The Stone Leopard

by Colin Forbes

  `Don't move. . . Vanek pressed the Luger muzzle against Philip's back again to remind him it existed, then he turned the key in the front door, drew the bolt and removed the chain. Brunner himself turned the handle, came inside and closed the door quickly. 'Fasten it up again,' Vanek ordered. 'No one saw you ? Good. . .'

  Prodding Philip up the staircase ahead of him, Vanek waited until they were on the upper landing, then handed the Luger to Brunner and quickly explored the first floor. All the curtains were closed in the darkened bedrooms and he found what he was looking for leading off a large double bedroom at the back —a bathroom. Switching on the light, he studied the room for a moment and then nodded to Brunner who prodded Philip inside his own bathroom. 'What the hell is going on ?' the Frenchman blustered. 'The police station is just round the corner and . .'

  `The Police Nationale headquarters is in the rue de la Montagne Verre which is well over a kilometre from here,' Vanek informed him quietly. 'Now, take off your clothes.'

  `My brother and his wife will be calling. . .'

  `The clothes. . .'

  Brunner rammed the Luger barrel hard against him. Philip stripped, taking off dressing-gown and pyjamas until he was standing gross, hairy-chested and naked. Frightened by the coolness of Vanek, he still had some spirit left as he asked again what the hell this was all about.

  `Haven't you heard of burglars ?' Vanek inquired. 'It is a well known fact that a man without any clothes on is in no position to run about the streets seeking help—especially on a night like this. And before we leave we shall rip out the phone cord. Standard practice. Don't you read the newspapers ?'

  Telling him they were going to tie his feet to the taps, they made him lie down inside the bath and then Brunner turned on both taps, mingling the water to a medium temperature. The Frenchman, growing more frightened every second, for the third time asked what the hell was going on. It was Vanek who told him.

  `We want to know where the safe is,' he said. 'We have been told you have a safe and you are going to tell us where it is. . .'

  `There is no safe. . .'

  `If you don't tell us where it is my colleague will grab hold of your feet and drag you under. . .'

  `There is no safe,' Philip screamed.

  `Are you sure ?' Vanek looked doubtful, still aiming the Luger at Philip's chest. The bath continued to fill with water at a rapid rate. 'We wouldn't like you to lie to us,' Vanek went on, `and we shall be very annoyed if we search the place and find one. . .'

  `There is no safe ! There is money in my wallet in the bedroom—over a thousand francs. . .'

  Brunner switched off both taps and stared at Philip who was now sweating profusely. Bending down, the Czech took hold of the Frenchman's jaw firmly, then pushed his face close to Philip's. Vanek moved to the other end of the bath and took hold of both the Frenchman's ankles. Half-sitting, half-lying in the bath, Philip braced himself, prepared to be dragged under, still protesting there was no safe in the house. Suddenly, he felt the grip on his ankles released as Vanek, in a resigned voice, said, 'I think perhaps he is telling the truth. . . .' Philip relaxed. Brunner jerked the jaw he held in his hand upwards and backwards in a swift, vicious movement and the back of Philip's head struck the bath with a terrible crack. 'He's dead,' Brunner reported as he checked the pulse and then Philip slid under the water and his face dissolved into a wobbling blur.

  `The correct sequence,' Vanek commented. 'The medical examiner will confirm he died by striking his head before he immersed himself. Get finished quickly. . .

  Vanek checked the large double bedroom, looking under the bed, on the dressing-table, inside the wardrobe. The few feminine clothes confirmed to him that the girl who had been followed to Strasbourg by Lansky was only a brief visitor, so he set about removing traces of her presence. Taking a suitcase engraved with the initials N.B., he piled in her clothes, her night-things, her cosmetics and six pairs of shoes, her lipstick-stained toothbrush from the bathroom shelf and two lace-edged handkerchiefs from under a pillow. There would still be traces of her presence in the house the police would find, but without clothes they would shrug their shoulders. The last thing Vanek wanted to happen in the next few days was a police dragnet out for a missing woman. He was closing the case when he heard Brunner, who had fetched a pan from the kitchen, scooping out water from the bath and throwing it on the floor. He checked the bathroom before he went downstairs.

