Murder Abroad

by E. R. Punshon

  Olive nodded.

  “That’s where the eight thousand comes in, is it?”

  Olive nodded again.

  ‘‘Lady Markham,” she explained, “said they would go equal whacks with you. Her two brothers, her sister and herself, and you, one fifth each. Twenty per cent. If you could find the diamonds.”

  “Why me?” Bobby asked. “Doesn’t seem much chance anyhow. Why don’t they take on the job themselves?

  “They think you’ve experience. There’s another thing,” Olive added. “They feel a bit bad over the poor old soul being murdered and nothing done about it.”

  “If she was murdered,” Bobby said. “Anyhow, I couldn’t help there. Not likely. Not after all these months. Not in a foreign country.”

  “Lady Markham thought if you could find out what had become of the diamonds, then perhaps that would show who was the murderer and the French authorities would be ready to take action.”

  Bobby sat thinking. Eight thousand pounds! A small enough chance perhaps but how much it would mean if it came off, to him and to Olive. Olive went on:

  “Lady Markham says the chief constable where they live is wanting a private secretary, because he’s getting a bit old. She says her husband has a lot of influence though of course she couldn’t promise anything. Only she said they would be grateful, and I think she meant it. Even if you didn’t get the diamonds back. Just for trying.”

  “Strikes me,” declared Bobby, “there won’t be much more than trying to it. Ten to one some crook got to know, and that’s why she was murdered and the diamonds stolen. All sold in Amsterdam probably by this time.”

  “Lady Markham says not. They all think Miss Polthwaite wouldn’t have let anyone know. They only knew themselves when Mr. Polthwaite went through her papers after her death. Even her lawyers had no idea. Nor her bankers. They knew she was doing something with her money, but that was all. She always managed her own affairs. At the inquiry in France nothing came out about any diamonds. They called her a rich Englishwoman but in the Auvergne they would call anyone rich with four or five hundred a year. The French police had a theory. They made that quite plain, too. They think she had a quarrel with one of the young men in the village and he killed her. They think he was her lover.”

  “I thought you said Miss Polthwaite was an elderly woman?”

  “Yes. It’s rather horrid. I think really that’s what’s upsetting Lady Markham more than anything. The French police spent most of their time smiling and looking down their noses and saying what else could you expect when an old spinster—Miss Polthwaite was about fifty-five—takes a hot-blooded young man as her lover? Lady Markham says it’s a foul lie. She began to cry about it. She says she and the others want their sister’s name cleared. I think really they mind more about that than about the money. If you show she was murdered and the diamonds stolen, they would be more pleased than if you got the diamonds back but didn’t prove there was nothing nasty about her being friends with the boy the French police think was her lover and murdered her.”

  “Who is he? Is there anything to go on?”

  “His name is Camion, Charles Camion, Lady Markham says. His father keeps the hotel in the village. Poor Miss Polthwaite lived in an old converted mill just outside. He is very good looking, Charles Camion, I mean. There seems no doubt about Miss Polthwaite having taken a great fancy to him. She was painting his portrait.”

  “Was she really an artist or only playing at it?” Bobby asked.

  “I don’t know. Lady Markham said she went there partly so as to be near a Mr. Shields, who really is well known and quite successful and who has a studio somewhere about. Young Camion was at the mill a good deal and there was a lot of talk. The general idea seems to have been that the young man was doing very well for himself. I daresay the village people couldn’t understand an elderly, unmarried woman taking an interest in a good-looking boy without there being anything more than friendliness in her mind. I don’t see why, but I expect it would be like that anywhere. Why shouldn’t she just have taken a fancy to the boy, thought she would like to paint his portrait, and then the poor old thing gets murdered, and everyone believes all sorts of nastiness. I don’t wonder Lady Markham feels a bit sick. Anyone would. Lady Markham says Miss Polthwaite was a bit silly in some ways and rather mean and secretive, but they were all very fond of her. I think I should want it cleared up if I were in Lady Markham’s place. She has heard of you. She asked me to speak to you.”

  “What do you think yourself?” Bobby asked.

  “It’s horrid to think of people saying things about a poor old dead woman who can’t defend herself,” Olive answered.

