The Case of the Climbing Rat: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  “Discover if you will, my friend,” he said to Travers, “the exact hour at which the train arrives at Marseilles. You will find the announcement on the platform.”

  But Travers found a porter just through the door to the platform and had the information at once. Charles was busy elsewhere with another porter and the luggage, while Gallois was obtaining the tickets, and as Travers came up behind the back of Gallois, who was unaware of him, Travers heard something extraordinarily strange. Gallois was asking for two tickets, and not to Paris. One ticket was to Marseilles, and the other to Furolles.

  Travers moved quietly off again and at once was trying to think, but in a moment Gallois was with him and then Charles, and in a minute or two every one was on the move, for the train was coming in. Another two minutes and it was going out again, and Travers waved till it had disappeared round the bend, and with it the mournful face of Gallois and the waving handkerchief of Charles.

  Our by the car, Travers again was trying desperately to think. Why should Gallois be going to Furolles? And then suddenly he thought he know. An idea had come to Gallois—the idea of which he had spoken—the idea which would lead him to the assassin of Bariche. But who was there at Furolles who could have killed Bariche? Only Cippe, and he bore no resemblance whatever to the man who had given the circus ticket to Mme Dubois.

  Travers shook his head, got into the car and slowly drove into the station yard. Then the car was held up. Just ahead of him were half a dozen sheep being driven into the yard of a local butcher, and as the drover herded them into the narrow way they were bleating noisily. But the road was clear again and Travers went on.

  Then suddenly be was bringing the car to a halt. That he was almost on the crown of the road he was wholly unaware, for his horn-rims were in his hand and he was slowly polishing them. Then all at once he was giving a gasp, of which even Aumade might have been proud, and as one hand replaced the glasses the other moved forward the lever and the car shot on again.

  But it did not stop at the hotel. With increasing speed it went on, turned round by the car park, shot by the hotel again, then turned sharp right past the Villa Vézac, and was making for Lizou at a speed that was almost terrifying.

  CHAPTER XVII

  GALLOIS ARRIVES

  AS he neared Lizou, Travers was slowly recognizing the fact that he was like a man driving headlong into dangerous unknown country with never a map to guide him. At the end of that journey there would be things to say, and at the moment he had scarcely a word prepared. All that was driving him was instinct, and a few suspicions.

  So he stopped the car and found a piece of rough paper on which to write down his thoughts. To arrive with nothing but surmise would be madness, and yet, now he came to get down to hard facts, there was little that he really knew. If only he could ring up Charles! One minute’s talk and everything might be clear. But Gallois had taken care of that. He had sent Charles to Marseilles, out of the way of talk, and after having obtained those vital facts for which Travers would have given an enormous deal.

  “Yes,” said Travers to himself. “Gallois knows. Last night he pretended to be indifferent, but those words must have struck him as they struck me—only the disaster of it is that they didn’t really strike me till I remembered them this morning.”

  He was shaking his head and spreading his palms in a Gallic gesture of helplessness, and then out of the very helplessness something arrived.

  “Wait a minute,” said Travers to himself. “Gallois knows, and he’s perfectly sure that I don’t know. Very well then. If Gallois knows, and he’s made preparations unknown to me—as he thinks—to make an arrest, then I also must be right! What are suspicious to me are facts to him. Very well then, I’ll assume here and now that all my suspicions are absolute facts.”

  He was nodding to himself at that comforting determination, and then was thinking of something else. Himself and Charles in an argument against Gallois. Two claiming—perhaps none too seriously—that the killer of Bariche did not deserve the guillotine,but Gallois taking himself seriously enough and—if the expediency of getting back to Paris need not be sacrificed—determined to bring the killer to justice, whoever that killer was. Gallois, even as late as at dinner the previous night, had never expected to receive even a hint of that killer, and yet that hint had miraculously come, and out of it he had built a case.

