by Tony Medawar
VI
WHITE ROSES FOR MURDER
I felt a sickly empty sensation around my stomach when we went up another flight of stairs towards Saligny’s study, whose location Bencolin seemed to know very well.
‘Stand in the door,’ he whispered; ‘I want to see that the shutters are up …’ There was a space when I stood with my back to the hallway and heard Bencolin lightly trying the windows. The study smelled stuffy, and there was another queer odour … He returned presently, took off his cloak, and when he closed the door behind him he laid the cloak along the bottom of the door.
‘Now turn on that lamp at your elbow. Keep your hand on the button, and if you hear any movement anywhere, shut it off.’
It was a dull lamp, with a globed shade set in green glass, and its light made crooked shadows in a small room hung with pictures. Beside the door was a large trunk, on which I sat down to watch the detective.
‘Hm,’ he muttered, talking fast and in a low voice: ‘Dozens of sports pictures—himself with silver cups—Ascot, Longchamps, Wimbledon—amateur fencing team—fine stag’s head, that—yes, and big game—gun-case—Manchurian leopards—that racquet needs re-stringing—’
He was walking about, glancing at this and that, picking up articles and laying them down; powerful, imbued with terrific wiry energy. The table in the middle of the room claimed his attention.
‘Typewriter … What’s this? Books. Open here; drawers are filled with them. The works of Edgar Allan Poe. Barbey D’Aurevilly; Diaboliques. Odd fare for a sporting man … Baudelaire, Hoffmann; La Vie de Gilles de Rais—’
He closed one book with a snap. ‘That settles it.’
The idea I had in mind seemed too outlandish and appalling; but I suddenly got up. We stood face to face, and by the expression of his eyes I could see we both knew …
‘The man,’ I said slowly, ‘who for the past two months has been posing as the Duc de Saligny is in reality—’
‘Laurent himself,’ supplied Bencolin. ‘Laurent, a master of irony! Laurent, with an eye to what he thinks is poetic justice. Over a year ago the engagement of the Duc de Saligny to Madame Louise was announced in every newspaper of Europe. There were a hundred pictures of Saligny to draw from. He had the plastic surgeon make him into such a perfect image of Saligny that Madame Louise herself does not even now know the difference. I have never encountered such an artistic cutthroat!—he planned and succeeded in marrying her a second time, and tonight, in that room downstairs, he would have avenged himself, if somebody had not discovered it—’
In one blinding glare every piece of contradiction showed up as one perfect whole. Bencolin, leaning across the desk, checked off the points on his fingers:
‘First, we have Saligny taking a trip to Vienna two months or so ago. When he leaves, he is the master sportsman: rider, swordsman, hunter, tennis-player, but a not over-bright individual who rarely reads a printed line and speaks no language but his own. When he returns, he has unaccountably acquired an excellent knowledge of English, such that one of his closest companions is an American who speaks no French. His whole character changes. He does not ride, play tennis, or indulge in any sports whatever—even sports where his injury would not prevent him. He refuses: because he no longer knows how—he is another man. Instead, he takes to opium-smoking! He hires a jockey—whom he does not recognize, although that jockey formerly rode his best horse—to inspect his stables for him. He hires this man to take dictation, because otherwise his handwriting would be recognized as not that of the man he is impersonating. He cultivates a new circle of friends (witness Golton), and goes in for the life of the boulevards. Yet here, as the marked books of this man who “never reads”, we have volumes in three languages and of a sort which shows an entire change of mind.’
The detective shrugged. ‘Yes, that is the way I read it. He intended, of course, to come to Paris and do away with Saligny here; but by a circumstance fortunate for him Saligny did go to Vienna, where somehow Laurent got into his hotel—and I very much suspect that the trunk on which you are sitting contains the body of the real Saligny.’
I was no longer sitting on it. I had backed away, and in the weird green light the thing explained possibly that odour …
‘Bencolin,’ I said, and with a calm not very convincing, ‘the trunk is unlocked.’