  “It may be true,” Bobby told her slowly. “I mean what they are saying. Elderly, unmarried women do go a bit queer sometimes. Not often, but it happens. If you read modern novels you would think every elderly spinster was necessarily boiling over with all kinds of suppressed sex and spent all her time sitting in a corner and letting it fester. It’s nasty rubbish only nasty people believe. Maiden aunts aren’t like that.”

  “I know,” said Olive. “I had one. She was a dear. The worst thing she ever did in her life was to slap a little boy for swinging a cat round by its tail. She always felt she ought to have explained, not slapped. It troubled her a lot.”

  “I’m all for slapping,” said Bobby. “Hard and frequent. We all know our maiden aunts even if the psycho-analyst people don’t. All the same, that suppressed type does exist. Perhaps this Miss Polthwaite was one. No telling.”

  “You see, Bobby,” Olive explained, “that’s exactly what Lady Markham and the others want cleared up. They want the diamonds back all right if they can get them, but I don’t think they expect to and I don’t believe that’s the chief thing. It’s more the horrid things being said. There were hints in the English papers, and all the people they know whisper about it and Lady Markham knew about us and she began talking about it last time she was here.”

  “Well, what’s the idea? What’s she want me to do?” Bobby asked doubtfully.

  “Go there and see what you can find out. The mill where it happened is to let. The man who owns it lets it out to visitors in the summer but no one will want to spend a holiday there so soon after a murder, so it’s sure to be vacant still. Lady Markham thought you could rent it and look round. The diamonds may be hidden there still, she thinks. And some of the people in the village may know something.”

  “Was there anything to suggest the suicide theory or was that an afterthought when the police were at a dead end? Was there any letter, for instance? Suicides nearly always leave a letter behind. They feel they’ve got to defend themselves.”

  “There was something,” Olive admitted. “A sort of letter, only it wasn’t addressed to anyone. In French. Mr. Polthwaite had a copy. They wouldn’t give him the original.”

  “Do you know what it said?”

  “Lady Markham said it was only a few words: ‘J’en ai des écus jusqu’aux yeux, en avoir peur.’ I don’t see that it means much, do you? ‘Avoir des écus’ is a sort of idiom —means you’ve got more money than you know what to do with. One of the French police, an inspector or something, his name was Clauzel, argued it meant she had worked herself into such a state of nerves over her diamonds and things that she went clean off her head and decided to end it. Of course, she was a bit funny, hoarding it up like that instead of using a bank or a safe deposit like everyone else. Lady Markham says she was convinced the first thing when the revolution came would be seizing the banks.”

  “If the police think it was a case of suicide, why did they talk about this Camion chap?”

  “That was largely the gossip in the village. They didn’t know about her having valuables by her. Mr. Polthwaite made the Clauzel policeman person admit the note she left might have meant she was afraid not of her money but of someone she thought might be planning to rob her. He had to leave it there. He doesn’t talk French very well.”

  “Could the diamonds an
d stuff be identified if I did come across them?”

  “They have a list of what she bought, numbers, weight, everything.”

  “Ought to be good enough,” Bobby agreed. “Don’t see much chance of being able to do anything though. You have to be on the spot at once, not months late. Probably the diamonds and the rest of it have been got rid of already. You can always sell small stuff safely enough if you do it by degrees.”

  “You might find out enough to clear Miss Polthwaite’s name?”

  “Perhaps I shouldn’t,” Bobby said slowly. “Perhaps I should find out the other way. Perhaps it was like that. Perhaps she had fallen for this Camion bloke. Old spinster ladies do go off the rails sometimes.”

  “I think Lady Markham was facing that. She doesn’t believe it, but she knows it’s there. She said if you found the diamonds, there would be the reward. If you didn’t, but just got at the truth, whatever it is, then they’ll try to get you the private secretaryship with the chief constable they know.”

  “Sporting,” agreed Bobby. “If she sticks to it. Do you think she will?”

  “Well, she pays cash,” said Olive simply.

  “Good enough,” agreed Bobby. “Sort of a threefold mission—the diamonds, the murderer, the truth. All right, I’ll take it on if she can wangle that month’s leave she talks about.”

