by David Dodge
John, who saw the buggy-whip aerial mounted on the rear fender of the car, did not look to see where it was going. Paul did. It turned in under the portico of the Hotel Midi. Several men got out and went quickly into the hotel.
Paul said, “That was the Sûreté.”
“I know it.”
“They’re looking for you, I suppose.”
“Yes.”
“The doorman told me about the theft.”
“He’s enjoying the excitement.”
There were benches at intervals along the promenade, just at the edge of the walk above the beach. Paul said, “Let’s sit down and talk for a minute.”
They sat down. Paul said, “Is that a false stomach you’re wearing?”
“False stomach, padded shoes, hair dye, false eyebrows, forged passport. What do you want with me, Paul?”
“Not a great deal. Who was the girl with you at Les Ambassadeurs?”
The question was so unexpected, so completely apart from everything in his mind, that it had no meaning at first He had to think back: Les Ambassadeurs, Paul’s white dinner jacket, a girl.
He said, “Her name is Danielle.”
“Who is she? Where did she come from? What does she do?”
“Why?”
“I want to meet her.”
He felt a slow boil of anger rising in him. He said, “Did you hunt me out behind my false stomach and dyed hair so I could introduce you to a girl?”
“No. No.” Paul made a quick, apologetic gesture. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked it that way. But I’ve been thinking about her so much, seeing her face—I can’t get her out of my mind. Didn’t you notice how much she looked like Lisa?”
His anger went away. Even in his own trouble, he knew how deep Paul’s hurt was. He said, “A little. I hadn’t realized it until now.”
“They could be twins. Not as Lisa was when you knew her, when she was dying, but when we were married. I must meet her, John.”
There was an edge of strain in his voice. John said, “You know there can’t be two Lisas in the world, Paul.”
“I know. I only want to get her out of my mind. It was a shock to me, that night at Les Ambassadeurs. In the dim light I thought for a moment she was Lisa, and I’ve only been able to think of her as Lisa ever since. I thought that if I could meet her, talk to her, see her as she really is, I might get over it.” He went on miserably. “I have to do something. I keep tormenting myself, thinking about her. Does she—is she anything to you?”
“Nothing at all. I don’t even know her last name. She works for a swimming instructor on the beach most of the time. La Plage Nautique. It’s the second sign from here. Lady Kerry, at the hotel, has hired her for a few days as a personal maid. It shouldn’t be hard for you to arrange a meeting if you really want to.”
“I do. I must.”
A man and a girl in bathing suits went by on their way to the beach, laughing at some joke. When they had passed, John said, “Is that all you want with me?”
Paul sat up, straightening his shoulders. He made an effort to smile.
“I’m not really as thoughtless as you think I am, John. I didn’t come here just to bring you my own troubles. What can I do to help you?”
“Nothing, except tell me how you recognized me.”
“I saw your profile at Les Ambassadeurs, before I saw the rest of you. When you stood up I thought I was wrong. I didn’t see how you could make yourself look so different, so clumsy, but I was interested in the girl as well, and I asked questions until I learned your name and where you were staying. I wasn’t certain until I spoke to you back there, and heard your voice. It’s a good disguise. No one could picture you climbing over roofs.”
“How long have you known that I climb over roofs?”
“Since Germaine told me about the police raid, and how you got away. Oriol wouldn’t talk, but I read the article in the Herald Tribune. I’d seen you many times without your clothes, so it wasn’t hard for me to guess a connection between John Robie, who climbed mountains so well, and Le Chat. To be certain, I went to Nice and looked up the report of your trial. Did you know that Oriol was the police reporter who took the testimony?”
“Yes. What is he doing now?”
“He’s still commissaire, if that’s what you mean. I don’t know what there was between you two, and I’m not going to ask questions you don’t want to answer, but he’s bitter about your escape. It’s more than just his feeling as commissaire. Something personal. He won’t say a word, and he’s hushed the whole thing over, but I can sense it in him. You made a bad enemy in Oriol.”
“I seem to have made a lot of enemies.”
“You needn’t make any more. I want to help you, John.”
“There’s nothing you can do. I’d tell you if there were.”
“Money?”
“No.”
“It’s what you steal for, isn’t it?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You can listen, then. I’m not going to lecture. Your morals are your own business. But you’ll go to prison for a long time when you’re caught.” Paul nodded toward the hotel, where the photographer was still taking pictures. “You seem to have brought this one off as successfully as your others. You can’t keep it up forever. I have to assume that you went back to your old trade because you needed money. I have—”
“You’re wasting your time.”
“Let me waste it, then. I have more money than I know how to spend. We’ve been good friends, and I’d like it to continue. I won’t enjoy visiting you in prison. How much do you need to quit now, while you still have a chance?”
“I told you I’d tell you if there was anything you could do. I don’t need money.”
“Why do you steal, then? Do you get a thrill out of mocking the police? Do you like to see your name in the papers? Do you enjoy being Le Chat?”
“You’re still wasting your time.”