  `Perfect ?' inquired Brunner.

  A tablet of soap he had dropped in the bath was muddying the water as it dissolved. Robert Philip had just had a fatal accident, and most accidents happen at home. He had been standing in the bath when he had stepped on the soap tablet, lost his balance and gone crashing down to hit the back of his head. Water had welled over the rim of the bath on to the floor, soaking his pyjamas and dressing-gown. 'I brought up that ash-tray from the living-room,' Brunner remarked. On a stool stood the ash-tray the Czech had carried up in his gloved hand, the burnt-out remnant of the cigarette Philip had left smoking when he answered the door still perched in the lip of the tray.

  `Perfect,' Vanek replied, being careful to leave on the bathroom light as he followed Brunner downstairs, carrying Noelle Berger's suitcase; then he switched off the living-room light. Left on all night, it might well have attracted attention, unlike the bathroom which was at the back of the house.

  They left by the way Vanek had entered the house—by the french door at the back. Once outside, they re-locked the door with the skeleton keys, and then Vanek waited with the suitcase in the little park until Brunner arrived with the Citroén. It took them only twenty minutes to drive to the banks of the Rhine, and on the way they stopped briefly at a deserted building-site while Vanek collected a few bricks to add weight to the suitcase. A few minutes later he watched the case sink into the swift-flowing current, took over the wheel from Brunner, and by 10.30 pm they were back inside their bedrooms at the Bristol, ready for a night's sleep. They would be leaving early in the morning—on their way to pay a visit on Dieter Wohl in Germany.

  In Strasbourg, Alan Lennox woke early on Monday morning, got out of bed at the Hotel Sofitel, opened his door and picked up the local paper he had ordered from the hall porter. He read it in his dressing-gown, drinking the coffee he had ordered from room service. He hardly noticed the banner headline as he searched through the inner pages for a report on Leon Jouvel's suicide, which he found reported at greater length than he had expected; there was a shortage of local news after the weekend. The details it gave were hardly more illuminating than those he had heard from Louise Vallon, Jouvel's assistant, but an Inspector Rochat was mentioned as being in charge of the case and the address of the police station was given.

  Finishing his coffee and croissants, Lennox showered and shaved, dressed and paid his bill. Snow was drifting down from a leaden sky as he took a cab to the station where he deposited his bag in the luggage store; Colmar was only thirty minutes away by train and he confidently expected that in one day he should be able to find and talk to Robert Philip, assuming the Frenchman was not away. He was just in time to climb aboard the 9.15 am turbo-train for Colmar before it began moving south. As the train left Strasbourg and moved across the flat plain with glimpses of the Vosges mountains to the west, Lennox read the banner headline story he had skipped over in his bedroom. Another international crisis was brewing.

  The Turkish Naval Command in the Bosphorus had recently received a long signal from their opposite numbers at the Russian Black Sea port of Odessa. The signal informed the Turks that a very large convoy, code-named K.I2, would be making passage through the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles en route for the Mediterranean. This was in accord with the long-time agreement whereby Soviet Russia always requests formal permission before sending ships through the Turkish-controlled straits.

  As always, the Russians specified the make-up of the convoy, and this so startled the Turkish naval commander that he phoned Ankara urgently. The Defence Minister in the Turkish capita
l was woken in the middle of the night and he immediately reported the signal to NATO headquarters in Brussels. It was decided as a matter of policy to leak the news to the press. What caused the ripple of alarm was the size of the convoy. The Soviet signal had specified six heavy cruisers (four of them missile-bearing), one aircraft carrier, twelve destroyers and fifteen large transports. The size of the convoy was unprecedented. What could the fifteen large transports be carrying? Where was this enormous convoy headed for ?