‘Chance tripped him up … Yes, you see what he did?’ the detective was rambling on. ‘He sent the trunk to a false address; to be rid of it, he thought, and make another “trunk murder” to baffle the police. But the trunk came back, and the manager of the hotel recognizing it, shipped it on to—’
‘The trunk is unlocked,’ I repeated monotonously. And then I reached down and threw open the lid.
Bencolin came over swiftly. It was nearly full of sawdust, sawdust tossed about as though something very heavy had been removed from its packings. There were brown stains streaked through the mass.
‘Laurent removed the body before he was married!’ I said, ‘but … what are you doing?’
The detective’s head was bent down into the trunk.
‘No, Jack. This sawdust on top is damp and fresh; it came from the bottom of the trunk. The body was disturbed more recently than that. Probably—tonight.’
For a moment he let the sawdust run through his fingers. ‘Don’t you see? We are dealing with a man much more dangerous than Laurent himself, whom this man killed. We have found out about Laurent, but we are still at the beginning of the riddle. It is even less explicable now than it was before, for we have no madman on which to saddle a motiveless crime.’
‘Who is the man, then? You seem to—’
‘Turn off that light!’
I reached over, fumbling, and switched it off. For a time there was absolute silence; then a faint creak as Bencolin eased open the door. Against the lesser darkness I could see his dim shape, motionless in the aperture. From the chasm below I thought I could hear a faint rasping noise, as of a shovel scraped over stone …
Bencolin’s figure moved forward, soundlessly. I edged out beside him, planting my steps to avoid creaky boards. Again he stopped; somewhere, a person was treading on stairs. There was the pale oblong of the window at the stairhead, and dull moonlight on the pattern of a carpet. So slowly we edged towards those stairs that the window grew on one’s vision, like a scene viewed through shortening opera glasses. He bent down when we reached the window, bent down and peered around the newel post, and I through the balustrades. Darkness … But the footsteps were coming up the second flight of stairs. They hesitated on the second floor, and crept round to the third. Suddenly switched into our faces was the glare of a flashlight.
‘Haut les mains!’
Bencolin fired two shots, very deliberately, into the beam of light. Their flat bang was like the burst of an explosion. The light vanished, and the footsteps thudded in leaps down the other flight of stairs. I stumbled, brought my hand in numbing contact with the stair-wall, and blundered down into the dark. Down to the first floor … there was a crash as a door was flung open, and other running footsteps joined the first. We heard a blubbering cry.
Somehow I found myself, trembling, unable to speak, leaning on a table in the lower hall. When the lights came on I blinked; the lights swam, and came into slow focus. Bencolin stood near the switch, the fingers of his hand crooked before his face, breathing heavily … In the centre of the Aubusson carpet, Girard lay on his back with a knife driven through his side. His oyster-eyeballs rolled, and he gurgled through brimming lips when he tried to move his head. His arms were thrown wide, fingers picking at the carpet, and one leg was drawn up as though in an attempt to rise. Around his neck was still a crumpled horseshoe of red roses, and framed his head with the white inscription, ‘Good luck …’
VII
‘ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT—’
At four o’clock a.m. the events of this amazing night were over, at least so far as the butcheries were concerned. But for Bencolin the work was just beginnin
g. I never saw him so upset as at this latest development, the murder of Girard by the prowler; his hand shook when he telephoned the prefecture, he cursed himself in a low bitter monotone, like a man praying, and he cursed Girard for not following his advice. As nearly as it could be reconstructed, Girard had retired to his room on the ground floor. When he heard the shots he came from the back of the house, saw the intruder running down the stairs, and interfered at the cost of his life. Bencolin’s bullets had apparently taken no effect. Both were buried in the floor, one having shattered the flashlight and the other nicking the newel post about three feet from the floor. From the remnants of the flashlight, a long Tungsten with a head much broader than the barrel, it was clear that the bullet had pierced the reflector without even grazing the hand of the man who had held it … In the cellar we found the reason for the sound we had heard. Fresh mortar between the bricks behind a pile of debris, and a trowel concealed under some straw, led to the discovery of a hollow. Inside a body was doubled up, horribly decomposed but recognizable as that of Saligny; Laurent, it seemed, was not the only person in the case who had read well in the works of Poe. The knife with which Girard had been stabbed had first been used to pry out the loose bricks; bits of dust and mortar still clung to the underside of the haft. After the murder, the assassin had gone out of the cellar door by which he had entered … To this day I can see Bencolin, holding up a lantern as he looked into the ghastly hollow behind the bricks. The chill damp of the cellar, the wind banging the open door, the rat that scurried past my foot: they are details indelible.