  “Yes,” said Travers. “It arrived when I was with Charles last night, and after that he avoided me. He wasn’t in his bedroom, and perhaps he was out even then making fresh inquiries. This morning Charles knew he had something on his mind. Now both of us—the scrupulous ones, as Gallois thinks us—have been side-tracked. Charles is on the way to Marseilles without knowing a thing, and Gallois thinks I’m spending another day or two in Carliens before going on to Marseilles to meet Bernice.”

  But all that was very well. The vital thing at that moment was, just what clinching proof was it that Gallois had discovered which he—Travers—did not possess. And then Travers suddenly had an idea. Gallois might be congratulating himself that he had sequestrated, as it were, two exceedingly awkward and far too scrupulous and tender-hearted allies, but there was someone he had not sequestrated. And at once Travers was moving the car on. If he had driven fast before, he now drove recklessly on his tyres and brakes.

  As he neared Gevrol he slowed, and it was almost decorously that he drew up before the door of Dr. Favre, and with a relief that in front of it there had been standing no other car. At once he was being shown into the dining-room where the old doctor had been sitting over his newspaper. He was most surprised to see Travers who, he had imagined, was back in England days ago.

  Travers explained that he was indeed just on the way to Marseilles, but had come the few miles out of his way to correct an error. The M. Charles Rabaud whom Dr. Favre had attended at Lizou, was still in the doctor’s debt,and he—Travers—had come to pay the balance. On Dr. Favre’s bill were two visits, but there ought to have been three: one on the Tuesday morning, one on the Tuesday evening, and one on the Wednesday evening,

  “But, no,” Favre said, “There was the one visit on the Tuesday, It was from about six o’clock till—well, perhaps a quarter past.” Then his eyes were opening wide. “And you have come all this way to correct a mistake which did not exist!”

  “So it seems,” said Travers ruefully. “All the same, it gives me the opportunity, on behalf of M. Rabaud, to thank you for all you did for him, and to say a personal good-bye to you myself.”

  The doctor was highly gratified, though claiming that Debran and Gabrielle had done everything. Still in his carpet slippers he came shambling out with Travers to the door, and his farewells had a warmth of which Travers would never have suspected him.

  But in spite of that one damning fact that he had discovered, Travers, as he drove back, was smiling somewhat ruefully again. Now he had definitely committed himself, and there might be the devil to pay. And yet, he could tell himself, old Favre was not the excitable kind. Age had made him slipshod, and it was odds against his taking the trouble to telephone, In any case the risk would have to be run, and at once he was ordering his thoughts in the light of the new evidence. By thetime he was back in Lizou he had something of a case prepared.

  He drove the car into the little garage and asked if it might stay there an hour or two out of the sun. And it was on foot that he made his way to the doctor’s house. There was no concealment, and it was openly that he walked down the path. Then, before his hand could go out to the bell, the door opened. Gabrielle must have heard steps and looked out, for she was all at once there. She was smiling, but it was in her eyes that he saw the watchfulness,and perhaps even a fright.

  “Bonjour, Gabrielle.” Never had he tried to make a smile more friendly. “I’ve come to say a really last good-bye. The doctor is in?”

  “No,” she said. “He is visiting a patient in the mountains.”

  “But mayn’t I come in?”

  She let out a
breath that might have been of relief.

  “Of course. How stupid of me. And you are leaving at once then for Marseilles?”

  “Almost at once,” he said, and his tone was deliberately grave.

  She stopped there, at the salon door.

  “Something has happened? To M. Charles?”

  “No,” he said. “Every one is well, and yet—well, something has happened. Something I want to talk about.”

  “To me?”

  “Yes,” he said gravely. “To you.”

  Now she was really alarmed.

  “But I don’t understand—”

  “Sit down, won’t you?” he said. “And I’ll sit here, where I can see through the window.” He smiled as he shook his head. “You see, nobody knows I’ve come here, M. Charles is already on his way back to Paris, but M. Gallois pretended to be going to Paris, whereas he went only to Furolles. In a very few minutes, perhaps, he will be arriving here. I came first, because I wanted to talk to you, and warn you.”

