The hope in Bobby’s mind, the forlorn desperate hope, was that the unseen murderer, seeing him charging thus, would hold his fire for the moment, meaning to make sure when he was nearer and could be shot down at ease. Moreover a man running at full speed, especially when running forward, is not so easy a target as one who is standing perfectly still. One shot indeed was fired, but hit not Bobby but the whirling spade he brandished and so was deflected to splash harmlessly against the rock, and Bobby hoped desperately that further shots would be withheld in expectation and anticipation of the ease with which any one could be shot down from one side or the other as they blundered through the narrow entrance gap out into the open.
But that formed no part of the intention behind Bobby’s swift and desperate rush. One of the two rocks, that on the west or right hand from within, jutted forward in such a way as to provide behind it a sort of niche or shelter, so that any one standing there, as it were behind a door, was covered and would indeed have good opportunity to strike first at any attempting to pass. It was this kind of niche or crack in the rock that Bobby was aiming for, and when he reached it, he stood still, spade lifted, ready to strike, fairly safe so long as he stood just where he was and yet knowing that to move even an inch would be to expose himself as an easy target to the assassin, waiting unseen indeed but so near.
Indeed of that he soon had proof, for when presently he moved, though only very slightly, there was instant reaction in the shape of another shot, and a bullet that struck splinters from the rock not more than an inch or two away. Presently, too, the pistol muzzle appeared, groping and pointing in an effort to twist round far enough to bring him within its orbit. This Bobby had expected, and indeed had hoped, might happen, for he thought that so might be given him his best chance of escape. But he blundered, perhaps because his nerves were not so completely under control as he believed. At any rate when he struck out with his spade, he struck too soon, even though he had waited as long as he dared. Anyhow his blow miscarried, the pistol was snatched away, his hope of knocking it out of the other’s hand and so getting on equal terms had failed. Nor was it, he supposed grimly, very likely that such an opportunity would be offered him again.
“Who is it?” he shouted once, but got no response.
In his mind, as he stood there flattened in his protective niche, knowing that any movement to relieve his cramped muscles would almost certainly bring him within range of the assassin’s pistol, he went over the list of those who might be waiting there, recent murderers of the unhappy Shields who had paid so terribly for his crime, and now determined that those who had discovered so much must not be allowed to continue to live.
He supposed that the murderer or murderers of Shields, lingering near—Bobby wondered why and wondered also whether the answer to that question he would ever know—had seen his approach and Père Trouché’s across the bare, and, at this part, nearly level expanse of the Massif, had marked their entry into the enclave, had realized what they must find there, had followed them in the resolve to make the secret safe by two more assassinations.
One they had already successfully accomplished and Bobby was inclined to think that the second would not be very long delayed, for he did not feel that he could sustain his present cramped position very much longer. His enemy had only to wait till hunger, thirst, exhaustion, compelled him to make some movement that would bring him within range of the questing pistol muzzle that more than once he saw again come pushing and seeking round the edge of the rock sheltering him, though never far enough or near enough to give him another chance of striking at it.
Again and again he found himself trying to think who it could be who thus was waiting to kill. He wished somehow very much that he knew. He had the idea that knowledge would make endurance easier, as the anonymity of the peril made it worse, and he found himself envying old Père Trouché who lay there so peacefully on his side, like one quietly sleeping. Once or twice he shouted out threats or questions or taunts, but got no reply. But a movement he made drew swift response in the shape of a bullet that actually tore the cloth of his coat sleeve, though without inflicting any wound.
What it was that presently and quite suddenly impressed upon his mind a conviction that the danger had passed and that now no one was waiting there, that he was no longer under watch and menace, he never understood. Perhaps his sense of hearing, keyed to a pitch of intensity inconceivable at other times, wrought indeed to some such keenness beyond ordinary human capacity as Père Trouché seemed somehow to have reached, had warned him sub-consciously of tiny sounds of departure; perhaps that extremity of peril in which he had been placed had opened in him other avenues of knowledge, of which, at ordinary moments, the ordinary man is unaware, something of the nature of that strange power by which it is said primitive people have almost instantaneous knowledge of far-off happenings.
In any case, whatever the explanation, and he himself had none to offer, abruptly he knew—knew beyond doubt or question—that now he could come out from his shelter with perfect safety.
He flung down the spade he had been holding and ran forward into that open where a little before to show him-self would have meant instant death. On his left was the tall, isolated sugar-loaf rock; on his right the grove of tangled close-growing trees and bushes, wind-swept and dwarfed; between them, but nearer to him, a figure was running. It shouted something and then dived in between the trees. Bobby’s sight of it had been too brief for him to be able to say who it was. He stood still, hesitating. From the midst of the trees, muffled by their close growth, came the fresh report of a pistol shot. Instinctively Bobby dropped to the ground. He had no love for the role of target and he thought the shot had been aimed at him. He heard fresh shouting and, raising his head and looking cautiously, he saw several of Clauzel’s men running quickly towards him. Evidently the recent shooting had been heard—indeed the reports would have carried far over that wide and empty space, caught up and echoed as they would be by the adjacent rocks—and rescue and help were coming. Bobby decided to stay where he was till that help was nearer. He had no wish to tackle, alone and unarmed, a desperate murderer who had already given such dread proof of readiness to kill. When the gendarmes arrived, it would not be difficult so to surround the trees as to make escape impossible and then to take such steps as might be necessary to force the fugitive into the open.
