The Case of the Climbing Rat: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  Aumade was recovering his papers. At once, he said, he would be preparing for an interview with Mme Perthus, which, unless they heard to the contrary, would be in the morning.

  “Unhappily, M. Travers must be absent tomorrow,” Gallois said, “and something else I have remembered. M. Travers has, at present, no credentials or authority from yourself. It is not unlikely that a sudden emergency might arise in which he might find it necessary to act.”

  Aumade was only too pleased to provide the authority. While the credentials were being prepared, he insisted that the two should take an apéritif. Briant, the surgeon, had been present at the experiments that afternoon, he added, and if it was still convenient to Gallois the two would be dining at the Hôtel de France the next night.

  As Travers knew, the main reason why Gallois had obtained those credentials was for the proposed visit to Cannes. It was to be Cannes, because just after dinner Gallois had ascertained that the circus was still there, and it was not till the Monday that it was going on to Nice. What Gallois was now wishing to know was what plan of campaign Travers had in mind.

  “I think it might be dangerous to approach the management direct,” Travers said, “or to try to get hold of Helmont, who seems to be an extraordinarily tough fellow.”

  Charles said he did not see what could be learned from Helmont. To be absent from the circus was not a crime, and there was nothing to prove that he had given the ticket to Mme Dubois. Even if he had, he might have some excellent reason.

  “There is no point in making difficulties,” Travers told him, “and one other thing we have got to consider. If Helmont should in any way be implicated in this murder, the circus is getting pretty near the Italian border. Once let him get suspicious and over the border he pops. But what I am proposing to do is to trust to luck. We might get hold of someone connected with the circus and induce him to speak. And what do you think of this?”

  It was a large and quite ornate species of visiting-card which he was handing to the astonished Gallois.

  MR. L. TRAVERS,

  Imperial Circuses Ltd.,

  London

  Head Office,

  St. Martin’s chambers, W.C.2

  “I ordered that as a rush job from a local printer as soon as I left that photographer,” Travers told him. “I shall represent this imaginary circus, and Charles shall be my interpreter. Ostensibly, I shall be trying to sign up acts for my Christmas season in London.”

  Gallois said the scheme promised well, and he had every confidence in Travers.

  “All these trapezists puzzle me,” he said. “Why is it necessary for them to wear the masks?”

  “Possibly there is some truth in the rumours,” Travers said. “It might be dangerous for them to be recognized.”

  Gallois was most sceptical.

  “To you the photographer announced that this Helmont is the illegitimate son of some personage, and therefore he is masked, but the women cannot be illegitimate daughters also unless this personage was a performer on a grand scale. If this Helmont is a Russian prince, then why must he hide his face? In France there are thousands of White Russians.”

  “There is something which occurs to me,” Charles said, and then grinned. “Doubtless it is something which does not occur to any one else. It is that we are mistaken about Letoque. It is not he, but Helmont, who is Bariche.”

  “On the contrary,” pointed out Travers. “Helmont is not a day over thirty-five, and I’d swear his hair is genuinely dark.”

  “Nevertheless it is curious how Bariche was connected with circuses.” He made a gesture of impatience. “That is not the word that I wish. Il était fou des cirques.”

  “To be mad about circuses, or as one says in English, to be a fan of the circus, is not to say that Bariche was ever an artist,” Gallois told him, and then was getting to his feet.

  All had a long day before, them, he said, and for M. Travers he counselled bed. In the case of Charles he insisted on it.

  CHAPTER XII

  GALLOIS IS CONVINCED

  COFFEE was early and everything was ready at half-past eight. Charles said he was feeling perfectly fit again, with not even a buzz in the head. Nevertheless Gallois insisted there should be no excitements, and as the car moved off a stranger would have guessed from the gentle sadness of his smile that Charles was departing for some distant and dangerous region from which he was scarcely expected to return, But free from the overwhelming presence of his chief, Charles was in great form; alert to point out this and that, interested in the running of the car and, as they drew near Cannes, fertile in suggestions for the handling of the enterprise.

