The Stone Leopard

by Colin Forbes

  The efficient Merlin immediately dictated a memo which was put on the Minister's desk where it lay undisturbed—and unread—for over an hour. It was 8.45 pm, before Roger Danchin, who had been attending a long meeting to check on the security for the presidential motorcade drive to the airport the following morning, walked back into his office. 'An important case Grelle is working on ?' he queried with Merlin when he had read the memo. `Devaud is a reasonably common name but it could be something to do with the attempted assassination case. I must tell the president. . . .' He lifted the phone which would put him direct through to the Elysee.

  At 9.55 pm, summoned by an urgent phone call, Ambassador Vorin arrived at the Elysee, and his visit was duly recorded by the duty officer in the visitors' register. Florian already had his coat on and, as was his custom, led the Soviet ambassador out into the walled garden where they could talk undisturbed. The Alsatian, Kassim, ready for a breath of fresh air like his master, came with them, sniffing around in a shrubbery as they conferred in low tones. Vorin's latest visit was very brief, lasting only a few minutes, and he was then driven back at speed to the Soviet Embassy in the rue de Grenelle.

  The method of communication between Vorin and Carel Vanek was carefully arranged so that no link between the two men could ever be established. Arriving back at the embassy, Vorin immediately summoned the Second Secretary and gave him a message. The Secretary, who would normally have made the call from a phone booth inside the nearest Metro station, returned to his own office, locked the door and dialled the number of an apartment on the Left Bank near the Cluny Museum. 'The deeds of the Devaud property will be found at the rue des Saussaies. Have you got that ?' The man at the other end of the line only had time to say yes before the connection was broken.

  The apartment near the Cluny was occupied by a man who had never attracted the attention of the police. Equipped with Danish papers under the name of Jurgensen, he was in fact a Pole called Jaworski who did not even know that the calls he received came back from the Soviet Embassy. It was 9.50 pm when he took this call. At to pm he passed on the information when Vanek phoned him again from the Gare du Nord.

  They took Annette Devaud to a room on the fourth floor of Surete headquarters in the rue des Saussaies where Grelle was waiting for her. He could have interviewed her at the prefecture on the Ile de la Cite but he still thought it wise to keep up the fiction that this concerned the Lasalle affaire, and this operation was officially conducted from the Surete. To avoid upsetting Danchin, he had even phoned his assistant, Merlin, at eight o'clock to tell him a witness was on the way from Alsace whom he would interview at the rue des Saussaies. Merlin had mentioned this to Danchin before the Minister phoned the Elysee. Alone with the first live witness he had been able to lay his hands on, Grelle talked for a few minutes to put Annette Devaud at her ease Then he explained why she had been brought to Paris.

  `And you really think that after all these years you can identify the Leopard?' he asked gently.

  `If he's alive—as you say—yes! I lost my sight for thirty years before that doctor carried out his miracle operation. What do you think I saw in my mind's eye all those years when the world was only sounds and smells? I saw everyone I had ever met. And, as I told you, I nursed the Leopard through an illness.' Her voice dropped. 'And later he was responsible for the death of my only daughter, Lucie. . .'

  As Grelle had foreseen, he felt horribly uncomfortable. Although Madame Devaud did not realize it—and it was Boisseau who had mentioned the point when phoning from Saverne—the prefect was the man who had been compelled to shoot Lucie Devaud. 'It was many years ago,' he reminded her, 'since you knew the Leopard. Even if he is still alive he may have changed out of all recognition. . .'

  `Not the Leopard.' Her pointed chin jutted upwards. 'He had good bone structure—like me. Bones don't change. You can't hide bones. . .'

  Grelle was so determined to test her that he had devised an odd method of identification. Remembering that Boisseau had mentioned over the phone that she was an amateur portrait artist, he had brought into the room Identikit equipment. He explained to her how the system worked, asked her what she would like to drink, and was so amused when she requested cognac that he joined her. He started by helping her with the Identikit, and then let her get on with it by herself She was obviously enjoying the new game.