When we left the house at four o’clock in possession of the police, Bencolin gave his last instructions: ‘Above all, give nothing out to the press. I do not think you will find fingerprints, for the handle of the knife is dusty and has prints of what seem to be gloves—but make the test. I will ’phone in an hour.’ And then he said to me:
‘We will go to my rooms and get coffee. Do you mind driving? I want to study this … Avenue George V; if you’re not sure of the way, get back to the Champs Elysées and then you can’t miss it.’
On the return drive he sat strained forward, head between his hands, staring at nothingness.
‘We know hardly more than before—’ I murmured. He turned savagely.
‘Yes? You say that to me? I tell you I know the whole devilish plan. I know the height of the murderer, and that he wore evening clothes; I know when he came and why he came; I know the reason he tried to come upstairs, and what his connection was with Saligny; in short, I can draw you a picture of Girard’s assassin. But—well, that is to be seen. Our organisation is a devil-fish, which can extend a thousand arms—’
‘And, according to natural history, it can throw out from itself a quantity of dense black liquid to obscure the view—’
‘Peste, you needn’t snap! And your hands are trembling on that wheel; well, it’s an ordeal to turn anyone’s stomach. We shall both need brandy … Turn to the right here.’
Between weariness and the horror of recollection, we exchanged no more words. Bencolin’s rooms were in an apartment-building not far from the American church. He kept such irregular hours that he had his own key, and we did not rouse the concierge at the front door. The automatic elevator made a slow ascent to the sixth floor.
‘My servant,’ Bencolin explained, ‘never knows when I shall be here; there is always coffee on the stove, and a fire in the study.’
It was a formal apartment, stiff and luxurious in a stereotyped fashion, with the customary mirrors and Louis Quinze furniture—all except the study … A tiny balcony, books to the ceiling, and a fire. Certainly the most untidy room I have ever seen. There were great padded chairs with inclined backs before the fireplace. A letter had been thrown down carelessly on the hearth, beside a tabouret with brandies and cigars; and the first sentence of the letter caught my eye, ‘De la part de sa majesté, le roi d’Angleterre—’
‘Clean off that chair and sit down,’ said Bencolin. He began to sweep a pile of debris from the neighbourhood of the hearth; a flutter of red fell from it, and I said,
‘My Lord, man, be careful! That’s the ribbon of the Legion of Honour.’
‘I know it,’ he returned irritably. ‘Make yourself comfortable …’
Presently I fell into a doze, and vaguely heard him fuming at something in the kitchen. The prospect of the evening danced in my brain; became linked with a crazy jingle, ‘Heads and knives, swords and wives, how many are going to St —’ and there swam across it the vision of Vautrelle polishing his monocle, of the flashlight in our faces … I stirred, and opened my eyes. Bencolin was sitting across the hearth in one of the great chairs, with the firelight on his sardonic face. He pointed to a cup of coffee at my elbow.
‘In a moment,’ he said, ‘you are going to hear the prefecture in action. This,’ he tapped a telephone beside him, ‘is my private wire. There is another ’phone on that table at your left—push the books away—there. Listen to them, now.’
Both of us picked up the ’phones. ‘Hello!’ he said. ‘Bureau centrale. Bencolin speaking.’
There was a prolonged clicking. ‘Bureau centrale,’ a voice answered.
‘Dulure’s laboratory, please … I want the reports on the Saligny case. Have they finished?’
‘Two-eleven speaking,’ said another voice. ‘Report as follows: There are no clear fingerprints, due to the brass nail-heads on the handle of the sword; an identification is impossible. There are several prints on the glass of the window, but they do not correspond to any in our files. The dust of the carpet and that of the cover on the divan has been swept up; the glass here sifts out nothing but cigarette ashes, mud-traces, and a few grains of candy.’