  “In a famous English cookery-book,” Travers told him, “there is a remark that before you cook a hare—un lièvre—you must catch this hare. Perhaps we might begin therefore by catching our circus.”

  The circus turned out to be not in Cannes, but half-way between Cannes and Juan les Pins, an admirable arrangement from a business point of view. From the road it was soon recognized, and Travers slowed down the car and crawled by to reconnoitre. Then a van suddenly emerged from the entrance. It was a small one of the type used by bill-stickers with an extending ladder fastened to the back, and it was off in the direction of Nice. Travers was following at once.

  It was rather tricky work. Snorting like a hornet the little van dodged its way in and out of the traffic of Antibes, and then it took curves at a speed which threatened to capsize it, and was dodging and twisting again on the outskirts of Nice. In the very middle of the Promenade des Anglais it turned as if making for Cimiez, only to pull up with practically no warning in front of a shop in a side street. To avoid an accident Travers had to go twenty yards past it before bringing his own car to a halt.

  “A man is getting out,” announced Charles, and then before he could say another word the van was shooting on again. It snorted, passed the Rolls, was on to the corner, and with a whirl of dust was out of sight.

  “And now what?” said Travers, feeling very much in a dilemma.

  “The man is going into the shop,” Charles said.

  “Then get out and have a look,” Travers told him. “If necessary go into the shop and buy something.”

  Charles was back almost at once. The shop was acting as a temporary agency for the sale of circus tickets, and the man who had come from the circus was probably checking up sales in readiness for the arrival of the circus on the following day. The van had probably gone on well ahead to post the bills.

  Travers moved the car on, reversed, and came back with the agency under observation, and all the time he was rehearsing with Charles just what should be done.

  “The man looked as if he might be amenable,” Charles said.

  It was half an hour before the door opened and he came out. He looked something like a far from prosperous clerk, and about forty, and as he turned to make for the Promenade des Anglais, Charles overtook him. Soon there was much gesticulating and shrugging of shoulders, and waving back at the car, and then the man appeared to see the point that Charles had been trying to make, Travers leaped out of the car at once. Two minutes later the three were under the pleasant shade of an awning waiting for drinks to arrive, and the man— Floc was his name—was trying to make sense out of the card which Travers had handed to Charles and Charles had ceremoniously passed on.

  The drinks arrived, and Charles was at once voluble—so much so in fact that Travers was far from following all he said. But he did gather that Charles was stating that in addition to being secretary and interpreter for M. le patron when in France, he himself was also an artist of some repute. Travers took out his wallet and removed some notes.

  “I myself speak a certain amount of French,” he said, making that French none too good. “It is not very good French and—well—il faut améliorer mon accent.”

  “But the gentleman speaks very good French,” said Floc. “Provided one can make oneself understood, that is all that one wants.”

  “If you do not und
erstand, my secretary, M. Rabaud, will explain,” stated Travers. “What I am looking for is trapeze acts, and I am especially interested in the Troupe Helmont. The English love animals, and there is money, I believe, in Auguste, the rat which I saw for myself at Furolles.”

  “But Auguste is dead!”

  Travers was suitably stupefied. Charles threw his hands to heaven, and said it was a pity there had been a waste of time. And then Floc perhaps was beginning to be suspicious that all was not what it seemed. If the English gentleman had seen the circus at Furolles, why had he not approached the troupe there and direct? The fertile Charles cut in at once.

  “At that moment we were not in need of trapezists. We had already engaged an American Troupe, the Troupe Boston, of whom you have certainly heard. Then yesterday we received a cable that unfortunately one of them had died, and that is the reason we are here now, M. is patron does not expect information for nothing, even if it is absolutely confidential and between ourselves.”

  Travers took the hint and passed over a five-hundred-franc note, Floc expressed himself as only too delighted to give any information.

  “I admit,” said Travers, “that the death of the rat is a blow to me. It lowers pretty considerably the value of the act. How did he die? Was it an accident?”

  “Wait a minute,” said Charles. “Yesterday when we were inquiring about this Troupe Helmont, did not someone tell us that the rat had been ill?”

  Floc said that had been all blague. What had happened was this. Auguste belonged to M. Helmont who trained him himself, but there were occasions when M. Helmont was unwell, or perhaps temperamental even, and then understudy took his place and the act was considerably modified, but the management did not wish the audience to know that the understudy was performing, and so M. Helmont had been training Auguste to get used to the understudy and thought he had succeeded, The first time they tried him out, which was at Carliens, there bad been a contretemps, followed later by an angry scene between Helmont and Signor Pertini. Pertini was most annoyed but had not dared to say too much, The contract of the Troupe expired on the 30th April, and he was hopeful of engaging them again, for they were undoubtedly an enormous attraction. The next morning Auguste was found dead in his cage and Helmont was overcome by grief. He even accused Pertini of being concerned.

  Travers had been shaking his head. “‘This business of temperament is difficult, or of loss of nerves. I could engage the understudy, but that increases expense, it occurs often?”

  The understudy had been engaged in Paris as a necessary precaution, Floc said, and it was usual in that sort of act. Charles objected. Floc instead. A heated argument began and Travers had to intervene. Floc resumed.

  In Paris the understudy performed occasionally as a matter of routine, and also on the journey down to the South. At Carliens, however, Helmont. had said he was feeling particularly nervy, and it would be dangerous for himself to perform, and it was the understudy who did perform practically all the time.

  “He is a man of quick temper, this Helmont?”

  Floc said he might have given a wrong impression. Helmont was a gentleman, and easy enough to work with. There wouldn’t have been a quarrel at all except for Pertini’s already having a grievance over something that had happened at Furolles. Just when the act was about to begin Helmont had disappeared. They hunted everywhere for him with all the audience waiting, and then when he turned up he said he had recognized some old friends and had had to speak to them.

  “Well, everything requires thought,” Travers said, and was fingering a thousand-franc note. “All this conversation is very confidential. If Helmont knew of it he would think I wanted him badly, and the price would go up. And I must admit the death of this Auguste has made a great difference.”

  “Beggars cannot be choosers,” cut in Charles. Travers shrugged his shoulders,

  “Nevertheless, I must think things out. If I am of the same mind then as I am now, I may engage this troupe just before their contract ends. Meanwhile if anything happens, perhaps you will have the goodness to inform me at once. For a few days I am staying with friends at Carliens at the Hotel dc France,”

  He wrote the address and handed it over together with a thousand-franc note, Floc was naturally gratified. He had picked up ten pounds in not much more than, ten minutes, and there was a very excellent promise of more to come. So he began praising the troupe. They were a very great draw and a very fine act. The understudy, in his opinion, was as good as Helmont himself.

  “What nationality is this, Helmont?” Travers asked.

  “French. The other two are sisters and really are Helmont. They were with the Cirque Fleishmann in Berlin for two years till Jeanne had her accident.”

  “You mean, during the act?”

  “No, she was passing a leopard’s cage and her face was torn. That is why all the troupe wear masks, for one side of her face is absolutely hideous.”

  “But what excellent publicity!” said Travers. “And do the management spread rumours about their nationality for the purpose of more publicity?”

  “Exactly. It is something, m’sieu, I would recommend for yourself if you should decide to engage them.”

  “Find the real name of this Helmont?”

  Floc shrugged his shoulders, “In the circus his name is Helmont, It is the business of nobody if he has another name.”

  That was virtually all.

  Floc said he was returning by the van which was due now at any time. Travers repeated the necessity for the strictest confidence.

  “There is a matinee this afternoon?” asked Charles.

  There was, Floc said, at the usual time.

