bothered to deprive him.
Paul laid on the table the Mauser and the pistol that Gervais had carried in his coat-pocket, then turned wearily back to his victims.
“There’s no need for any alarm,” he said in a tired voice. “We have orders to escort Captain Gervais to see our – er – Chief.” He looked querulously from Johnny to Antoine and back again. “The other gentleman and the young lady we have no orders about, and will be allowed to go free… Captain Gervais?”
“Yes?” said Antoine and Johnny together.
Paul’s eyes narrowed in a rather conventional manner as the two others exchanged puzzled glances. “Captain Antoine Gervais,” he said in the same slightly bored tone. “Which of you two gentleman is Captain Antoine Gervais?”
“I am,” said Johnny and Antoine in perfect unison. There was a long pause. Then, slowly and deliberately, Paul scratched the back of his head and looked at his companion. He said in German: “Karl, do you know which of them is Gervais?”
Karl shook his head firmly. “She said there would be Gervais, Fedora and a young lady here. You know as much as I do. But obviously they cannot both be Gervais.”
“But obviously, imbecile.” Paul turned back and eyed Johnny and Antoine with impartial malevolence. “They must be persuaded,” he said kindly.
“Ah!” said Karl. His hard rat-trap of a mouth quivered at the edges, almost as if he were smiling.
Paul moved pensively towards Johnny and examined him closely, rather as if he was endeavouring to decide on what particular part of Johnny’s anatomy to commence operations. He rocked gently to and fro on his heels, smacked one palm into the other, then turned and went back.
“Not here,” he said quickly. “We may have attracted some attention. And persuasion, as I understand the word, usually involves a certain amount of noise – involuntary, but nevertheless embarrassing. We’d better take them all along. Or – at least – I will take them along while you stay here and clean up” – he eyed the prostrate figure of his late companion in the doorway unemotionally – “the mess.”
Karl looked disappointed, but nodded. The other extricated his pistol from the pocket where he had placed it, flourished it somewhat obtrusively and then indicated the door with it. “Shall we go?”
They went: Marie-Andrée first, then Johnny and Antoine, with the unmentionable Paul bringing up the rear.
As they walked out onto the street Antoine whispered urgently: “There’s only one. Think we might make a break for it?”
“Could do, I suppose. But I want to see what’s going on and why; and if we hang on a little longer it looks as if someone will enlighten us… Besides, there’s the girl.”
“It is not permitted,” said Paul nastily, “to talk. Parked on the other side of the road there is a car. B
e so good as to get into it.”
“Nasty little man,” said Johnny to himself. He made a mental reservation to pick Paul off at the earliest convenient opportunity. The other macintoshed gentleman, he recalled, had been addressed as Karl. That would be the Karl Schubert of Holliday’s dossier. There seemed to be no doubt that he was definitely on the trail at last – an encouraging thought.
He dived into the back seat of the car and snuggled down; the cushions were definitely inviting…
“The front seat, if you please,” said Paul’s metallic voice. “You will drive and the other gentleman will sit beside you. The young lady will sit in the back with me, and at the first sign of any – er – misbehaviour, I shall blow her head off. But literally.”
In the stomach, decided Johnny as he clambered into the driving-seat. In the stomach, at least three times. A most unpleasant little man… Aloud, he said: “Where do we go?”
“Drive straight down the street,” said Paul. “I will give you warning when it is necessary to turn. Any attempt to disregard the accepted rules of the road in the hope of attracting the attention of a gendarme, I shall, needless to say, interpret as – misbehaviour.”
Johnny obeyed this last injunction to the full by maintaining a steady and unperturbed fifteen miles an hour; and Paul, reclining perfectly at his ease in the back seat, showed no sign of impatience at this obvious adaptation of the tactics of Fabius Maximus. He lit an evil-smelling cigarette and amused himself by blowing somewhat erratic smoke-rings across the car, occasionally indicating a side-turning in his unpleasantly flat monotone.
Johnny, slouching back in his seat and in his own way quite as contented as Paul appeared to be, was taking advantage of this brief respite in an evening of violent and almost continuous action to ponder on events. Gervais, sitting beside him, showed every symptom of having gone peacefully to sleep. In his way, Johnny reflected, a cool card.
His assumption of Gervais’s identity had been one of those unpremeditated and slightly mad actions that had got him into serious trouble in a large number of very different countries. There was, however, he realised, a certain chain of logic behind the action. Paul had announced his intention of taking Gervais to see the Chief. He, Fedora, wished to see the Chief, ergo, he had become Gervais. True, the existence in the room of another, perfectly good Gervais with prior claims to such a title, was a disturbing factor; but that could hardly have been helped. As it was, things seemed to be happening and Johnny was quite prepared to follow his nose until he was able to see things a little straighter. It was an infallible recipe of his for such confusion as now seemed to be forming about him.
On the concrete side, of course, his arrival in Paris had had some definite results. Holliday’s list of German agents in Paris had included five men and two women; of that list, one of the gentlemen concerned was lying on his back in Pierre’s coal-cellar and another had fallen a victim to the redoubtable Delacroix. A third, apparently a man of some importance, was sitting just behind him, and a fourth was, in all probability, engaged in carting bodies down from Marie-Andrée’s flat to some unknown dumping-place. Only one man remained an unknown quantity… Then there were the two women, le rossignol and Mai Weill, neither of whom had as yet put in an appearance upon the scene. Frankly, Johnny was awaiting their advent with some curiosity.
