A Murder is Arranged

by Basil Thomson

  “Such a man would not find our coat.”

  “No, monsieur, and I doubt whether he could distinguish mink from rabbit fur.”

  “Monsieur Verneuil, of the 8th Arrondissement, has been here once more. He is a man of quick intelligence, though his training as a naval rating and his appearance give one the impression of heaviness. He has again examined the premises and he showed me how impossible it would be for a thief to enter without leaving a trace. He has again questioned Jacques, the night porter, and is satisfied that he was telling the truth when he declares that no one could enter at night unknown to him: even if he closed his eyes for a moment both doors are heavily barred inside. Then what remains? This is Verneuil’s theory. He thinks that the actual theft was committed some days before we at first thought possible; that the coat was taken by Margaret Gask herself.”

  “But she had been gone some time.”

  “You were away for a fortnight. Margaret Gask was discharged, but a few days later she came back to ask my permission to take certain garments that were her property: she may then have had the opportunity that she looked for of taking the coat in the suitcase.”

  “But how simple if that’s the explanation. It does not say much for the supervision in the workroom.”

  “Well, you were away and so was Madame Pernot, the supervisor.”

  “The idea is feasible. This is the first time I hear of Margaret Gask’s visit to fetch her clothes. Certainly the mannequins’ dressing room is next to the workroom.”

  “Monsieur Verneuil has established as a fact that when Margaret Gask called for her clothes she went to the workroom to bid the girls good-bye at the moment when they were leaving for lunch. It would have been possible for her at that moment to abstract the coat. Ah, that woman—what she has cost me! A coat worth thirty thousand francs and jewels worth a hundred thousand, for I had to make good that diamond clip. But, tell me, did you find no trace at all of that coat? I think you must communicate with Scotland Yard: they have a great reputation.”

  “You remember when we read in the English paper that Margaret Gask had been murdered and that a fur coat belonging to her had disappeared mysteriously, we decided that I should go over and try to discover whether it was our coat. This, I submit, I have done and Monsieur Verneuil’s theory confirms it. The question is: Shall we get the Sûreté to move Scotland Yard, or would you prefer that I get into touch with that organization myself?”

  “I think we will ask the advice of Monsieur Verneuil.” He picked up his desk telephone and called a number.

  “Is that you, Monsieur Verneuil—yes, yes. Put me through to him, please.” When the connection had been made Pauline watched him with an indulgent eye as he danced from one foot to the other in his Gallic excitement. Suddenly he stiffened and his eyes goggled. “You say that he is here? But what an opportunity! He is now in your room? Yes, yes; I will be there in less than five minutes and I will bring with me Mademoiselle Coulon, fresh from England.”

  He put down the receiver and turned to Pauline. “Mademoiselle, an inspector from Scotland Yard is at this moment in Monsieur Verneuil’s room. Let us both go and meet him there.”

  Chapter Eleven

  RICHARDSON WAS READING a report that had just come in from Paris. He took up his blue pencil in readiness to mark certain passages, before sending it on to the C.I.D. Registry to have the former papers attached. It was signed “A. Dallas, Detective Inspector.”

  “In accordance with your instructions I crossed to Dieppe by the night boat and arrived in Paris at 6 A.M. I took a room in the Hotel Terminus and after breakfast I went round the hotels which were on the list supplied to me in order to ascertain whether Arthur Graves had registered in them and, if possible, to trace his movements during his visits to Paris.

  “I was fortunate in finding the manager of the Hotel de l’Univers quite ready to tell me all he knew. He said that until about six months ago Arthur Graves had been in the habit of staying in his hotel four times a year. He was good enough to turn up the hotel register and show me his name. On the last occasion when Graves stayed there unpleasantness arose over a cheque which he had given in return for cash and the bank had dishonoured. Graves was voluble in his explanations and a French friend who had been in the habit of meeting Graves at the hotel came forward to cover the cheque which had been dishonoured, owing, he said, to a foolish mistake on the part of the bank cashier. The manager gave me the name of this French friend and his address, which he had given in consequence of questions about the dishonoured cheque. The address proved to be that of a small jeweller who executed repairs to watches and jewellery. I made the excuse of asking whether he had a second-hand watch for sale which he could guarantee as a good timekeeper. At first he shook his head, but on learning that I was an Englishman, as he had already gathered from my accent, he brought forward an expensive watch which he said he would sell far below its actual value. When I heard the price I told him that it was far beyond my means and I quitted the shop.

  “Having learned so much from the manager of the Hotel de l’Univers, I did not think it worth while to pursue enquiries at other hotels, but I called on M. Verneuil, whose name you had given me, at the police office attached to the Grand Palais. He proved to be absent, but he was expected back in his office at 5 P.M. I did not wish to call upon M. Henri until I had seen Inspector Verneuil, but I went to the Rue Royale to look at the premises. The establishment appeared to be very busy; several cars containing ladies drew up while I was walking up and down.

  “I then went to the private residence of M. Goron, to whom I had your letter of introduction. I was fortunate enough to find him at home. One seeing your letter he gave me a very warm welcome. I explained the main object of my visit to Paris and he told me that it would be well for me to see M. Verneuil, because he had been making certain enquiries and he knew that M. Henri was especially concerned in keeping the whole matter as secret as possible, for fear that police enquiries might militate against his interests.

  “M. Goron was greatly interested when I told him about the murders of Miss Gask and Fredman. He said that he was convinced in his own mind that Miss Gask had been a professional thief; he had come across traces of her in investigating cases of foreign buyers who paid high prices for stolen advance models. He had no doubt in his own mind that she was mixed up with a gang of very clever and unscrupulous people and he suggested as the motive for her murder either revenge for taking more than her share of the spoil or fear that she would betray the gang to the police if she was arrested.

  “M. Goron reiterated his desire to help us in every possible way but explained that at the moment he was very much occupied with the murder case in the Boulevard des Invalides in which a senator had been the victim.

  “At five o’clock I entered the police station attached to the Grand Palais and was told by the constable at the door that M. Verneuil had arrived and was upstairs. He received me cordially and listened attentively to what I told him. As he spoke no English I allowed him to know that I could speak French. When I mentioned the watchmaker, Bigaud, he became alert.

  “‘We have a dossier on that man,’ he said. ‘He is known to us as a receiver of stolen goods, especially objects of value from foreign countries—England, Germany, Switzerland and Italy.’

  “I told him that Arthur Graves, who saw Bigaud on his frequent visits to Paris, was under suspicion by us though we had no proof against him and I asked him whether it would be possible to have observation kept on Bigaud’s shop. He replied that this would be difficult unless we could undertake to inform the French police before Graves arrived in Paris. If we did that he would undertake to keep him under observation and enter Bigaud’s shop as soon as Graves was seen to go in. It might even be possible to stop the transaction of selling property stolen in England. For this reason I suggest that it would be unwise to do anything that would debar Graves from re-entering France.

  “I told M. Verneuil that my real object in coming to Paris was
to get information about the friends and associates of Margaret Gask. I had already established the fact that Arthur Graves was one of them. I asked him whether he could arrange confidentially with M. Henri to give me a private interview at which perhaps one of his agents might be present. He said that this would be quite easy and while we were discussing the question the telephone bell rang. The message was from M. Henri himself, requesting an interview with M. Verneuil. It was arranged that if he would come at once to the Grand Palais he could see not only M. Verneuil but a detective from London.

  “When M. Henri was announced I noted to my surprise that he was followed into the room by Mlle Pauline Coulon, to whom I referred in my last report as being one of the guests at Scudamore Hall. She was quick to notice my surprise. She smiled and said, ‘I must explain my little deception, monsieur.’ She went on to say that in reality she was a private enquiry agent in Paris; that she had for some time been employed by M. Henri to report upon the frequent thefts that had been perpetrated in his establishment. She had had occasion to suspect Margaret Gask but had been unable to bring any specific case against her for lack of proof.

  “With the Frenchman’s frankness in such matters M. Henri broke in here to say that Miss Gask was a very beautiful woman and he had for a time allowed his heart to rule his head.

  “I said that I was employed in hunting down the assassin of Miss Gask and that I had come to Paris to ascertain who were her friends and associates. I then showed M. Henri the platinum setting of the clip from which all the stones had been prised out. He recognized it immediately by its shape as the ornament that Margaret Gask was supposed to have lost at the Opera. I told him that it had been found on the premises of a receiver of stolen goods in London. He became excited and asked me whether I had also found the missing fur coat that belonged to him. I said that part of my mission was to trace that coat but that up to the present I had been unsuccessful.

  “Henri turned to the young lady and said, ‘It was part of your mission to ascertain who were the friends of Margaret Gask. Can you not help M. Dallas?’

  “She shook her head. ‘I went out more than once with Margaret, but the only man friend she introduced to me was Mr Huskisson, whom she appeared to know very well indeed.’

  “I asked her whether she could tell me if Mr Huskisson had been at the ball at the Opera House when the jewel was alleged to have been lost. She hesitated a little and then admitted that he was.

  “M. Verneuil questioned me about Huskisson and I gave him full details about all the guests at Scudamore Hall as far as I knew them. He was surprised to hear that I had not taken him down to the police station to be interrogated. I explained that this was not permitted to the police in England but that he had been questioned at the coroner’s court during the inquest.

  “The interview dragged on for nearly two hours and it was not until the end that I obtained one piece of useful information from Henri, namely, the address of a furnished flat that he had taken for Miss Gask; she had lived there for a month.

  “When M. Henri and Mlle Coulon had left M. Verneuil explained to me that two reasons had actuated M. Henri in keeping the matter from the police until now; first his affection for Miss Gask and second the harm that it might do to his business. I then told M. Verneuil how the emerald came into the possession of Mr Forge: that it had been an heirloom of the Marquis de Crémont, who had been compelled to dispose of it. M. Verneuil grinned: he seemed to know the story of this marquis very well. ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘That gamin is always turning up in our work; happily for the moment he has been lodged in prison for obtaining money by false pretences and I hope that it will cool his heels. But I am very much interested in what you tell me, because if my memory serves we shall find in that marquis’s dossier a mention of an emerald having been stolen from a jeweller in the Rue de la Paix; the emerald in question has never been recovered.’

  “He took up his desk telephone and rang up some subordinate, telling him to bring the dossier of the soi-disant Marquis de Crémont. When this was brought we examined it together; it contained a long list of the marquis’s delinquencies with the dates. The emerald had been stolen from a jeweller’s shop by a trick, but it had been impossible to prosecute him as the thief although he was strongly suspected, because the stone had never been recovered. The case for which he had been convicted and for which he is now in prison had been clearly brought home to him. His usual trick consisted in calling upon a jeweller and asking to see uncut stones. He would then take from his pocket a piece of thick paper on which was drawn a design for a ring. The paper had some adhesive material smeared on the back; he would lay it on the tray of stones brought for his inspection and in the course of voluble explanations take the paper up and remove from it one or more stones that had adhered to it. His method of disposing of his plunder was always the same. He would stay in a first-class hotel and make the acquaintance of some well-to-do Englishman or American and sell the jewel to him as a family heirloom at far below its real value. He is believed to have an English confederate, but so far we have been unable to identify him.

  “We discussed the question of bringing Mr Forge over, together with other witnesses, and decided that, for the present, it would not be worth while to incur the expense. I think, however, it might be wise to let a discreet enquiry be made of Mr Forge whether an Englishman introduced the pseudo marquis to him or whether the marquis had an English friend staying at the same hotel. We shall probably find that the English confederate is identical with the man we are looking for. Pending your reply, I think that it would be wise for me to remain here and pursue my enquiries. Tomorrow morning I propose to question the concierge of the flat where Margaret Gask stayed for a month.

  “ALBERT DALLAS, Detective Inspector.”

  Richardson took the report to Jackson of the legal department. He knocked and heard the voice of the man he wanted to see shouting to him to come in.

  “I hope you’re not busy, Mr Jackson; I’ve brought you a rather interesting report from Paris, bearing on the case of the Gask murder that we were discussing the other day.”

  “Let me have a look at it.”

  In moments of concentration Jackson converted his physiognomy into a network of criss-cross wrinkles. This and his baldness made him an unengaging object to the eye, but his unerring judgment and his grasp of an intricate case commanded the respect of all who had to deal with him.

  Having read the report, he returned it to Richardson, saying, “My first guess was right: that woman was murdered because she knew too much. That ought to help you in finding her murderer.”

  “Do you agree with what Dallas says—that the confederate of this French marquis is in all probability the guilty man?”

  “I won’t go quite so far as that, but I do think that if you find that confederate you won’t be far away from the man you want.”

  Chapter Twelve

  FOR WANT of something better to do, Forge and his guest Oborn took their guns and went out on Marplesdon Moor to shoot rabbits. Huskisson had excused himself on the plea that he had business to transact in Kingston; he had gone by car.

  When the two sportsmen returned Forge noticed that the Sunbeam was already back in the garage.

  “Oh, I see Huskisson’s back,” he said to Oborn. “His business could not have taken him very long; he would have had time to come out with us.”

  “I’ll bet that his business didn’t turn out well.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Only because I feel pretty sure that he wanted to find out whether the police would offer any objection to his leaving your hospitable roof and that the police know the proverb of ‘A bird in the hand…’”

  “If the police do hold him up don’t you think that it’s a bit thick? I mean, this is a free country.”

  “You never can tell how much the police know about people. I suppose that nine men out of ten in this country have something to hide…”

  “Damn it! That’s going a bit far.
What should Huskisson have to hide?”

  “Nothing that I know of, but remember that the police know about that quarrel Huskisson had with Miss Gask and he was upset by the coroner’s questions at the inquest; that was quite enough to start suspicions about him.”

  “You’re talking rot,” said Forge shortly. “Well, you know your way about the place and I’ll meet you at lunch.” He turned into the library, shutting the door behind him.

  He had not been there five minutes before the door opened to admit Huskisson, who said, “I hope I’m not interrupting you, but I want to see you alone.”

  “Come in; nobody’s likely to interrupt us here. What’s the trouble?”

  “I don’t want Oborn to know, but the fact is that I’ve been down to the police and they tell me that, as they put it, the gate has been put up against me leaving the country.”

  “Good Lord! Why?”

  “They wouldn’t tell me why, but one of them said that whenever Scotland Yard wishes to keep a particular man in the country it notifies the port officers and they refuse him leave to embark. It’s the same if he tries to fly the Channel.”

  “Do they give any reason?”

  “No, but I suppose that in their dunderheaded way they don’t want any possible witness to leave the country until this rotten business about Margaret Gask’s death has been cleared up.”

  “Don’t think that I’m butting in on a question that doesn’t concern me, but I attended that inquest and I couldn’t help feeling that your attitude towards the coroner’s questions would be quite enough to prejudice the police against you. You must remember that the professional policeman is bred up in an attitude of suspicion. Trust in his fellow creatures has so often been betrayed that he sits up and takes notice whenever anyone prefers to keep his private business to himself.”