Bodies from the Library 3

by Tony Medawar

  ‘Well, stranger things have happened, but it didn’t—you can see that there is no blood trail between the head and the body. No, the murderer put it there.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You forget that this is no sane mind. Can’t you imagine it? The murderer triumphantly holding up the head of his victim; mocking it, addressing words to it while he walked round shaking it by the hair—’

  ‘What a cheerful imagination you have!’

  ‘But it is necessary,’ he murmured, shrugging. Then he bent down gingerly and started to go through Saligny’s pockets. Presently he straightened up and indicated a pile of articles on the divan. There was a queer smile on his face.

  ‘The crowning touch … his pockets are filled with pictures of himself. Yes. See?’ He ran his hands through clippings and pasteboards. ‘Newspaper pictures, and a few cabinet photographs. Photographs of himself, every conceivable sort; pictures where he looks handsome, pictures where he looks ghastly … here is one on horseback; another at the golf links … Hm. Nothing else except some banknotes, a watch, and a lighter. Why these photographs at all? And especially why are they carried in evening clothes?’

  ‘Conceited ass!’

  Bencolin shook his head. He was squatting by the divan, idly turning over the clippings. ‘No, my friend, there may be another reason—which is the peak of all this odd business. Cabinet photographs. Diable!’

  We were suddenly startled by a tearing, rattling sound. The door to the hall was pushed open despite a protesting officer in plain clothes; there lurched into the room a short, pudgy, wild-eyed young man with a paper hat stuck on the back of his head. He grinned foolishly, his clothes were awry, and the noise was being made by one of those wooden twirlers they give as favours at night-clubs. He gave that sort of drunken leer very popular at weddings, shook the rattler at us, and smirked at the silly sounds it emitted.

  ‘Party here,’ he said in English, ‘’scort couple home. Always do’t ’scort to the home to, as it were. Let’s have a drink. Got any liquor?’ he demanded interestedly of the plain-clothes man.

  ‘Mais, monsieur, c’est défendu d’entrer—’

  ‘Cutta frog talk. No comprey. Got any liquor? Hey?’

  ‘Monsieur, je vous ai dit!—’

  ‘N’lissen! Gotta see m’friend Raool. He’s married; hellva thingta do!—’

  The young man was pleading and persistent. I went over hurriedly and spoke in English:

  ‘Better go out, old top. You’ll get to see him—’

  ‘By God, you’re m’friend!’ crowed the young man, opening his eyes wide and thrusting out his hand. ‘Got any liquor? I’ve been drinkin’,’ he confided in a low tone, ‘but gotta see Raool. He’s married. Let’s have a drink.’ Suddenly he sat down in a chair near the door and fell into a half-stupor, still twirling the rattle.

  ‘Monsieur!’—cried the policeman.

  ‘I’m gonna pop you,’ said the newcomer, opening his eyes again and pointing his finger at the policeman with a curiously intense look, ‘sure’z hell I’m gonna pop you ’fyou don’t getaway! C’mon, get back, ’m gonna pop ’im!’ He relapsed again.

  ‘Who is this?’ I asked Bencolin.

  ‘I have seen him before, with Saligny,’ the detective replied. ‘His name is Golton, or something of the sort: an American, naturally.’

  ‘We had better put him—’

  Again there was an interruption. We heard a woman moaning, ‘I can’t stand it! I can’t stand it!’ and other feminine tones urging her to be quiet. It was Madame Louise’s voice. The door to the hall opened, and Edouard Vautrelle entered. He was very pale, but supercilious; he polished the eyeglass on his handkerchief, and looked round coldly.

  ‘Was this necessary?’ he said.

  Supported by a little wizened woman attendant, Madame Louise came after him. She glanced at the thing on the floor; then she stood stoically, upright and motionless, with the rouge glaring out on her cheeks. Her eyes were dry and hot.

  There was a space of silence, so that we could hear the curtains rustling at the window. Suddenly Golton, the American, looked up from a glassy contemplation of the floor, and saw her. He emitted a crow of delight. Never noticing the body, he rose unsteadily, made a flamboyant bow, and seized madame’s hand.