The gendarmes were quite close now. Bobby recognized Clauzel as the foremost among them. He shouted a warning. It was heard but not heeded. Clauzel shouted back something Bobby did not quite catch to the general effect that there had been quite enough of this sort of thing and he wasn’t going to waste any more time—automatics or no automatics.
Bobby would have liked to reply that that was all very well, and no one was more tired of it than he was, but automatics remained automatics, and why run unnecessary risks? Clauzel, however, evidently had no intention of delaying and was running straight towards the trees when from the midst of them appeared a man, holding a long-barrelled point forty-five automatic in one hand. The commissaire, who himself held an automatic, though one of smaller calibre, promptly fired, though more in warning than with deliberate aim. The other ran forward, waving his own pistol in the air but not firing. Clauzel shouted to him to surrender. At the same moment as Clauzel called to him, the newcomer caught his foot in the rough ground, pitched forward violently, striking his head against a stone. The pistol jerked from his hand. He lay sprawling and quite still.
When Bobby came up he found Clauzel and two of the gendarmes standing round the still unconscious man.
Bobby recognized the young Camion.
Clauzel said to him:
“Eh, well, Monsieur Owen, who would have expected him?”
CHAPTER XXIV
CONCLUSION
It was some minutes before Camion recovered consciousness, for his fall had been heavy. There joined Glauzel and Bobby a middle-aged civilian whom Clauzel addressed as Dr. Mendel. Bobby, understanding that the new-
comer was a medical man, explained hurriedly that Père Trouché had been shot, was lying at a little distance, and ought to receive attention at once.
“Though I’m afraid it’s too late to help him,” he added. “I think he was hit twice. I think he was killed on the spot.”
“I had better go and see,” Mendel said and was starting off when Clauzel stopped him.
“Just take a look at this fellow first,” he said, nodding at Camion. “I do not want him to cheat the guillotine.”
“It is nothing,” Mendel answered at once, and indeed Camion had opened his eyes now and was struggling into a sitting position. “It is only that he was ‘knock-outed.’”
Mendel used the English word ‘knock-out’ that has now become a French verb—like ‘interviewer’. Camion, looking up at them, said:
“She put the pistol in her mouth and then she fired. It was as though the top of her head leaped off.” He began to shudder violently. “I heard some one scream. I think perhaps it was me. I think I ran. It was an awful thing to see and I think I screamed and then I think I ran.”
“What’s all that? What do you mean?” Clauzel demanded while the others gaped. “What ‘she’?”
“I ran after her, I saw her running and I ran after her,” Camion explained, still in the same half-dazed manner. “I shouted to her to stop. I shouted that the gendarmes were all around and she could not escape. She looked at me and then she put the pistol in her mouth and fired. It was an awful thing to see. She fell down and so did the pistol and I must have picked it up and then I think I began to run, but I do not know why, except that I wanted to get away.”
“All this, I do not understand it,” Clauzel said bewilderedly.
“Who do you mean? What ‘she’?” Bobby asked.
“But I am telling you,” Camion answered impatiently. “Madame Williams. Do you want me to go on repeating to you again and again what I shall see to the end of my life?”
Alain had come up now and had been listening quietly. He said:
“Come, doctor. Let us look for ourselves.”
Followed by one or two of the gendarmes who had also arrived by now, the juge d’instruction and the doctor disappeared amidst the trees. Bobby said to Camion:
“How did you come to be here? What are you doing here? Why did you clear out from Citry?”
“I wanted to find Volny,” Camion answered. He seemed more composed now and talked quickly and volubly, as if in the flow of words he could forget the awful scene he had just witnessed. “I knew I was suspected. It was absurd, for there had been no duel, we had not fought, but I had no wish to go to the guillotine because of the folly of the ideas of others. It was because Volny did not wish to fight our duel that he went away, and I was very glad, because I also, I had no wish to fight.”
“Did you see anything of him that morning Père Trouché and I followed you?” Bobby asked.
“No. He sent me a note to say that he was not going to make a fool of himself and he was not going to keep our appointment. I was very glad, but then I thought perhaps it was a trick to keep me away so that he could say he was there but I had been afraid. That I could not have endured. So I went to the place we had agreed upon and I waited, and when Volny did not come, then I fired my pistol in the air to show that I at least had sustained my honour.’
