“But I am an imbecile,” he said, and rapped his skull with his knuckles. “This beard, it is perhaps grown within a week or two, and also it disguises the face. We will remove the beard and then perhaps one will be able to recognize. Meanwhile we will wait.”
He moved on again. Elise cast a frightened look back at Travers, who smiled reassuringly. Gallois had yet another scheme in mind, he was thinking to himself, and like the others it appeared to him to have in it much of the unnecessary.
Back in the room Gallois excused himself to Travers and said he would return in a minute. Travers smiled across at Elise.
“There is no need to distress yourself,” he told her. “It is only a formality which is necessary perhaps for all of us, and after that one is troubled no more by the police.”
The thought seemed to cheer her, and there was a long silence in the room till the feet of Gallois at last were heard.
“Again one minute,” he announced, “and everything is finished.”
It was Travers now who took the arm of Elise, and he felt its nervous shaking and watched the quick moistening of her lips. Again the sheet was drawn back, and the face now appeared more emaciated than ever. Then Travers saw a something that made his eyes almost start from his head.
“C’est Maurice!”
She was scaring, fingers frightenedly at her mouth, and the cry was a kind of stifled shriek.
“Maurice?” said Gallois, eyes narrowing. “And who is this Maurice?”
But her feet seemed to give way and she was slithering to the floor. Travers was holding her at once, and the surgeon came across too. He whispered something to Gallois, who stooped and gathered her in his arms.
“You also know this Maurice?” he said to Travers.
“I’m not sure,” Travers said, and was shaking his head bewilderedly. “But she was sure. That cut by the mouth that the Professor mentioned. The Laughing Man, he called him.”
The lip of Gallois drooped.
“The Laughing Man. The brother who is dead for five years.”
He shook his head again, and with Travers at his heels, moved off along the corridor.
CHAPTER XIV
THE DISCOVERY
IT was a quarter of an hour before Gallois came back to his room, and he announced that the woman had already recovered, and in a few minutes might be able to answer questions.
“But you understand now, do you not, why I do not ask M. Larne to do the identification?”
“Frankly, I don’t,” Travers said bluntly.
“But consider,” expostulated Gallois. “I go and see this dead man. I know because of the beard that he cannot be Pierre, but there is a chance that he may be Gurlot. But when I examine the beard, I see the scar where the hair does not grow. I say to myself that there are not two men in all France with a mouth that is cut at the side, and I am astounded, like yourself, when I know that he is Moulins. Then I remember something else, that Braque was with Moulins at the Académie Poussin. I say to myself that we seek the members of the gang, and here perhaps is a member. But when I demand if this Moulins is also Bertrand Gurlot, then I begin to doubt.
“By example, M. Larne knew this Moulins. If he had for some reasons changed his name to Gurlot and married this Hortense, then at some time M. Larne would have seen and spoken with him, and he would have recognized Moulins. Also this Moulins would have recognized M. Larne. That is so, is it not?”
“I quite agree,” Travers said. “But why not take a short cut to all this? Ring M. Larne at his hotel and ask him to describe Bertrand Gurlot as he was when he saw him last.”
“An excellent idea!” exclaimed Gallois.
He pushed the buzzer and was asking for a connection to be made.
“While we attend,” he went on, “I will also say this. You have seen this Moulins, and one can observe that he was a moribund. The doctors assure me that he was almost dead before he was drowned. Therefore he had not the strength to attack François, and he had not the strength to drive even the motor-boat or the car.”
The bell went and he was picking the receiver up. Larne was on the phone, and Travers could take in the gist of the talk. Gallois was devastated at disturbing the great man, but since when was it that he had actually clapped eyes on Bertrand? Almost a year? That was indeed a long time. And the appearance of this Bertrand? Clean-shaven, tall, round-shouldered and with a high complexion, and in age about fifty? Bald, and slightly lame from an old war wound? That was an admirable description and ample, and before ringing off, Gallois uttered more apologies and thanks.