Weill he knew nothing about, except that she was the leader of the Section; and this fact alone gave her interest in his eyes. Women had, of course, adopted positions of responsibility in the S.S. under Himmler’s regime, and had often been reasonably successful agents. But a woman in charge of a whole department of IIIB, with five men under her, was something of a rarity… The possibility had not escaped him that Mai Weill might be a soubriquet, the nickname of a man. Members of Intelligence Departments are notoriously addicted to noms de guerre. Well – time would show, Johnny reflected. He invariably found the use of clichés soothing, in such cases.
Then there was le rossignol. Quite another kettle of fish. Her existence, at least, was an established fact. She existed in a great many places; in two glossy photographs in Johnny’s room; at the end of a length of telephone cable; above all, indexed in the brain of Antoine Gervais. He might even have seen her. Those photographs, taken so long ago, might very well mislead, as much as assist, his researches.
The fifth man Johnny didn’t bother to think about. He was quite sure in his own mind who it was.
“Turn right here,” said Paul. “Slowly… that’s right… and now pull up at number twenty-four. The fourth house on the left, the one with the rose-garden in front. That’s the idea.”
Johnny eased the car to a halt and surveyed his destination with some interest. Number twenty-four, rue Lamartine. A nice little detached house, typically suburban and breathing an air of quiet respectability. There was a lamp-post beside the front gate, clearly illuminating the number on the gatepost and throwing shadows behind the ordered ranks of rose-bushes.
“You two gentlemen get out,” said Paul, “and stand by the gate. Then I and the young lady will follow suit.”
It happened exactly as he had indicated. Johnny and Gervais got out. Paul and the young lady followed suit. They then walked up to the front door, Paul holding Marie-Andrée affectionately in the crook of his ann and resting the barrel of his revolver gently on her hip-bone. At the front door he threw Gervais the key; Gervais unlocked the door and they went in. Paul’s air of quiet confidence never deserted him for a moment; he walked unhesitatingly into the darkness of the hall, his arm still encircling his hostage, and switched on the electric light.
“Now,” he said, “we may as well make ourselves at home. The sitting-room is on the left, gentlemen.”
So they went through into the sitting-room. It was a large room, furnished unostentatiously in the manner of furnished apartments everywhere. Marie-Andrée and Gervais sat down on the inevitable settee and Johnny, after a quick, calculating glance around the room, perched himself on the arm beside them. Paul closed the door, wandered over to the fireplace and leaned against the wall; as an afterthought, he took the pistol from his pocket and laid it on the mantelpiece. He remained for some time in mute contemplation of a large brass candlestick and an unspeakably hideous clock.
“Nice place you have here,” said Johnny conversationally.
“You like it?” Paul seemed surprised. “Well. Not unattractive perhaps. It has some interesting features, of course, with which you are as yet unacquainted.”
“Such as?”
“You will perhaps discover in due course.” Paul picked up his revolver and balanced it in the palm of his right hand. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I will use the telephone.”
He walked briskly past the fireplace to a side-table and lifted the receiver of the telephone that stood there; then quickly dialled a number. His body screened the dial from the view of the others; but this hardly incommoded Johnny at all. It is possible, with a little practice, to read a number by spacing the length of time in which the dial spins back into position – and Johnny had had more than a little practice. He listened intently while the first four numbers were dialled and then lost interest. He knew the number already.
“Jules?” said Paul suddenly. “Good. I’m glad I caught you. Look – Antoine has arrived; he has two friends with him.”
There was a short pause.
“No. No, he is not one of them. He was unable to come – our friend Jerdain is with him now. There is a young lady and –” He stopped abruptly. Then: “Naturally, Jules. But there is a difficulty. I think it would be best if you came round at once. An emergency.”
His pale-blue eyes watched Gervais balefully as the Frenchman took out a cigarette-case, then returned, satisfied, to the study of the telephone directory in front of him.
“Yes,” he said. “I’ll expect you then.” He replaced the receiver and drifted back to his position by the mantelpiece.
“Now, I think I must show you the first of this house’s more interesting feat
ures… We’ll go into the next room.” He raised his pistol slightly and indicated a door behind them. Johnny sighed to himself, uncrossed his legs and followed the other two across the room.
“Go straight in,” said Paul encouragingly. “The electric-light switch is on the left-hand side of the door.”
Johnny obligingly reached out his left hand and promptly received a push that sent him staggering full tilt into the darkness and Marie-Andrée. They collapsed on the floor together, while behind them the door clicked shut and a key turned, softly but unmistakably, in the lock.
“I’m sorry,” said Johnny, sitting up and relinquishing his grasp on the girl’s shoulder. “I was pushed. Are you all right?”
“Quite all right.”
“Good,” said Johnny. As he spoke there was a click and Gervais appeared, magnificently ghostly in the light thrown by his cigarette-lighter.
“Hullo. There is a switch.”
Gervais had already noticed it and had ambled across to it. He flicked at it negligently with his forefinger and blinked at the sudden glare of light. Marie-Andrée, still sitting on the floor and tenderly rubbing her elbow, hastily adjusted her skirt and stood up.
The room was small, about ten feet by twelve, and completely bare. There were no windows and no ventilation, apart from a minute grating low down on one whitewashed wall. The floor was of concrete.
“Obviously,” said Johnny, “a suburb of the Bastille. As it occurs to me that the modern conveniences of this house may include dictaphones, I think we’d better not say anything until we’ve checked.”
He and Gervais went over the room carefully, but apparently he was over-suspicious. Practically the only place of concealment for electrical equipment was the grating, and a minute’s examination convinced Johnny that this was harmless.
“All right,” he said eventually. “But talk in whispers. What shall we talk about – the United States’ foreign policy? The botany of East Tanganyika? Claudel? Existentialism? The foundation –”