  ‘My heartiest congratulations,’ he said, ‘on this, the happiest day of your whole life!—’

  It was a ghastly moment. We all stood there frozen, except Golton, who was wabbling with hand extended in his bow. Golton’s eyes travelled up to Vautrelle, and he added waggishly:

  ‘Sorry you got the gate, Eddie; Raool’s got more money’n you, anyhow …’

  III

  DEATH GUIDES THE CLOCKS

  Vautrelle snarled, ‘Get that drunken dog out of here!’ and made a movement that was restrained by Bencolin.

  ‘Take him out,’ the detective whispered to me, and added under his breath: ‘Learn what you can.’

  Golton was more easily led away by one of his nationality; besides, at that moment he gave signs of becoming unwell. The policeman passed us out into the hall, and I supported him down its length to the men’s lounging room, which was equipped with deep chairs and many ashtrays. Stoutly denying the need of assistance, he disappeared for a time and presently emerged looking pale but considerably more sober.

  ‘Sorry to be such an inconvenience,’ he said, sinking into a chair. ‘Can’t hold it. All right now.’ After a time of staring at the floor he said irritably: ‘What’s alla fuss about?’

  ‘Your friend, Raoul.’

  ‘Yeah; he’s been married.’

  I adopted the easy camaraderie of Americans in a strange country. ‘Known him long?’

  ‘Two’r three months. Met him when I was on a trip to Austria.’

  ‘He and his wife have been engaged a long time, haven’t they?’

  ‘I’ll say! Must be two years. I don’t know what’s been delaying ’em. Ever since I’ve been in France, I guess … Say, lemme introduce myself. Sid Golton’s the name, from Nebraska. I think I could stand a drink.’

  ‘You were an intimate of his, then?’

  ‘Not exactly, but I knew him pretty well. Way I met him, I saw his picture in the papers—great horseman; so’m I. Walked up on the train and says, “I’m Sid Golton. I wanta shake your hand”.’

  ‘That was very tactful.’

  ‘Sure. Well, he spoke English all right. But I never got a chance to go riding with him. Useta drop round to his house. It was a swell wedding they had …’ It suddenly penetrated Golton’s mind that something was wrong. His face was assuming normal lines after a squashed-clay appearance, and resolved into pudgy, reddish features under thinning hair. He demanded: ‘What’s all this about, anyhow?’

  ‘Mr Golton, I am sorry to say that the Duc de Saligny has been murdered—’

  Golton’s eyes turned as glassy as marbles. He was halfway out of his chair when the door to the hall opened, and Bencolin entered with Edouard Vautrelle. The ensuing few minutes showed Golton, maudlin and fearful, grotesque with his scared features under the paper cap, insisting that he ‘didn’t know a damn thing about it, and if he wasn’t let out of there right away there’d be trouble, because he was a sick man’.

  ‘You are at liberty to go, of course,’ Bencolin said. ‘But please leave your address.’

  Golton blundered out the door, loudly declaring that he was headed for Harry’s New York bar. His address he gave as 324 Avenue Henri Martin.

  ‘Sit down, please, M. Vautrelle,’ Bencolin requested.

  Vautrelle was the essence of coolness. His shirt-front did not bulge when he sat down, the wings of his white tie were exactly in line; even the colourless face had no wrinkles, but the movements of his eyes jarred it in quick darts. He crossed one leg over the other in a bored way

  ‘A few questions, please, monsieur. You understand that this is necessary …’ (Vautrelle inclined his head) … ‘May I ask the last time you saw M. de Saligny alive?’

/>   ‘I can’t recall the exact hour. It may have been ten o’clock.’

  ‘Where was he then?’

  ‘He had just left Louise with some of her feminine friends. He was going towards the tables. He seemed in high spirits. “I’m going to play the red, Edouard,” he cried; “red is my lucky colour tonight …”’

  I could have sworn that there was a faint smile on Vautrelle’s face.

  ‘Then,’ Vautrelle continued, ‘he turned to me as though with an afterthought. “By the way,” he said, “what was that cocktail you were describing to me: the one the man makes in the American Bar at the Ambassador?” I told him. “Well, then, do me a favour, will you?” he said. “Get hold of the bar steward here and tell him to mix me a shaker of them, will you? I’m expecting a man on something very important tonight. And, oh, yes! While you’re there, you might tell him to bring it to the card-room when I ring. I expect the man about eleven-thirty o’clock. Thanks.” I rejoined some friends—’

  ‘One moment, please,’ interposed Bencolin. He pulled the bell-cord at his elbow. Presently there entered the white-coated servant who had dropped the tray on entering the room of the murder. He was freckled and ill at ease and his huge hands tugged at the bottom of his jacket.