“You hear?” he said to Travers. “This Moulins is not the Bertrand Gurlot that we seek. Yet he is drowned, and not many kilometres from that house, and he was known to Braque.” He shook his head. “There is a riddle to which I find no answer.”
“Everything’s been too sudden for me,” Travers said. “I can’t get that ghastly face out of my mind, let alone think. But there’s another mystery that I can see arising. If a priest in Algiers sent word to Elise Moulins that her brother had died there, then who was it that died there? And since he wasn’t Maurice Moulins, then how did he know that Elise existed?”
Gallois nodded. “That is something that also seems to me incredible. But to-day, like you, I am unable to think. Since I observe that body, my brain boils. Now all I can suggest is this. There was a Bertrand Gurlot, but he died or disappeared. Then one conceives the plan of bringing this Moulins to take his place, unknown to M. Larne, who was so often away from the Villa and for such long times.”
“Now we’re arriving at something,” Travers said. “This Moulins needn’t have known it, but he was a member of the gang. Braque ran across him when he was down-and-out somewhere, and he was used as a copyist of pictures. A producer of fakes, if you like.”
Gallois nodded again. “And when M. Larne arrives for a stay at the Villa, then this Moulins is sick. But soon he becomes so ill that the truth cannot be hidden. It is necessary that he dies somewhere else, and so it is contrived that he dies at Fécamp.”
He glanced at his watch, then got to his feet.
“If you had been at your hotel, you would have come here direct and we should have talked of these things before the arrival of the sister of Moulins. As it was, we must play once more a comedy which has the air of being ridiculous.”
His tone changed to the confidential.
“To-night there are two questions with which I desire that you sleep, and in the morning it may be that you find the answers. We wonder, do we not, who it is that died at Algiers, and, since he is not the brother of Elise, how he could communicate to the priest a wish that one informed her of his death. We arrive then at the first question. Was there ever a letter from this priest?”
Travers’s fingers were suddenly at his glasses.
“I wonder. I don’t think anyone has ever seen the letter. She told me it was lost.”
Gallois nodded ominously.
“The second question, it is this. Why did she faint in that room? At the sight of a brother whom she does not see for many years, and whom she remembers so little that she does not recognize till one has removed the beard? Does she faint because the dead one is alive, or because of a conscience which is guilty? And because she is afraid that now we know everything.” He wagged a last dramatic finger. “Remember always that she was an associate of Braque.”
Travers had to turn his head at the thought of it.
“It’s horrible,” he said. “Unbelievably horrible. To think that she knew all the time her brother was there, and should lend herself to making a tool of him.”
Gallois smiled sadly.
“This evening she looks pathetic, does she not? One says to one’s self that there is a mistake, and she is after all a woman of modesty and of a good heart. It is impossible that she tells a lie, or is other than a victim of what one calls mischance.” He shook his head with the same mournful smile. “But I have known women like that, who have been capable of everything: of lies, of
murder, of everything which is a crime.”
“All the same, she didn’t kill Braque,” Travers said. “And her brother didn’t kill him. As far as I can see now, the only possible assassin left is Hortense.”
“Or this Bertrand who disappears and is replaced by Moulins.” Then his hand went out. “Good night, my friend. To-morrow you find an answer to the questions. I commence to enquire in my own way into the disappearance of Bertrand Gurlot.”
Then he was halting at the door.
“An idea also comes. There is always the evidence which M. Larne can give, but which he keeps so closely to himself. It would be possible, do you think, that to-morrow you arrange to see M. Larne? You bring him only what one calls gossip. He will be astonished, you think, to hear that one has found drowned this Moulins whom he also knew at the Académie Poussin, and you will say also that it is curious that he is drowned so near to Fécamp. If you wish, you say also that I, Gallois, am at Fécamp to make enquiries, and that to you I give the impression that there are things which I soon discover.”