  As the train pulled in to Colmar, Lennox folded up his newspaper and forgot about the scare story. After all, it had nothing to do with the job he was working on, and by now his whole attention was fixed on his coming interview with Robert Philip.

  By eight o'clock on Saturday night, 18 December, every defence minister in western Europe and north America had received a copy of the Soviet signal, including Alain Blanc, who paid it rather more attention than Alan Lennox. Within only five days the president was due to fly to Soviet Russia and Blanc was not at all happy about the signal. On Sunday morning he had a brief interview with Guy Florian, who took a quite different view.

  `Certainly they would never dream of precipitating a world crisis on the eve of my departure for Moscow,' he told Blanc. `They are much too anxious to cement relations with us as the major west European power. . .'

  Alain Blanc left the Elysee unconvinced and even more disturbed than before he had arrived.

  Why had Florian suddenly become so complacent about the intentions of Soviet Russia?

  Arriving at Colmar, Lennox purchased a street-guide at the station kiosk and found that the Avenue Raymond Poincare was only a few metres away from where he stood. When he started walking down the avenue he received an unpleasant shock: two patrol-cars -with uniformed policemen standing beside them were parked outside a square-looking two-storey villa. He felt quite sure this would be No. 8 even before he drew level with the villa on the opposite side of the street and continued walking. Yes, it was No. 8. It was a repeat of the same scene he had witnessed outside No. 49 rue de l'Epine only the day before.

  Fifteen minutes later—having walked in a circle to avoid re-passing the police stationed outside the villa—he walked into the bar of the Hotel Bristol opposite the station.

  `What are all those police cars doing in the Avenue Raymond Poincare ?' he asked casually as he sipped his cognac.

  The barman was only too eager to pass on information; in a small town like Colmar the grapevine is reliable and swift. A local bigwig, Robert Philip, had died in his bath the previous evening, he confided. The tragedy had been discovered when his cleaning woman had arrived to find the front door still bolted and chained. 'She had a key,' the barman explained, `so Philip always undid the bolts and chain first thing and then she could let herself in. The police found him floating in his bath. He won't be running after skirt any more, that one. . .'

  Lennox ordered another drink but the barman had little more information. Except that the police had been to the hotel asking a lot of questions about two men who had stayed there for two nights.

  `They had a Citroén,' the barman went on, 'according to the night porter. I didn't see them myself—I don't think they ever came in here. Personally, I can't see the connection. . .'

  As Lennox walked out of the bar two uniformed policemen came in, which decided him to leave Colmar as rapidly as possible; there was a fifty-fifty chance the talkative barman might relay to them his recent conversation with the stranger who had just left. Crossing the place to the station, he bought a one-way ticket to Lyon and then boarded a train for Strasbourg which had just come in. When the ticket collector came through the train he used the return to Strasbourg he already had in his possession. Of the three wartime survivors who were once familiar with the Leopard there was now only one left: Dieter Wohl of Freiburg.

  Unlike Inspector Rochat of Strasbourg, Inspector Dorre of Colmar was only forty and he took nothing for granted. Saturnine-faced, impatient, a fast-talking man, he phoned Boisseau two hours after the death of Robert Philip had been discovered, explaining that there had been no surveillance on Philip after the Frenchman had returned home apart from observation by a routine patrol-car. 'We are very short of men,' he went on, 'so I was unable to obtain personnel for a proper surveillance, which is regrettable. . .'

  At the other end of the line Boisseau guessed that someone higher up had been unhelpful—because they had resented Paris's intrusion into their backyard. This time he had neither the necessity nor even the opportunity to ask probing questions: Dorre went on talking like a machine gun.

  `According to the medical examiner and my own observation there is no doubt at all that Robert Philip died by accident when he slipped and caught the back of his skull on the edge of his bath. He was alone in the house at the time and there are no signs of forcible entry or anything which would indicate foul play—although there had been a woman in the house, but probably only for a few hours. Philip was like that. . .'