‘Have these been analysed?’
‘Not yet. There will be a report by morning as to whether the ashes are of the same quality as those of the cigarette submitted. This cigarette contains hashish.’
‘Very good. Shift me to the general office; one-thirteen … One-thirteen speaking? You followed the American, Golton, from Passy?’
‘Yes. He took a taxi to Harry’s New York Bar, Boulevard des Italiens. He remained there half an hour; on emerging, spoke to two women but went with none; walked to the opera and there took another taxi. He returned to his home, 324 Avenue Henri Martin, arriving there at one forty-five.’
‘You looked him up in the files?’
‘Resident of Paris for two years, no occupation, reputable account at Lloyd’s bank. I have a list of his associates.’
‘It will keep. I will speak to one-eleven now … One-eleven?’
‘Edouard Vautrelle,’ said still another voice, ‘left the house in Passy at twenty minutes to one. In his own car he escorted Madame de Saligny to her home, 144 Avenue du Bois. He left there in five minutes, returned to his car, and drove downtown to Maxim’s, rue Royale. I lost him, monsieur; he apparently left through a door into a neighbouring shop. I questioned the proprietor, but he will say nothing. Very sorry.’
‘No matter … His antecedents?’
‘Came to Paris in 1917, during the Russian revolution. Enlisted for military service; army of occupation until 1922. Gives his occupation as that of playwright—’
‘Questions to the theatres?’
‘The managers of all theatres in Paris are being sent a blank form asking if any plays by a person of that name have been submitted.’
‘Good. Now forty-six, please … Luigi Fenelli? What of him?’
‘To the best of my knowledge, he has not left his establishment tonight. Seventy-one is still at the corner; no ’phone message yet. Fenelli came to Paris a year ago, and sent circulars of his new house to prominent people. Twice arrested in Italy, but never imprisoned. Charges: peddling opium in Naples; aggravated assault and battery.’
‘That is all … Head central! ’Phone me if any report comes from the laboratory. Instruct them to examine Saligny’s fingernails. I want fingerprint samples from all these people. Post a man at the concierge�
��s box in the Fenelli house.’
‘Any further instructions?’
‘None until tomorrow. Make me an appointment with the juge d’instruction.’
Slowly Bencolin replaced the ’phone.
‘You see,’ he remarked, ‘the octopus reaching. It is a gigantic system. I can, at this hour, ascertain the whereabouts of any man in Paris. And you also note how it fails!’ He slapped the chair-arm; his eyes were bright, and he knocked over a glass with a nervous arm when he reached for a cigar. ‘They do not sleep, these men. I have my hands on all Paris as on a map; a finger moves across streets, up squares, and pauses at a house—a few words into this ’phone, and the police trap snaps like a deadfall. But the brain of one man opposing us renders all this organization useless. You can fight him only with the brain.’ He brooded, head in his hands. Then he growled: ‘Drink your coffee. It’s getting cold.’
This was another person from Bencolin the suave and mocking, the Voltaire of detectives and the Petronius of the boulevards: the man himself, in carpet slippers. I sipped the coffee, but it gave only a whirling sensation to my drowsiness. He sat there in the chair, motionless, with the smoke thickening about him and the ash sliding down his shirt-front. As though slow curtains were drawn, it faded—the gaunt face with its pointed beard, staring blindly into the red firelight. Somewhere a clock chimed. The glow of the fire played on the ceiling, made deep shadows round his chair, glimmered on the nickelled telephone …
When I roused out of confused dreams, dawn was creeping up the opposite wall. The whole room had turned to grey and shadows, and it was deadly cold, coloured like ashes, the whole litter, and shivered with the rattling of the window. The fire was out. Dimly I could see Bencolin’s figure detach itself from the gloom of the tall chair across the hearth. He had not altered his position, though the hearth was strewn with cigar-stumps and an empty bottle of brandy hung from his hand. He still sat, chin in his fist, staring into the empty fireplace.