  CHAPTER II

  CITRY-SUR-L’EAU

  Lady Markham proved even better than her word. Evidently it is not for nothing that one has attended school with the future wife of a Home Secretary. The leave granted Bobby was not for a month merely. It was for six weeks. The more simple-minded among Bobby’s colleagues understood that it had been granted because he had not fully recovered from the effects of a slight concussion received in a recent case during the course of which he had been knocked out by a former amateur boxing champion. His other colleagues—a large majority—looked down their noses and muttered to each other about favouritism. Another sergeant was appointed to the squad formerly in Bobby’s charge and Bobby wondered uneasily whether that portended promotion when he returned or banishment to one of the outer suburbs. Or whether there was anything in that vague hope Lady Markham seemed to have held out of her ability to wangle him a job as private secretary to a county chief constable.

  All three possibilities were present in his mind as a few days later he sat sipping his after-dinner coffee outside the Hotel de la Belle Alliance, de la Victoire, et des États Unis, in the village of Citry-sur-l’eau in the ‘Massif Central’ of France, a little to the south of Clermont. Upon his thoughts a voice broke suddenly, startling him, for he had not heard anyone approach. It was a tall, thin man who was speaking, a man with a thin, eager face and eyes that burned but yet that had a trick of veiling themselves behind heavy, slightly swollen lids. His hands were thin and eager, too, almost transparent, and gesticulating easily. He had been standing when he spoke first but now he seated himself at an adjacent table, and Bobby noticed how quick and silent were his movements, how efficient those thin delicate-looking hands of his. If he walked as silently as he seated himself, no wonder, Bobby thought, that he had not heard anyone approach. He said now:

  “Monsieur is an artist? Monsieur then will understand that we of Citry-sur-l’eau are a little proud of our view.”

  “With reason,” Bobby agreed amiably, for there was nothing he desired more than to establish friendly, chatty relations with the local inhabitants.

  Indeed the view was magnificent. In front, to the west, where the sun was sinking in a riot of glorious colouring, lay a wide and lovely valley, one of those rich vales by whose soft beauty Nature has seemed to wish to throw into greater relief the bare, tormented splendour of so much of the Auvergne. Through the valley, past the village, ran a small stream, probably the ‘eau’ from which the village took its name, on its way to join one of those rivers that, fed by the snows and rains of the Massif Central, issue from it to water the wide land of France. North, in the far distance, the great round summit of the Puy de Dôme hung in the evening air as though it floated in the clouds, detached from any earthly base. East and south hill rose behind hill in a series of never-ending rocky ramparts, rock heaved upon rock, here a solitary pillar starting up like a finger thrusting at the sky, there a great bare wall like that of some enormous castle, then again a gigantic crag balancing in apparent insecurity almost as if at any moment it might topple over in dreadful ruin, everywhere such a medley of crag and gorge, of ravine and rock, as though it were here the Titans had started to build their tower wherefrom to storm the heavens and these were the relics of their defeat. Over the whole scene hung a red glow from the setting sun, so that now it seemed all things were seen through a haze of blood. Magnificent indeed, Bobby thought, and yet with about it something of the ominous, of the sinister, as though here lurked dark forces of nature man had not yet conquered, perhaps would never conquer.

  “Magnificent,” Bobby said, this time aloud. “A little terrifying, too. One would say here Nature had been at war and might one day begin again.”

  “Not war, but birth,” smiled the other. “Yet perhaps they are the same. Here in the Auvergne we have traces of the pangs of Nature before she gave birth to her child, the earth. Here where we sit, here first the interior fires began to cool and solid land to form itself from fire and steam. Perhaps some day all that will re-commence. Who knows? Quiet without, but fire within. Like the society man has made for himself. All so calm above, so different below—but one must not talk politics. In the meantime, Monsieur, you look with the eye of the artist and see beauty, I with the eye of the scientist and see the story of the earth’s formation.”

  “I’m afraid I’m not much of a scientist,” Bobby admitted. “How did you know I was an artist? I’ve always flattered myself I had not the air.”