  “But I don’t understand.” She was making a brave show of it, with her smile and her gesture of bewilderment. “Why should M. Gallois be coming here?”

  He shook his head again.

  “Monsieur Gallois is not coming here. It is Inspector Gallois who is coming here. Now do you not understand?”

  There was still something heroic in the shake of the head, but there was tragedy in her eyes. The fingers that had been so placid on her lap were fidgeting nervously. Travers leaned forward, and his voice had an earnestness that had in it something of pain.

  “Gabrielle—you will pardon me if I call you Gabrielle, because it is as Gabrielle that I havealways thought of you. I beg of you to listen to me, and not to prevaricate, I am your friend—believe it. I come here for you to tell me the truth, so that I may advise you, and help you, before Inspector Gallois arrives.”

  She was trying desperately to compose herself. Her fingers were tightly interlocked as if they should not betray the desperate nervousness in her heart.

  “But still I don’t understand. Why should Inspector Gallois come here?” She smiled, “Is it because of the lies which my brother Jules felt himself forced to tell?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Because of the lies which Jules told, and which Robert told. Even the lies which you yourself told.”

  Now he was more than ever sure. One word in error and she would have been indignant. All she could pretend was a hurt.

  “But, monsieur, what have I done that you should insult me like this?”

  He was making a gesture of helplessness and getting to his feet.

  “I beg of you not to prevaricate, but you refuse to listen. Do you believe me to be your friend?”

  Then there was something lovely about her smile.

  “M. Travers, I know you are my friend. What I do not know is this mystery which you continue not to explain.”

  Travers sat down again. His French, he said, might not be wholly adequate, but it would serve. There were to be moments when he would have to eke it out with English, or a gesture would stand for a phrase, but there was to be scarcely a moment when she did not appear to understand.

  “The mystery,” he began, “is the murder of a certain Letoque, in the inquiry into which Inspector Gallois and I have, as you know, been concerned. But this Letoque should be given a name which is far better known, His real name—and yet not his real name perhaps, but the name under which he is best known—is Bariche! You know that name?”

  She frowned in thought, but her hands, as he saw, were trembling all the same.

  “Bariche,” she said slowly. “Bariche. There was something in the papers. Yes. He was a Landru, who preyed on women. And wasn’t there something else? Didn’t he die?”

  Travers let out a breath, then was slowly getting to his feet again.

  “Perhaps after all we had better await the arrival of Inspector Gallois. And now there is very little time. Already you’ve wasted ten minutes. You prefer that I should not help you. You pretend to know nothing, and all the while Gallois is getting nearer. He won’t invite you to say this and that.”

  “And what will he do?” she asked gently. With another helpless shake of the head Travers sat down once more.

  “I don’t know what he’ll do. . . . By this time he’s probably had Jules arrested. When he arrives here he may await Robert and then arrest him too, with yourself.”

  “Arrest! But what for?”

  “For the murder of Bariche.” He smiled ironically. “You see that once more I invite your confidences, by not referring to him as Letoque.”

  “But this is absurd! When was this Letoque killed?”

  “On the afternoon of Wednesday the ninth of April.”

  “But we were here, all three of us—even if we should have had any reason for killing this Letoque. We could all swear we were here.” Then her eyes were opening wide. “Why, even M. Rabaud knows we were here.”

  Travers took out his cigarette-case, slowly lighted a cigarette, crossed his long legs and leaned back in the chair. As if she were not there, he was settling himself to wait, A minute passed, and it was she who spoke first.

  “M. Travers, I assure you with all my heart that I know you are my friend.” A moment’s hesitation.

  “But it is Robert for whom I am afraid, not for myself. Will you tell me, before he arrives, why it is that you imagine all these things?”

  “Very well,” he said. “I will begin at what I think is the very beginning. But I warn you that if you lie to me again in defence of any one, I shall stop at once, and it will be to Inspector Gallois that you make your protests. If you wish to question me—do so, remembering always that with every minute we waste, Gallois is on the way here in the car he has hired at Furolles.”