  Starting with the outline of the head, she began to build up the face of a man. The hairpiece came first. Grelle opened several box-files of printed hairpieces and helped her select several. Soon they were arguing.

  `You've got it wrong,' she snapped. 'I told you he brushed his hair high on the forehead. . . .' The face began to take shape.

  The eyebrows she found quickly, but the eyes gave her trouble. 'They were very unusual—compelling,' she explained. She found the eyes at the back of the file and then worried over the nose. 'Noses are difficult. . . .' She chose a nose and added it to the portrait. 'That's the nose. I think it's his most characteristic feature. . . .' It took her five minutes to locate the mouth, ferreting in a fresh file, trying one and then another before she was satisfied. Pursing her own mouth, she screwed up her eyes as she completed the Identikit while Grelle watched with an expressionless face. 'That's the Leopard,' she said a few minutes later. 'That's the way he was.'

  The prefect stood up, showing no reaction. 'Madame Devaud, I know you don't like television, but I would like you to watch certain programme extracts I had made earlier this evening. They are recorded on what we call cassettes. You will see three men briefly—all of them older than the face you built up on the Identikit. I want you to tell me which—if any—of these three men is the Leopard.'

  `He has changed a lot then ?'

  Grelle didn't reply as he went to the television set and switched on. The first extract showed Roger Danchin broadcasting at the time of the riots a year earlier when he had appealed for calm, warning that mass arrests would follow any further demonstrations. The set went blank and then Alain Blanc appeared, confident and emphatic, telling the nation why more had to be spent on the defence budget.

  Madame Devaud said nothing, reaching for her glass of cognac as the image faded, to be replaced by Guy Florian making one of his anti-American speeches. As always, he spoke with panache and sardonic wit, gesturing vigorously occasionally, his expression serious, but smiling the famous smile as he closed.

  The screen went blank. Grelle stood up and went over to switch off the set.

  `The last man,' Annette Devaud said, 'the man attacking the Americans. He hasn't changed all that much, has he ?'

  Carel Vanek chose his cab with care, standing on the sidewalk with the tartan hold-all at his feet. He avoided any vehicle with a youngster behind the wheel, but he didn't want an elderly driver either; older people can panic, acting on impulse. He was looking for a middle-aged driver with a family to think of, with the experience to make him cautious. He yelled at an approaching cab, waving his hand.

  `It's a place off the Boulevard des Capucines,' he told the driver. 'I'm not sure of the address but I'll recognize the street when I see it. A side-turning off to the left. . .'

  He settled back in the cab with the hold-all on his lap. What he had said to the driver was true: he didn't know the name of the street but he had walked down it several times three years earlier, a street which was narrow, dark and unlit at night. There was very little traffic about at that hour and Capucines, a street of expensive shops, was almost empty on the chilly December evening, despite the closeness of Christmas. The driver went slowly to give his passenger a chance to locate the street.

  `Turn here!'

  Vanek had opened the window behind the driver wider to speak to him and he stayed leaning forward as the cab turned and entered a narrow, curving street. The walls of the high buildings on either side closed in on them and the street was as deserted as Vanek remembered it. Capucines was only a memory now as the cab cruised deeper inside the dark canyon while the driver waited for further instruction
s. Vanek was straining his eyes to see beyond the windscreen, one hand inside the hold-all. Soon they would be near to the far end, moving out into a more-frequented area.

  `Here we are. Stop!'

  The driver pulled up, set his brake and left the engine running.

  Vanek pressed the muzzle of the Smith & Wesson into the back of the driver's neck.

  `Don't move. This is a gun.'

  The driver stiffened, sat very still. Vanek shot him once.

  It was 10.45 pm. when a patrol-car drew up outside the entrance of the Surete headquarters on the rue des Saussaies. Boisseau himself came out of the building first and looked up and down the quiet street. There was nothing in sight except a lone taxi-cab coming from the direction of the Place Beauvau. Boisseau held up his hand to stop them bringing Madame Devaud out and waited. Two gendarmes stood on the sidewalk with him. The driver was behind the wheel of the waiting patrol-car, his engine ticking over.