An action typical, Bobby thought, of the boy’s leaning to the dramatic, not to say the theatrical. Probably when he discharged his pistol in the air he had felt himself truly heroic. All the glory of the duel and none of the danger. And yet just now he had shown a genuine and cool courage in following a criminal taken in the act, armed and desperate.
“It would have saved a lot of trouble if you had told us all that at the time,’’ grumbled Bobby.
“I saw no reason to,” answered Camion with something that at another time might have been a swagger. “Père Trouché could tell any story he liked. Why not?”
And Bobby divined a secret hope that Père Trouché would have spread a story in which Camion himself would figure as something of a hero and Volny as something quite different.
“Wasn’t it a bit dangerous following that woman when you knew she was armed and had been taking potshots all round?” Bobby asked curiously. “She had just killed poor old Père Trouché,” he added.
“A Frenchman does not permit himself to be afraid,” answered Camion.
“No permission required for this Britisher,” grunted Bobby. “If my hair isn’t as white as the usual driven snow to-morrow morning, it won’t be for lack of funk.”
“Each has his qualities,” said Camion kindly, and then in a burst of candour added: “All the same, as I ran, my very skin sweated terror. But do not tell any one,” he added quickly.
“Not me,” Bobby assured him and they shook hands solemnly. Bobby added: “You didn’t find out anything about Volny?”
“I found he had been seen in Barsac, but no one seemed to know where he had gone or what had become of him.”
“What made you think he might be here?” Bobby asked.
“There are some of his cousins he might have gone to. Also he had asked questions about Monsieur Shields and he had said there were other questions he would like to ask Monsieur Shields. It seemed to me he might have thought it an opportunity. If he had been able to find out anything about the Polthwaite affair, then it would have started people talking about that once more and they would have forgotten about our duel. I knew Volny believed Monsieur Shields might be able to explain certain things.”
“Do you mean he suspected Shields of the murder?”
“But no, how could that be when Shields was in his home at Barsac on the night of the assassination? No, but he believed there might be points which Shields could explain. So I thought I would ask him if Volny had been to see him, but the good Monsieur Shields he had dined too well that night, he was in no state to answer questions even of the most simple.”
“Why do you say that?” Bobby asked.
“It was not difficult to see. When I knocked I got no answer so I went round to the back. Monsieur Shields heard me and came out of one of the sheds in the garden. He had gone there to drink all by himself for he had a bottle of brandy in his hand and he drank before he spoke a word—-drank deeply, too. His clothes were all over dust. He said he had been sitting on a bag of chemical manure and it had burst open. Most likely he fell and upset it, he was not steady on his feet. He was quarrelsome, too. He would not answer my questions. It is useless to talk to a man who drinks brandy from a bottle as he speaks.”
Bobby was looking at Camion with a kind of wonder. It seemed certain the boy had interrupted Shields in the very act of disposing of the unfortunate Volny’s body.
“Did you say anything about Volny?” Bobby asked.
“I asked him if he knew where Volny was or if he had seen him. He drank the last drop of his brandy before he answered. Then he said if I would come into the shed with him he would show me something. But it was evident to me that he wished to quarrel. I felt that if I went with him, before long I should have that brandy bottle he flourished thrown at my head. So I went away. I thought I would return another time. As I was going I saw Monsieur and Madame Williams. If they were intending to visit Shields, they also must have found him in the same state.”
“I expect they did,” Bobby said slowly and wondered if ever before so strange a tale had been told so simply and so innocently.
He wondered, too, if ever before a murderer had been interrupted in the very act of concealing his victim’s body by an inquiry as to that victim’s whereabouts. A dramatic scene, Bobby thought; the body of the dead Volny in the adjacent shed; the murderer seeking support in his bottle of brandy, and going out of his way to account for the condition of his clothes; Camion asking his innocent and unsuspecting questions. Bobby wondered, too, what would have happened if Camion had accepted the invitation to enter the shed. Not that there could be much doubt. A second murder, a second body to be concealed, would
have been the inevitable sequel. Camion had been nearer death then than he had ever dreamed. The condition of Shields that evening, as reported by Camion, explained, too, the ease with which the Williamses had been able to carry out their project, for Shields had been a strong and desperate man. Probably, however, he had awakened from a drunken stupor to find himself helpless in their hands, bound hand and foot very likely.
“Did you go back again?” Bobby asked.
“Yes, later, but there was no one there. I knocked and waited but no one came. It was a little curious though that once I thought I heard a sound like some one moaning. But it must have been imagination, for though I waited quite a long time I heard nothing more. So I went away.” Bobby thought to himself that from Camion’s point of view that had been just as well. Had he attempted to pursue his investigation, then again his life would probably have paid the forfeit. The moaning sound he heard must have been the wretched Shields from whom the Williams couple must even then have been forcing the secret of the hiding-place on the Massif. Again Camion had been near death, for very clearly had the Williams couple shown how ruthless they could be. Probably Camion had left only just in time to save himself.
“How did you happen to be here this evening just in the very nick of time?” Bobby asked.
Murder Abroad Page 27