“I see,” said Travers slowly. “There’s a good deal we both suspect that he knows, and that might force his hand.”
Gallois clapped him on the shoulder.
“My friend, you are the second brain of myself. And it is not only what he says that you observe. It is also the eyes, and the movements, because it is them that he thinks you do not observe.”
Then, as he held out his hand again, his smile was even more melancholy and apologetic.
“There are times, are there not, when to one so calm, so phlegmatic as yourself, my friend, this Gallois has an air of the theatrical. To-night, perhaps, you wonder why we play the comedy at the apartment of the woman. But one suspicion, and she also disappears perhaps, like the others, and then it is for her also that we must search.”
Travers smiled the least hit sheepishly. Gallois had once more uncannily read his thoughts, and in a moment he was admitting generously that his own ideas had been altogether wrong.
But Travers awoke in the morning with a feeling of uneasiness in his mind, and in a moment he was knowing what it was. It was not that he had seen in his dreams the ghastly emaciated face of the dead Moulins, but the remembering of that interview which he must have with Larne.
Duplicity of that kind was the one form of detection for which he had a tremendous aversion. To be an off-hand and occasional liar was something which he knew to be most necessary, and when one was dealing with those who also were liars, then the battle of wits had its amusing side. But what he disliked was to pose and lie to those for whom he had a respect, and who, above all, had an implicit confidence in himself. But by breakfast he could assure himself that what he was about to do would be for Larne’s own good, and the very moment Bernice had gone, he would hurry along to Larne and get things over.
Bernice was spending what she said was positively the last day of widowhood, and she would be back before dinner. Her friends arrived for her soon after ten o’clock, and it was half an hour later before the party left. Then Travers jotted down the lines he wished the talk with Larne to follow, and, with courage screwed to the sticking point, rang the hotel.
But M. Larne was out, he was told, and he would not be back till the early evening. Travers, disappointed at so much effort for nothing, asked if the hotel would ring him should Larne make an earlier return. Then he rang Gallois to report the putting off of the interview, but Gallois was out and was not expected back till the afternoon. The whereabouts of M. Rabaud, they said, were unknown.
Travers, considering himself legitimately free, spent the rest of the morning in an antique shop, then, after lunch, tied down by the knowledge that Larne’s hotel might report his earlier return, amused himself by trying to review the case.
What he wished above all was to simplify things: to untie all the knots with which the clear line of thought was hampered and involved, and to make of the case a something which was simplicity itself to follow. Soon he was getting paper and writing down the ideas that came.
Assume, he began, that there was some criminal scheme to make money. Braque called it a gold-mine, and for the moment one might disregard whether or not there were two gold-mines and if the second was really a development of, and an improvement on, the first.
ORIGINAL MEMBERS OF THE GANG. That was his headline, and under it he wrote the names of Braque, Pierre Larne, Bertrand Gurlot and Hortense Gurlot. Henri Larne, he noted, was so often away from the Villa that the gang had practically a free hand there.
SECOND PHASE. Braque ran across the derelict Moulins, and suggested him as a useful member of the gang. He was given the name of Gurlot, and doubtless knew little of what was going on, as he would be drunk most of the time. Bertrand Gurlot was set free to be employed in Spain or wherever the activities of the gang requited him.
And there Travers was delighted to find the solution to one mystery that had puzzled him all along—who it was or rather why it was that an attack had been made on Larne’s life. The reason, he now saw, was this. Moulins had become desperately ill. The gang were in a panic, and a solution seemed to be to remove Larne. But the plan failed, and it was decided instead that Moulins should be removed from the Villa, so that if he died suddenly then his body might be surreptitiously disposed of.
It was getting well on in the afternoon by the time Travers had arrived at that, and all that seemed left to do was to find what still failed to fit in. And there at once he was up against the question of Elise Moulins. If the suspicions of Gallois were correct, how was she to be accounted for? Had she been an associate of Braque for much longer than she had admitted? Was it she who proposed that the gang might use the talent of her brother? If not, what had been her functions as a useful member?