  “Monsieur,” said the other, “all the village knows.” He got to his feet and bowed. He said: “Permit me to introduce myself. Eudes. Schoolmaster in this village of Citry-sur-l’eau. Jacques Pierre Eudes.”

  Bobby in his turn rose and bowed.

  “Owen,” he said. “An artist, yes, but, alas, it would be truer to say—trying to become one.”

  “Monsieur,” said Eudes gravely, “those who try to be, already are.”

  It was an echo of a famous saying of Pascal’s, but Bobby did not recognize it. He said in return and with equal gravity:

  “Monsieur, I perceive you are a philosopher.”

  Eudes was plainly gratified by the remark, and those eager, yet half-hidden eyes of his opened into a smile of appreciation. He went on talking about the village. Bobby was content to listen. He had a feeling that he was being discreetly pumped, but he answered fully all the questions delicately dropped at intervals, even though he was careful to give in reality very little information. Simply an artist, impressed by the austere beauty of the country and anxious to do some sketching, was the impression he wished to leave of himself. Later on, it would be his turn to ask questions. For the present, it would be best to show no more than the casual and natural interest of the newcomer. He did make a smiling remark about the interest his arrival seemed to have caused in a village, where surely tourists, artists, too, for that matter, came frequently enough. But Eudes began at once to talk of something else. Bobby remembered that his welcome at the little inn with the long name had been cordial even beyond the usual cordiality of a welcoming landlord and yet had been touched with a certain quality of reserve and hesitation, as though this welcome had in it some unusual element of doubt. Perhaps it was simply that the villagers had been uneasy lest the tragedy of Miss Polthwaite’s death might keep visitors away and he was welcome as a proof to the contrary and yet was feared as possibly bringing fresh trouble. When presently another reference was made to his supposed status as artist, he laughed and said:

  “I wonder how that was known so quickly. Disappointing when I always try so hard not to look like one.”

  “You have not indeed the air,” agreed Eudes, and gave
Bobby so quick a look from those sharp, restless eyes behind the heavy lids that Bobby wondered uncomfortably if Eudes entertained any suspicions. A bad beginning if that were so. Eudes went on: “But the true artists never do. If nowadays there is someone with sandals and no hat, with a velvet jacket and a tie like a hand-towel; well, then all the world shrugs its shoulders and knows what to think. Monsieur Shields, for example—”

  Eudes paused for a moment. Bobby guessed he was watching to see if the name were recognized and connected with the Polthwaite tragedy of which as yet no mention had been made. Bobby gave no sign and Eudes continued: “A lion of a man, Monsieur Shields. A figure of a Goliath. One would say probably a boxer of the first rank, renowned. My faith, how the farmers would jump at him for the harvest field in days when all the young men go off to the towns and farmers are glad of any old crock to help in the harvesting. And dressed always like a real bourgeois. Yet an artist of the first rank, famous indeed, one understands. One can believe it, for his work is superb. At the first glance it can be told what it represents, almost like a photograph in colours.”

  “But what made you think I was an artist?” Bobby insisted. “I’m not famous by any means, and you haven’t seen any of my work, though I hope you will let me show you some presently.”

  “That indeed will be a privilege I shall value,” declared Eudes, “and for the rest, Monsieur, you must make allowances. These are troubled times. Spies. Refugees. Agitators. Conspirators. The police smell a plot everywhere. Before the ink was dry in the hotel register, our good Nicholas David was there, making his inquiries.”

  “Who is he?” asked Bobby.

  Eudes answered that David was the ‘garde-champêtre’. Bobby knew the word but had only a vague idea of its significance. Eudes explained that a ‘garde-champêtre’ was an officer of the judicial police stationed in rural districts. He seemed indeed to be a kind of village watchman, acting chiefly on the instructions of the mayor, used also for making all necessary public announcements, available as well, apparently, for private individuals who wished to make anything known, a sale, the loss of a purse, the arrival of a circus or anything similar. Bobby decided that Nicholas David might be worth cultivating. Presumably he would know the details of the Polthwaite tragedy and it might be possible to get him to talk. Eudes said frowningly and abruptly: