This Traitor Death

by Desmond Cory

  “So we got out all right,” she said.

  “In some unbelievable way – yes, we did.”

  Johnny sat down beside her, meticulously balancing his burden.

  “Get some of this inside you. Do you all the good in the world – which, judging from our present company, admittedly isn’t much,”

  She surveyed Karl’s outstretched figure with some curiosity. “You did that, I suppose.”

  “All my own work. Look for the signature on every genuine packet. I also had the satisfaction of breaking our other little playmate’s ruddy neck,” admitted Johnny . “The trouble with me is that I just don’t know my own strength. Though, of course, the concrete helped me a little.”

  “Concrete!” She grimaced and stretched herself luxuriously. “I’m stiff as a board. Tell me all about it – I seem to have passed out…”

  Johnny gave her a simple and modest account of the hero’s part he had played in that morning’s world-shaking events. She listened to this latter-day Othello with satisfyingly rapt attention, yawned violently and said: “You’re wonderful, darling. What happens now?”

  Johnny regarded her suspiciously: it was a long time since that particular epithet had been applied to him. But, after all, the poor girl had hardly recovered from a somewhat drastic gassing.

  “When you’re feeling better,” he said, “and when you’ve drunk all your coffee – not before – we’ll go and have some real breakfast. Obligingly laid on for us by our temporary, unpaid doormat.”

  “Sounds a good idea,” she said. “But – gosh – my throat’s sore…”

  “The gas,” said Johnny helpfully.

  “No!… I must say that’s a rather diabolical device they have there. If you hadn’t spotted it so soon, we wouldn’t be here now.”

  “We certainly shouldn’t. I should imagine that we would be destined to be stripped naked and tucked up comfortably in bed in some rather sleazy Paris hotel; the gas-fire would then have been turned on and we would have been left to our own devices until the police arrived,” said Johnny thoughtfully. “As you say – diabolical. It’s possible that they might have allowed us a pair of pyjamas apiece, but I doubt it. That, in itself, wouldn’t quite have saved our reputations. And – either way – we’d be just as dead.”

  “They seem partly to have succeeded in the first half of their program, anyway;”

  “Eh? Lord, yes. We’ve left a lot of our clothes behind, haven’t we?” Johnny looked at the door of the cell inimically. “Well, throw your glove into the lion’s cage, lady, and I’ll retrieve it with pleasure. But I’m not going back in there. My horror and distrust of that place are now absolutely pathological… But while I’ve no doubt I can array myself satisfactorily in some of our late friends’ gorgeous raiment, I don’t suppose they have anything that will match your complexion. Wait here,” said Johnny. “I’ll go and see what I can dig out.”

  He returned some five minutes later, dressed neatly in a light-blue shirt, a tie of a tartan that neither he nor Paul was entitled to wear and a very fine grey suit that fitted loosely across his shoulders, but was otherwise an excellent fit. He was carrying a brown check sports-coat and a black shirt with a classic neckline, both of which he considered vaguely suitable for feminine wear. He found Marie-Andrée seated in the kitchen and buttering the inside of a croissant.

  “Here,” he said. “I’m afraid these are all that I can find.”

  “But they’re marvellous. I say – that’s a suit you’ve got, too.”

  “You like it?” Johnny surveyed himself modestly and sat down. “Yes. Paul’s taste in clothing seems partly to have atoned for his deplorable lack of taste in other, more important, matters… Those rolls look good.” He picked up one and bit at it ravenously.

  “They’re not bad.” Marie-Andrée was wriggling into the shirt and her voice came from its innermost recesses.

  “I must say this is awfully pleasant,” said Johnny. “A delightfully peaceful scene after all these trials and tribulations. Young married couple enjoying breakfast in their little bijou residence, detached, mod. con., running water h. and c., highly desirable gas-chamber inclusive. All I need is a large newspaper with which to obscure you from my view – and the picture would be complete.”

  Marie-Andrée smiled. “You’re not married.”

  “No. Nor am I likely to be. How did you guess?”

  “One can tell these things. Now, Antoine, for example, he –” She stopped suddenly. “My God – Antoine! We’ve forgotten all about him.”

  “Oh, no. He’s constantly on my mind.”

  “But we must do something… Those people have him in their power,” she said melodramatically.

  “I know. But there’s nothing we can do about it. When we’ve finished eating we’ll go round and see d’Ambois, of the Sûreté, and he’ll be able to call off the police-hunt, anyway… Don’t worry. If he’s alive, we’ll get him back.”

  “And if he’s not –?”

  “If he’s not, then there’s no point in worrying about him at all.” Johnny poured out a little more coffee into his cup and sipped it judicially.

  Marie-Andrée fidgeted nervously with her knife.

  “You’ve got a horribly callous streak in you somewhere, Johnny” – the word she used was bête. “It worries me.”

  Johnny said: “I don’t allow myself to get concerned in personal matters, my dear. I like to regard myself as being dispassionate. While I don’t claim that attitude to be particularly praiseworthy, you might do well to cultivate it with regard to Gervais.”

  “How d’you mean?”

  “Well,” Johnny sighed, “your relations so far seem to be those of hero and heroine in one of those adventure stories you see on the railway bookstalls. So far, so good. But, unfortunately, Gervais happens to be married and in love with his wife; moreover, as far as I can make out, his wife seems to be extremely fond of him. The traditional happy-ever-after ending seems, therefore, to be quite out of court, and you’d be most unwise to blind yourself to the fact.”

  “Thank you,” said Marie-Andrée icily. “My relations with captain Gervais are my own business and nobody else’s. Anyway, I merely admire Antoine very much – that is all. Just because I –”

  She broke off. Johnny had suddenly developed an enormous and distinctly Rabelaisian grin, which annoyed her intensely. “What are you grinning at?”

  “Me,” said Johnny self-deprecatingly. “Only me. Guide, philosopher and friend. Special private letters discussing your problem cost only half a crown. Let me shape your career for you. You, too, can have a body like mine… No, you really must forgive me, you know. It’s just that I like to take a friendly interest in my little protégées –”

  “All right. We’ll forget it. But you’ve got a nasty mind, Mr. Fedora.”

  “Really?” Johnny wiped butter from his chin, and pushed his plate across the table. “Well, you’re probably right… Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and tuck up my victims tidily. Mustn’t leave corpses lying about our little home; it spoils the friendly atmosphere.”

  “Do you need any help?”

  “I think not,” said Johnny. “I rather think not. It may be a bit messy. You sit there and finish your breakfast – and don’t bother about the washing-up.”

  Johnny’s idea of tidying-up his victims was elementary in the extreme. When Marie-Andrée had finished her breakfast at leisure and had wandered through into the sitting-room, she found him perched cheerfully on top of a rolled-up carpet and smoking a cigarette. Two large feet protruded from one end of the carpet, and rendered the depository of Karl Schubert’s body hardly a matter for scientific deduction.

  “Ah. There you are,” said Johnny. “Now, if you’re replete, we’ll slip round and see if anything can be done about Gervais. Not that I’m particularly sanguine as to his chances of survival…”

  “We must do what we can.”

  “Certainly.” Johnny gave the carpet a final prod with his heels
and stood up. “And, with that aim before us we’ll hop into Paul’s car – if it’s still there – and run round to see d’Ambois. If he can’t do anything else, he’ll at least be able to give this house a detailed examination. Good Lord! That reminds me – you left your handkerchief on the sofa; here you are.”

  “Oh! Thank you,” said Marie-Andrée; then, almost at once: “No, that’s not mine.”

  Johnny, Who had turned to lead the way out of the door, turned sharply round again. “No? –”

  “No. I haven’t got one like that.”

  “Indeed?” Johnny stretched out his hand. “Let’s have a look, then. I didn’t see it there last night.”

  “Nor did I. It wasn’t there last night.”

  Johnny turned the tiny segment of linen gingerly to and fro. “No laundry-mark or initials, anyway. Smear of lipstick, though… What shade do you use?”

  “Flame.”

  “Uh-huh. Here – what would you say that was?”

  Marie-Andrée took the handkerchief and held it to the light. “Some sort of cherry shade. Should go with a rather dark complexion. Might be Ravel or Chen Yu, or La Marquise – anything like that.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Johnny began prodding absently into the ashtrays on the nearest table. “Yes – here we are again. Same lipstick and – a Turkish cigarette, by gum. Oh, but they all seem to be – she must have taken one of Paul’s. This is interesting, though –”

  “You think Paul has a lady friend somewhere?”

  “Better than that. He was going to ring up the boss – remember? – to find out what to do about us; and, obviously, he got his instructions. It looks to me very much as if the boss came round in person.”

  “But how flattering!”

  “Very flattering, doubtless.” Johnny began to prowl anxiously round the room, then walked over to the sofa. “She must have been sitting here, to have dropped her handkerchief where she did.” He bent and commenced to examine the back of the sofa with extreme care. “Oh, I luv Jeannie with the light brown hair… But this young lady’s hair seems to have been too firmly attached to her. A pity. All we know is that she uses an off-cherry lipstick, smokes an occasional Turkish cigarette, and apparently employs the dear old handkerchief-dodge to maintain her supply of ardent admirers. Not very much, is it?”

  “It doesn’t seem very helpful – no.”

  “Nevertheless, a step in the right direction.” Johnny interpreted this remark literally by marching purposefully into the hall. “We must get this place examined and fingerprinted right away.”

  “Good,” said Marie-Andrée, and then laid her hand on his arm. “Johnny…”

  “What is it?”

  “Wait a moment.”

  There was a few seconds’ silence; then Johnny said:

  “Why, what’s the matter?”

  “No – wait… Yes, it is. There’s someone coming up the path…”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  JOHNNY remained still until the soft crunching of feet on the gravel path had paused outside the door, when he made a resigned gesture with his left hand and once more drew Paul’s pistol from his coat-pocket. Marie-Andrée continued to lean against him, hardly breathing at all. There followed a brisk knock on the door, a rattle as a daily newspaper was pushed through the letter-box and then the steps retreating as purposefully as before but now accompanied by a barely recognisable rendering of Le Bateau des Iles. The whistling faded away into the distance: Johnny replaced the pistol and gingerly picked up the newspaper.

  “Oh, dear,” said Marie-Andrée. “Only the paper-rounds man. And I thought we were in for another spot of fun and games.”

  “So did I, to be frank.” Johnny looked quickly sideways and put his arm round her. “Hey, stop trembling. It’s all over, remember? This is me, I’m all right.”

  “Yes. Sorry. It’s just that I’ve had about enough of all this for the time being. I’m not used to it,” explained Marie-Andrée, looking soulful and unprotected. Johnny kissed her in a way that was intended to be reassuringly casual, but somehow wasn’t, and hurriedly opened the paper.

  “I wonder,” he said, “if they have anything about our friend Delacroix. I can’t help feeling curious as to exactly where the late Monsieur Schubert used to park his unwanted corpses.” He began to flip casually through the pages.

  “Oh, dear,” said Marie-Andrée. “My article must be terribly overdue, and that cat Fichelle has had exactly the same ideas as I had. What a genius that woman is.”

  But Johnny had passed the fashion notes and was reading a paragraph on the opposite page. He tapped it absently with his forefinger and Marie-Andrée suppressed a little scream as she saw the headline.

  “GERVAIS ARRESTED AT LAST”

  Paris

  “Captain Antoine Gervais of the Dupont Brigade, wanted by the Sûreté on charges of collaboration with the Nazis, was arrested last night near the rue de Rivoli. Members of the police, who have been seeking Gervais for almost a week, recognised him while engaged in a routine check on cars and apprehended him without difficulty. Captain Jules Pinot, Gervais’s fellow-officer, was with him at the time of the arrest and has also been taken into custody; it is not known what charges, if any, will be preferred.

  “Captain Gervais is believed to have been slightly hurt, in the scuffle with the police and is now in a prison hospital, suffering from slight concussion. Reports state that he was armed.

  “Gervais is thirty-two years of age, fair-haired and lightly built; is married and without children. He is well-known to restaurateurs as the owner and manager of the popular Méridien Club in the Ave. Victor Hugo.”

  “It’s a well-known fact,” said Johnny, folding up the paper solemnly, “that in all real-life tragedy the element of farce keeps creeping in. The absurd little factor that everyone has ignored creeps in and alters the most carefully laid of schemes. How, to move from the general to the specific, le rossignol must be swearing at les rossignols… Heaven bless them. Now we must definitely go and see d’Ambois.”

  “It says he has concussion. Is that bad?”

  “Not necessarily. It almost certainly means that as Monsieur Pinot was visiting his boss he took no chances and dotted young Antoine a sweet one, just to keep him quiet.”

  “Poor Antoine.”

  “As you say, poor Antoine. Though personally, I should say that the boy was obviously born lucky. Well – let’s go and look for Paul’s car.”

  Whenever Johnny had considered the personalities of those people connected with the rossignol affair, he had come to the conclusion that most of them were quite surprisingly restrained. The Gallic temperament was not revealed. From the Germans, of course, one could hardly expect it to be; Pinot used an ingeniously-simulated lack of confidence to conceal a typically Aryan cold-bloodedness, but that was all. Gervais’s own experience had, in one way or another, induced a sang-froid that bordered on stoicism; and Marie-Andrée had very little of the traditional volatility of the Frenchwoman. But there was no doubt at all about Inspector d’Ambois. He oozed Gallicism from every pore. His flat, genial little face had the mobility of a rubber ball; he gesticulated, interrupted, bounced up and down in his chair. He leered at Marie-Andrée and overwhelmed Johnny with politeness. He smoked absurd little cigarettes incessantly and was always answering the telephone, addressing every caller as tu and apparently enjoying each conversation immensely. When Johnny had finished his story he leaned back in his vast chair, thumbed his little black moustache and beamed.

  “But this is most remarkable.”

  “Most.”

  “Unprecedented. Incredible. Beyond all belief. I accept it implicitly.”

  “Thank you, m’sieur.”

  “And now what is to be done, you ask? Exactly. Precisely. I wonder. Excuse me.” He picked up the telephone and held an almost unintelligible conversation at a furious pace.

  “Captain Gervais,” he said, replacing the receiver, “remains as yet unconscious. His condition is not seri
ous. I have given instructions that he is to be guarded most cautiously. No visitors of any description.”

  “A very sensible move.”

  “Naturally. That is what I felt myself. This Pinot, he is safe. He will not escape. Mark you, I do not accept your story purely on its face value. That would be uncomplimentary, no? We of the Sûreté, we are not fools.”

  “Assuredly not.”

  “Thank you. Thank you a thousand times.” D’Ambois bowed punctiliously. “No. Already we have our doubts. The report from your H.Q., Monsieur Fedora, we have that in our files. Yes. It causes us much thought, a great deal of brainwork, you understand. Now all is clear. This house whose address you have so kindly given us, it will be searched. At once. Without delay.” He whipped up the telephone and once again broke into a spate of idiomatic French, then produced a gaudy silk handkerchief and wiped his brow.

  “There. That is settled. A most careful examination will be made and the report will be sent to me. To me, personally. I myself make this my business, Monsieur Fedora.”

  Johnny murmured a conventional phrase to the effect that he was flattered.

  “By no means. Not at all. Think nothing of it. And now, m’sieur, we must make our plans. We have to find these charming young ladies of whom you have informed us. All the others you have eliminated… I must tell Claude,” he added wistfully, “that the Leport case is satisfactorily concluded. A pity, that, but no real matter. These poules who have got away from you, that is what is important. We must catch them.”

  “Two little birds in a gilded cage,” said Johnny dreamily. “I quite agree.”

  “Now, le rossignol, her recognition you say depends on Gervais himself? Ah!” He grabbed the telephone again, but changed his mind. “Well, at the hospital they do their best. When he is well, he will help us.”

  Johnny smiled. “You know, we’ll have to move very quickly. Once she knows that Gervais is out of their hands –”