  Bencolin, standing with one elbow on the mantelpiece, extended his hand.

  ‘Steward, you were the person who discovered the dead man?’ he asked

  ‘Yes, monsieur. Monsieur there,’ he nodded towards Vautrelle, ‘had told me to expect a ring around eleven-thirty from the card-room and I took in the cocktails monsieur had ordered. I saw …’ His eyes wrinkled up, and he protested: ‘I could not help breaking those glasses, monsieur! Really, I could not! If you will speak on my behalf to—’

  ‘Never mind the glasses. You heard the bell ring, then? At what time was this?’

  ‘At about half-past eleven; I know, because I was watching the clock for it. M. de Saligny always tips—tipped—well.’

  ‘Where were you at the time?’

  ‘In the bar, monsieur.’

  ‘Where is the bell-cord in the card-room?’

  ‘By the door into the main hallway, monsieur. You may see for yourself.’

  ‘You came immediately?’

  ‘Not immediately. The bar-steward took his time about mixing the cocktails, and insisted that I wash some sherbet-glasses. It must have been ten minutes before I answered the ring.’

  ‘By which door did you enter?’

  ‘By the door into the hallway; it is closer to the smoking room on which the bar gives. The light in the card-room was bad, and when I entered (I got no reply to my knock)—’ He began to speak very fast, and shift his glance from side to side, ‘I did not at first perceive the—that anything was wrong. I … mère de Dieu! I walked across, and almost stumbled over the head. I cried out; I reached the door of the main salon, and I could hold my tray no longer. That is all, monsieur! I swear to you before all—’

  He fidgeted, and backed towards the door. Abruptly, not at all muffled by the closed door, the orchestra downstairs commenced again on another ancient tune which had just come to Paris; a throaty voice warbled in English:

  ‘Pack up all my care and woe

  Here I go, singing low—’

  Bencolin turned his back and stood for a time looking out of the window. Then he motioned the steward to go. He returned to the table beside which Vautrelle sat bolt upright with an amused smile.

  ‘Here,’ he said, sketching rapidly and tearing out a leaf of his notebook, ‘is a rough plan of the floor. I have consulted the clocks in the smoking room and on the staircase. They agree with my watch that it is now … What hour have you, M. Vautrelle?’

  Vautrelle turned over a thin silver watch in his palm. He consulted it with great deliberation, and announced: ‘Exactly twenty-five minutes past twelve.’

  ‘To the second,’ agreed Bencolin. He turned to me. ‘You have—?’

  ‘Twenty-four and a half minutes, to the second.’

  Bencolin scowled at the plan.

  ‘Very well. To proceed, M. Vautrelle, can you tell me your whereabouts at half-past eleven, when M. de Saligny entered the card-room?’

  ‘Within a few seconds, monsieur, I can.’ Vautrelle hesitated; then, startlingly, he burst into a roar of laughter. ‘I was speaking to your detective on guard at the end of the hall, and I stayed with him for over five minutes, when I walked into the main salon under his observation and was introduced to you.’

  Bencolin nearly lost his temper. After an interval of silence, during which he stared at Vautrelle, he yanked the bell-cord. François, the plain clothes detective, came in with an air of importance, rubbing his large nose.

  ‘Why, yes, monsieur, the gentleman there was with me,’ he replied. ‘I was sitting in a chair reading La Sourire, when he came up to me, and offered me a cigarette, and said, “Can you by any chance tell me the right time? My watch seems to be slow.” “I am positive,” said I, “that my watch is right—eleven-thirty—However, we can consult the clock on the staircase.”’

  François refreshed himself with a glance at all of us. He resumed:

  ‘We walked to the head of the stairs, and, as I knew, the clock confirmed my watch. He set his own, and we stood there talking—’

  ‘So,’ interrupted Bencolin, ‘that you were directly before the hall door into the card-room within a minute after M. de Saligny entered the room from the gaming-salon?’

  ‘Yes. We stayed there over five minutes, and then monsieur there walked down the hall and entered the main salon. I remained at the head of the stairs … Incidentally, I saw the boy go in with the tray.’