  So much for that. Travers was of the opinion that it was the circus, as such, in which Charles was interested, rather than the inquiry, but he had to admit to himself that another visit might not be waste of time, And in some of the time that remained on their hands he rang Gallois at Carliens and gave him a tough outline of the morning’s happenings. Gallois naturally seemed disappointed, for interesting as some disclosures had been, from the point of view of the inquiry they were decidedly negative. Gallois himself had developments at Carliens and he reminded Travers not to be late, and that Aumade and the surgeon were due for dinner unless anything unexpected happened.

  They were not unimportant those developments which Gallois had mentioned. When he arrived at the Hôtel de Ville, Aumade had hailed him with congratulations. The deductions about Mme Perthus had been correct. A letter had been sent to the relative in Toulon and it had been opened and sealed again. Its contents appeared to be absolutely damning. The relative was not an aunt but a cousin, and she was asked as a matter of great urgency and secrecy to agree to be referred to as an aunt, and she was to pretend she had been unwell. The letter said there were private reasons which would be explained later by the sender, personally.

  With regard to that last Aumade had still further news. That very morning Mme Perthus had taken the autobus for, apparently, Toulon, where she was being followed.

  Gallois offered congratulations of his own.

  “And when are you going to confront this Mme Perthus?” he said.

  “There is no hurry,” Aumade told him. “When we swoop it must be absolutely unexpectedly. She must be so taken by surprise that she will be unable to keep back a single word of the truth”

  The two went on to the bank and there interviewed the manager. His disclosures were even more interesting, Mme Perthus, whose late husband, by the way, had been a silk factor at Lyons, had asked him to realize certain securities, amounting to over a thousand pounds. He advised her that values had fallen, but in his opinion were due for a rise, and he therefore counselled delay. At the same time Mme Perthus hinted that she was likely to be leaving Carliens in the not too distant future. Two days later she telephoned implicit instructions to sell, although he again advised her to wait a few days. He therefore sold and she was notified that the cash was at the bank.

  That was all he had hea
rd until the Thursday afternoon before Good Friday, though in the meantime transfers had been sent to her for signature. On that Thursday afternoon she telephoned that she had changed her mind and would he at once be prepared to advise her about reinvestment of the cash.

  “And from where was she telephoning?” asked Aumade.

  “From her house, I presume,” said the manager, somewhat surprised. “There was no indication that she was telephoning from anywhere else.”

  The two made their way back to the Hõtel de Ville. Everything, as Aumade said, was now becoming clear. Letoque was one of those scoundrels like the late unspeakable Bariche who preyed upon women. If he had not been killed he would already have departed with Mme Perthus and her money, and he would have bled her till she had never a sou left.

  Gallois expressed himself as quite in agreement. If only to conceal the elation which he felt he even assisted Aumade in drawing up those direct and terrifying questions which at the right moment should he hurled at the astounded Mme Perthus. Before he left for lunch word came that she had taken the Toulon autobus for Carliens again. As far as Gallois was concerned the day’s inquiries ended. That afternoon he wrote his notes on the case, and long before the time for dinner had changed his clothes and had gone into the details of the menu with Velot, and chosen the wines. When Travers arrived he sat in his bedroom while he dressed.

  Aumade and Briant were on time, and what happened at that dinner is of no particular account. It was an excellent one, the wines were good and Velot himself saw that the service was perfect. Afterwards the four played French billiards while Travers watched, and then they yarned away for an hour, by which time it was ten o’clock and M. Aumade was rising to go. Then came the chance word.

  “I suppose nothing else peculiar has turned up about that scoundrel Letoque?” Gallois happened to ask Briant as they stood for a last minute on the hotel steps.

  “I meant to tell you,” Briant said. “A most interesting thing has happened, at least from a professional point of view, I needn’t tell you that hair grows to a minute extent after death. Well, I just happened to be having a look at his scalp and I noticed the original fair hair that had just pushed through underneath the dyed. Then I noticed a most extraordinary thing. There was quite a big patch on the cheek where the hair was a slightly different colour. It had a very faint reddish tinge, in fact. Naturally I had another good look, and what do you think? I found there was a palm of new skin as big as the palm of my hand.”