  There was a brief pause, then the voice started up again. `Pardon, but I have a cold and had to blow my nose. So, technically, it is an accidental death. For myself; I do not believe it for a moment. I have heard that another man you also requested to be put under surveillance—a Leon Jouvel hanged himself in Strasbourg less than forty-eight hours ago. I have also heard—I was in Strasbourg yesterday—that my colleagues are satisfied that Jouvel committed suicide. For me, it is too much. M. Boisseau—two men you ask to have put under surveillance both die in their homes by suicide, by accident in less than two days. I tell you, there has to be something wrong. . .'

  `Is there anything specific . .' Boisseau began, but he got no further.

  `Pardon, Mr Director-General, but I have not finished. A woman who knows—knew—Robert Philip well, drove past his villa yesterday morning and saw a blue Citroén parked opposite his villa. Two men were trying to repair the car, but she thought they were watching Philip's villa. She reported it to me when she saw the patrol-cars outside this morning, assuming there had been yet another burglary. . .

  `Any registration number ?' Boisseau managed to interject.

  `Unfortunately, no, but I have not finished,' Dorre continued. 'It occurred to me to check with all the local hotels and we find that two men arrived at the hotel nearest the station at 9.30 on Saturday night. The hotel, incidentally, is no more than a few metres away from the villa of the late Robert Philip. They arrived in a blue Citroén and we have the registration number. It is being circulated at this moment. Also, the descriptions of the two men. There may be no connection but I do not like this death at all, despite its technical perfection. . .'

  `If it were not an accident then,' Boisseau hazarded, 'it would have to be the work of highly-skilled professionals ?'

  `They would have to be trained assassins,' Dorre said bluntly, `because if I am right—and I do not say I am—then presumably Leon Jouvel's death was also arranged, and again there was technical perfection. You must not think I am a romantic,' he insisted, 'trying to turn every event into a crime, but I repeat, two men under surveillance dying so quickly does not smell of roses to me, sir. And,' he went on, once again preventing Boisseau from speaking, 'the geography is interesting, is it not?'

  `The geography ?'

  `It is not so very far to drive from Strasbourg to Colmar. I will let you know as soon as we get information on the car registration of the Citroen. . .'

  Vanek, driving at speed, but always keeping just inside the legal limit, reached the Boulevard de Nancy in Strasbourg by nine in the morning, one hour before Inspector Dorre had circulated the car registration number. Handing back the Citroen to the Hertz agent, he walked out again and went into the restaurant where he had dropped Brunner and Lansky while he got rid of the vehicle.

  `We've used that car quite long enough,' he told the two men, 'and two visits is more than enough by the same mode of transport.'

  Refusing to allow them to finish their drinks, he took them outside where they again separated.
With Brunner he took a cab to Strasbourg station, leaving Lansky to follow in a second vehicle. They joined forces again at the station but they each bought their tickets separately. Boarding the train by himself while the other two men went into a different coach, Lansky put his bag on the rack and lit a cigarette. Within fifteen minutes the train had crossed the Rhine bridge and was stopping in Kehl.

  The Soviet Commando had arrived in Germany.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  M ON DAY was a bad day for Lennox, who never forgot that he was travelling with forged papers. Arriving back at Strasbourg station, intending to collect his suitcase from the baggage store and then take another train across the Rhine into Germany, he immediately noticed signs of intense police activity. There was a uniformed policeman on the platform as he alighted from the train, a young and alert man who was obviously scrutinizing all passengers as they walked past him to descend the exit steps.

  In the main hall there were more police—some of them Lennox felt sure in plain clothes—and when he approached the luggage store two gendarmes stood by the counter, checking people's papers as they withdrew their luggage. Lennox walked away from the store and went inside the glassed-in café which fronted on the Place de la Gare. Sitting down at a table he ordered coffee, quite unaware that he was in the same cafe Lansky had waited in the previous Saturday evening before paying his final call on Leon Jouvel. While he drank his coffee Lennox watched the station and what he saw was not encouraging.