  He stubbed out the cigarette and drew the chair round till be was almost touching her.

  “We begin at your sister—your young sister—Denise, wasn’t her name?—who was a widow and who married Bariche, and was about to go abroad. Perhaps you yourself met this sister in Paris, or by some other way you learned that everything was not what it seemed. Robert was here in Lizou already, though you did not join him till a few months ago, and it was to your brother Gaston that you confided your fears. It was he who confronted Bariche at Auteuil. It was he who was shot with your sister, and it was his dead body that was taken for that of Bariche.”

  Once she had shaken her head quickly, but now, when he paused, she said no word, and her eyes were heavily across the room.

  “There was at once a family meeting. For the sake of your mother—then dying, perhaps—nothing was said to the police, and, like others, you preferred to suffer in your hearts rather than disgrace an honourable name. To your friends your sister had married and gone abroad, and Gaston had gone abroad too. Then your mother died and you came here to keep house for Robert. But there was another brother—Jules.”

  Now it was he who was shaking his head.

  “Inspector Gallois will have time to prove everything, but all I can do is to guess, and what I guess is that it was at a famous circus somewhere that your sister first met Bariche. I admit that the papers announced that Bariche had always had a passion for circuses, and it may have been for that reason that Jules decided to accept the offer to become a trapezist. What I am sure of is that all of you must have met this Bariche in Paris—shall we say?—and that then he disappeared with your sister until one of you by chance ran across either him or her. What I insist on is that Jules and Robert must have known Bariche by sight, and all of you—who knew it was Gaston, not Bariche, who had died—hoped that at some time or other Bariche would visit the Grand Cirque Pertini, and that Jules would recognize him.

  “Now I go back to Sunday, the sixth of April. The circus was at Furolles, and you and Robert decided to meet Jules there, rather than, at Carliens where you might be seen by some of your friends from Lizou, I was at the circus that afternoon, and this is what happened. Jules recognized Bariche, who also had gone to
the circus, but he recognised him only just before his own act was about to begin. Every one was kept waiting while he found Robert, and pointed out the man who was almost certainly Bariche. Robert followed him, and Jules came to Lizou the next day to hear what happened, though previously, I imagine, he had heard over the ’phone. What he really came for on the Monday was to decide what was to be done about Bariche.”

  He paused with a smile of grave inquiry.

  “So far, am I reasonably right?”

  “Please, m’sieu, please! At any moment my brother may come.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Travers. “I did not want to waste time. I’ll go straight on from the council of war—shall I call it—which, was held here that Monday afternoon. Undoubtedly it was decided that Bariche deserved fifty deaths, and Robert claimed the right to kill him. Jules decided to keep a watch on him, and to do so he had to sacrifice that pet of his—Auguste, the little white rat—”

  “No, no! You are unjust.”

  She had spoken so vehemently that Travers was Startled.

  “But it was given out that Auguste was dead?”

  “Perhaps,” she said, “but it was unjust to think that Jules killed him.” The tired face lighted for a moment. “Jules only pretended he was dead, but he smuggled him here to me. He is in my room, upstairs.”

  Travers smiled. Neither then not afterwards did it strike him as incongruous that in matters so vital they should pause to discuss the fate of the little tame rat.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “I ought to have known that your brother could never have done a thing like that. Even I was upset when I heard that Auguste was dead. But to go on talking about the circus. Jules didn’t have to worry about being recognized by Bariche. In the circus Jules was masked, and Bariche would never have suspected that one of your family was a circus artist.

  “On the Tuesday morning Jules came here again, and heard about Charles, and saw him. He also reported that he had discovered that Bariche was already having designs on yet another woman, and it was decided to take action at the earliest possible moment. But everything was complicated by Robert’s malaria, though doubtless Robert was able to talk things over with both of you. Then who hit on the great scheme I don’t know. The scheme however was undoubtedly this.