Travers had an early tea, then rang Larne’s hotel. But Larne had not returned, and he settled again to an examination of Elise Moulins. But theory seemed for once inadequate, and he was wondering if he could contrive to talk with her again. If she had been playing the fiendish part that Gallois assigned to her, then, thought Travers, she was an actress of the very front rank. Even under the watchful eyes of Charles, she had played her part. Only a great actress could pretend that revulsion of feeling towards Braque, and the remnants of love for a dead brother, of all of which that picture in her kitchen had been a kind of symbol. And there had been that pathetic, artless remark of the previous night—“And M. Rabaud, he also has done nothing?”—when all the time perhaps she was only too well aware of the comedy that was being played.
Then Travers was suddenly annoyed with Charles for not putting in an appearance. If he arrived he could be asked to arrange another interview with Elise. With that, Travers put the case aside and went on with his book. But Charles did not arrive, and suddenly Travers was putting the book aside. Charles was possibly at the apartment of Elise, and he himself would go there and, as excuse, resume the talk about the picture where the arrival of the police had interrupted it.
So Travers called a taxi and asked to be set down at the end of the rue Vagnolles. Dusk was in the sky, but with the little light that there was, the neighbourhood seemed less unsavoury, and it even had a kind of friendliness that was forlorn. There were people about, which also made a difference, and it was with a feeling of unreality that he opened that side door and began to mount the stairs.
It was dark there, and on the first landing he switched on the light. Then suddenly the door above him opened, and the head of Charles appeared. A startled look, and Charles was putting his finger to his lips, and closing the door quietly behind him, and making signs for Travers to descend again.
“It is necessary that I explain,” he said. “Last night she was distressed and ill, but this morning she is better, but she refuses to go out. I say it is better she keeps the appointment that she has, because when one works, one forgets. So she goes out, and I go also, and she imagines it is to you. Then I return and she is here, and I say that I ask for the evening to be free for me as she is
upset about her brother.”
A voice was heard calling him from above. Once more his fingers went to his lips.
“I go now to explain that I descend and meet monsieur by chance. Meanwhile she prepares. It is about the picture that you come?”
Travers nodded, but already Charles was running up the stairs. In two minutes be appeared again, and was making signs for Travers to ascend.
The little kitchen seemed as spotless as ever. Elise was regarding him with no suspicions.
“I am sorry to disturb you again,” Travers began.
There was a genuineness about her quiet smile.
“Monsieur is very good. It was not right that Charles should make him wait.”
“But it is an intrusion,” he told her. “But now I am here, I come for two things: to see the picture again and to express my condolences about your brother. It was a great shock.”
She said nothing for a moment, then shook her head.
“Monsieur is very good.”
Travers was feeling the least bit ill at ease. Conversation was becoming hard to make.
“It was a shock to me,” he went on, “to hear that it was your brother. But how was it that one imagined him dead?”
Charles cut in there with an explanation. If monsieur permitted, he would suggest that when Maurice was in Algiers he was robbed, and it was the thief who had met some sudden end. In the thief’s pocket were found papers mentioning the name of Maurice and of Elise.
“That is doubtless the explanation,” Travers said. “All the same, it was foolish for the police to imagine your brother was the associate of criminals and scoundrels.”
“The police, if monsieur permits, are fools and pigs,” said Charles.
Elise was smiling sadly.
“But my brother was—was like my father. He was the friend of anyone who would buy a drink.”
“But that is no disgrace to yourself,” Travers told her, eyes on her downcast face and the hands so absurdly placid in her lap. “One regrets the doings of one’s relatives but one is not responsible. For yourself there is nothing but a credit that you maintain yourself all these years. But the picture; you still wish that I buy it?”
The Case of the Flying Donkey: A Ludovic Travers Mystery Page 17