  ‘You are positive, then, that nobody left by the hall door.’

  ‘Positive, monsieur.’

  ‘That is all.’

  Bencolin sat at the table with his chin in his hands. After a time Vautrelle remarked: ‘Of course, you are at liberty to imagine that there has been tampering with clocks.’

  ‘There has been no tampering with the clocks, nor with my friend’s watch, nor with mine. I have made certain of that.’

  ‘Then I suppose that I am at liberty to go? I dare say madame needs attention, and I shall be glad to take her home—’

  ‘Where is madame now?’

  ‘In the ladies’ room, I believe, with an attendant.’

  ‘I presume,’ observed Bencolin, with a crooked smile, ‘that you will not take her to the home of M. de Saligny?’

  Vautrelle appeared to take the question seriously. He put the glass in his eye and answered: ‘No, of course not; I shall take her to the apartments she occupied previously in the Avenue du Bois. In case you want my own address,’ he extracted a card case, ‘here is my card. I shall be pleased to present you with a duplicate at any time in the future you feel called on to be as insulting as you have tonight.’

  He preened himself as he rose, and his manner said, There’s no reply to that! Standing in the doorway, he called for his wraps. Bencolin, thoughtfully turning the card over in his fingers, looked up with wrinkled forehead.

  ‘Saligny was a great swordsman, too, I take it,’ he said softly. ‘Tell me, M. Vautrelle: did he speak English?’

  ‘Raoul? That is the most amusing question yet. Raoul was essentially a sportsman, and nothing else. Yes, he was a swordsman, and a spectacular tennis-player—he had a serve that nearly stopped Lacoste—and the best of steeplechase riders. Of course,’ Vautrelle added smugly, ‘he did sustain a fall that nearly paralysed his wrist and spine, and had to see a foreign specialist about it; but yes, he was a fine athlete. Books he never opened. Tiens, Raoul speaking English! The only words he knew were “five o’clock tea”.’

  A servant had brought in Vautrelle’s coat—long and dark, with a great sable collar, and hooked with a silver chain, it was like a piece of stage-property. He pulled down on his head a soft black hat, and the monocle gleamed from its shadow. Then he produced a long ivory holder, into which he fitted a cigarette. Standing in the
doorway, tall, theatrical, with the holder stuck at an angle in his mouth, he smiled.

  ‘You will not forget my card, M. Bencolin?’

  ‘Since you force me to it,’ said Bencolin, shrugging, ‘I must say that I would much prefer to see your identity card, monsieur.’

  Vautrelle took the holder out of his mouth.

  ‘Which is your way of saying that I am not a Frenchman?’

  ‘You are a Russian, I believe.’

  ‘That is quite correct. I came to Paris ten years ago. I have since taken out citizenship papers.’

  ‘Oh! And you were?’

  ‘Major, Feydorf battalion, ninth Cossack cavalry in the army of his imperial majesty the Czar.’

  Mockingly Vautrelle clicked his heels together, bowed from the hips, and was gone.

  IV

  HASHISH AND OPIUM

  Bencolin looked across at me and raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Alibi Baby!’ I said. ‘I don’t see how you’re going to shake it, Bencolin.’

  ‘For the present, it is not necessary that I should. Question: where does this species of fire-eater get the income to go about with a millionaire like Saligny?’

  ‘You suspect that he is our madman?’

  ‘Frankly, I don’t. But I very much suspect that he has been in the habit of supplying madame la duchesse with drugs.’

  ‘Drugs?’

  ‘When she came over to us this evening,’ went on Bencolin, hunching up in the chair, ‘I remarked that she looked as though she were in a drug-fog. I did not know it at the time, but that was the literal truth. Did you see me pick up the cigarette she left in the ashtray near us?’ He fished it out of his vest pocket. ‘It is very thoroughly doctored; with what, I can’t say until our chemists analyse it. It is either marijuana, the Indian hemp-plant—the Mexicans use its dried leaves as a cigarette-filler—or the Egyptian hashish. She is a confirmed user, or it would have made her violently ill. You noticed the expression of her eyes and the wildness of her conversation: she is no novice in its use. Some say it kills, you know, within five years. Somebody is most earnestly trying to do away with her.’