  Grelle had decided at the last moment to use only one car to take Madame Devaud to a hotel the Surete used for guarding important witnesses; a single car is less conspicuous than a motorcade. Also it would be able to move very fast at this hour when the Paris streets were deserted. Grelle himself; standing back inside the arch with Madame Devaud and three detectives, was waiting to see her departure. The cab came towards the entrance slowly and Boisseau noted it was not for hire. So far as he could see the back was empty; the driver was obviously going off duty.

  The cab cruised past and the driver took one hand off the wheel to stifle a yawn.

  Watching its tail-light, Boisseau made a beckoning gesture and the small procession emerged from under the archway. The three detectives crowded round Madame Devaud, moving at her deliberate pace. They reached the sidewalk. Inside the archway Grelle lit a cigarette, a walkie-talkie tucked under his arm. He would be in constant touch with the radio-controlled vehicle until it reached its destination in the seventh arrondissement.

  Madame Devaud had moved across the sidewalk and was about to enter the car.

  `Don't worry—it is only a few minutes' drive,' Boisseau assured her.

  `Tell him not to drive too fast. I didn't enjoy the journey from the Gare de l'Est at all.'

  `I'll tell him. It will only be a few minutes,' Boisseau repeated.

  Vanek, wearing the cab-driver's cap—he had great faith in headgear as a medium of disguise—reached the Place des Saussaies which is around the corner from the entrance to Surete headquarters. He had been cruising past the archway at intervals—many cabs take this short-cut at night—completing the circuit round the large building and coming back again. Now he turned in a tight circle and drove back against the one-way system. Boisseau was about to help Madame Devaud into the car when he saw the cab returning at speed. He shouted a warning but the cab arrived at the worst possible moment—while the huddled group, bunched together, was trapped in the open.

  Vanek held the wheel with one hand while he cradled the sub-machine gun under his right arm, his index finger curled inside the trigger-guard. He fired a steady burst, the weapon on automatic, the muzzle held in a fixed position, so he used the movement of the vehicle to create an arc of fire, emptying the whole magazine before he went past them, still driving the wrong way and disappearing into the Place Beauvau.

  Grelle, by himself and free from the group, was the only one who even fired at the cab, and one revolver shot smashed the rear window. Then he was using the walkie-talkie, which put him straight through to central control, already organized for the president's motorcade drive to Charles de Gaulle Airport the following day. Via Grelle, the cab's description, including the smashed window and the direction it had taken, was circulated within one minute to every patrol-car within a five- mile radius. Only then did Grelle turn to look at the tragic scene on the sidewalk.

  The two gendarmes had run off after the cab. Boisseau, shielded by the open car door, had escaped unscathed, but the three detectives lay on the ground, two of them moaning and gasping, the third very still. They had to lift the two men gently to get at Madame Devaud who lay face down, and when they eased her over they saw where the assassin's bullets had stitched a pattern across her chest.

  `Armed and dangerous. . .

  All over Paris patrol-cars leapt forward, moving inwards on a cordon pattern laid down by the commissioner in charge at central control. In a way he welcomed the emergency on the eve of the president's depature: it gave him a chance to check the system. The cordon closed in like a contracting web, its approximate centre-point the Place Beauvau, and with sirens screaming patrol-cars rushed along the big boulevards. The commissioner at control was moving into action his entire force, repeating time and again the warning.

  `Armed and dangerous. . .

  They found Vanek quite close to the Surete. His cab was spotted crossing the Place de la Concorde on the Tuileries side. Patrol-cars converged on the vast square, coming in over the Seine bridge, from Champs-Elysées, Rivoli and the Avenue Gabriel. A blaze of lamps, empty only seconds earlier, the Place was suddenly filled with noise and movement, with the high-pitched screams of sirens, the swivel of patrol-car headlights. Vanek braked by the kerb, jumped out with the sub-machine gun and ran for the only possible refuge. The Tuileries gardens.

  At this point in the Place de la Concorde the pavement by the kerb has a low stone wall beyond it. Beyond that lies another pavement and beyond that a high stone wall rises up to a lofty balustrade with the Tuileries park beyond like a huge viewing platform overlooking the entire Place. Vanek started running for the entrance to Tuileries at ground level, saw a patrol-car pull up, blocking him off. Jerking up his weapon, he emptied the second magazine and everywhere policemen dropped flat. Throwing down the gun, Vanek jumped over the low stone wall, ran across the second sidewalk and began hauling himself up the wall, using projecting stones like a ladder.

  To his left and below him a flight of steps went down and underground. He had almost reached the balustrade; once over it he would have the whole park to hide in. Behind him he heard shouts, the screams of half a dozen more patrol-cars rushing into the square. He whipped one leg over the balustrade.

  The park beyond was a dark, tree-filled vastness, a place to manoeuvre in.

  They caught him in a crossfire. Two gendarmes to the right on the sidewalk below, another group of three to the left as he hung above the world below him. There was a fusillade of shots as the gendarmes emptied their magazines very loud in the Place because all the patrol-cars had now halted. Vanek hung in the night, one leg draped over the balustrade, then his limp hand lost its grip and he slipped over, falling as they went on firing, crashing down into the deep staircase well where a large notice proclaimed `Descente Interdite.' Descent Forbidden.

  CHAPTER SIX

  `A WOMAN who can positively identify me as the Leopard has arrived in Paris. Her name is Annette Devaud. Apparently they brought her in under heavy guard aboard the Stanislas express. . .'

  A dog barked, a deafening sound on the tape. The familiar, so recognizable voice, spoke sharply.

  `Quiet, Kassim! I don't see how there is time to intercept her. I can personally take no action which will not arouse the gravest suspicion. . .'

  `Why did you not add her to the Lasalle list earlier?' The second voice, husky, accented, was also quite recognizable.

  `She went blind at the end of the war—so I assumed she was harmless. My assistant phoned the police chief at Saverne just before you arrived—apparently she had an operation recently which restored her sight. This is the most appalling mess, Vorin, coming at the last moment. . .'

  `Mr President, we may be able to do something . .'

  `I added her to the list later—when Danchin sent me his routine report with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung letter which mentioned her name. Your people were supposed to have dealt with the problem. . .'

  `Something went wrong. . .'

  `Then you cannot blame me!' An argument was developing; the well-known voice was sharp,
cutting. 'It is imperative that you rectify your error. . .'

  `Then I must leave at once for the embassy, Mr President. We have reached a stage where minutes count. Do you know where they will take the Devaud woman ?'

  `To the rue des Saussaies. . .'

  Alone in the fourth-floor room at Surete headquarters, Marc Grelle switched off the tape-recorder which had been linked to the tiny transmitter inserted inside Kassim's studded collar. He had played it twice, standing while he listened to it with a frozen expression, concentrating on the pitch of the voices. It was a futile exercise—replaying the tape—because the timbre of Guy Florian's voice had come over with such clarity the first time. In any case the words spoken were diabolically conclusive.

  Staring at the opposite wall, the prefect lit a cigarette, hardly aware of the action. For days now the terrible truth had thrust itself into his mind and he had refused to accept the evidence. Gaston Martin had seen three men enter the Elysee, one of them the president. The surveillance on Danchin and Blanc had revealed no evidence of a Soviet link contacting either man, but Florian met Soviet Ambassador Vorin almost daily. And so on. . . . Staring at the wall, smoking his cigarette. Grelle felt a sense of nausea, like a husband who had just found his wife in bed with a coarse and brutal lover.

  Extracting the tape from the machine, he put it inside his pocket. Picking up the phone he asked for an outside line and then dialled a number.

  Still in a state of shock he made a great effort to keep his voice cold and impersonal.

  `Alain Blanc? Grelle here. I need to see you immediately. No, don't come to the prefecture. I'm going straight back to my apartment. Yes, something has happened. You will need a glass of cognac before I tell you. . .'