“I’m trying to help you!” Paul was angry. “You’re not infallible! You made a slip once before. It will happen again, sooner or later. Nobody is clever enough to go on outwitting the whole world forever. Your time will come When it does—”
He stopped. John had stood up.
“You can do only one thing for me, Paul,” he said. “Leave me alone. Forget you know me. Don’t come near me again. Good-bye.”
He walked away before he had to look again at Paul’s face. It was not easy deliberately to kill a friendship that had been as good as his and Paul’s.
Mr. Paige was telling Commissaire Divisionnaire Lepic of his discovery in the lightwell.
“The Nice theft all over again. He cut a hole in the skylight, fixed his rope, swarmed down it to the bathroom window, got in, got out, swarmed back up again with the jewels. Amazing man.”
Lepic motioned to one of his assistants, pointing upward. The assistant went away.
Mr. Paige said, “He won’t find anything but the hole in the skylight. The roof is loose gravel, no footprints, an easy jump to the next building, fire escape in back, four or five ways to go. Waste of time.”
“The Sûreté Nationale wastes a great deal of time,” Lepic said agreeably. “Sometimes we accomplish things just the same.”
He set a second assistant to work looking for fingerprints on the glass top of the commode where the empty jewel case stood and put a third man at a methodical, painstaking search of the suite. It was part of the routine. Lepic had no great faith in routine as a weapon against a man like Le Chat. But there were always gestures to be made.
His English was excellent. It let him carry on the questioning without help from the hotel directeur, who stood by worrying for the reputation of the hotel. Mrs. Stevens had dressed, smeared on her lipstick, and was cheerful again since Mr. Paige had assured her that the insurance money would be paid within a few days. The shock of finding her jewel case empty had made her forget things like insurance. Now, with her most valuable necklace and matching earring
s still safe and a concrete promise of sixty-one thousand dollars to spend on new beads, she was almost happy. Only the diamond and emerald dog represented a real loss. Her resentment against the thief was primarily because of the dog.
Lepic said, “We draw a picture, then. The thief comes down his rope from the rooftop. He finds the small window unlocked, so he has no need for his invaluable glass cutter. He enters the window. He balances for a moment on the bathtub, leaps soundlessly to the floor, and bends his ear to the two doors, first one, then the other. He hears nothing from mademoiselle’s room, investigates cautiously, and finds it empty. Good. From madame’s room comes the reassuring sound of heavy breathing. Excellent. He—”
“I don’t breathe heavily,” Mrs. Stevens said.
“Everyone breathes heavily when he or she sleeps, madame,” Lepic said. “An experienced thief would not think of entering a room in which someone slept if he could not hear the breathing. So. He enters. He slashes the strap of the jewel case—”
Lepic went to the commode and held up the cut strap. “Why does your jewel case have such a strong lock attached to such a ridiculously fragile strap, madame?”
Mrs. Stevens did not like Lepic’s critical attitude. She said, “I don’t know. Maybe because it was made in Paris instead of New York.”
“Stop it, Mother,” Francie said. “He’s only doing his job.”
Lepic said, “Thank you, mademoiselle. When did you take the jewel case from the hotel safe, madame?”
“When I came in.
“What time was that?”
“About three.”
“Then what?”
“I put my jewels away, locked the case, put the key in my purse, undressed, brushed my teeth, put skin cream on my face, opened the window, took all the blankets off the bed because it was too hot to sleep under anything but a sheet—”
“I am interested only in the essentials. When did you first discover the theft?”
“I didn’t.”
“Who did?”
“My daughter.”
“At what time?”
“I don’t know. Ask her.”
Lepic had made a bad start when he accused Mrs. Stevens of breathing heavily. But he was patient. In time he learned what there was to learn. It was not a great deal.
Mrs. Stevens, as always, had left the jewel case in the hotel safe during the day. She had taken it out before dinner, selected the pieces she intended to wear for the evening, and returned the case to the safe, to reclaim it again when she came in at three o’clock, penniless, defeated by the roulette wheel. She had locked her jewels away, bolted her door, and gone to sleep immediately. She had not wakened until Francie came in and asked for the key to the jewel case. She knew nothing else.
Francie said she had come in about six, and repeated what she had told the police agent. Lepic was not curious about her actions or the actions of Mr. Burns. It was enough for him that they had left the Monte Carlo casino after dawn. He said to Mrs. Stevens, “Your procedure with the jewel case was always the same, madame?”
“It was.”
“So that a thief would have an excellent opportunity to learn your habits simply by observation.”
“I suppose so. If he was sitting in the lobby downstairs whenever I went near the safe.”
The directeur was horrified at the suggestion, but relieved when Lepic asked him only a few questions. By then the fingerprint man had matched all the prints on the commode with Francie’s or Mrs. Stevens’s, and the searcher had found nothing unusual in the suite to report except a stray ten-franc piece under a corner of the carpet. The gestures were finished.
Mr. Paige followed Lepic from the room when he left and stopped him in the hallway.
“I don’t like to question your procedure, Commissioner,” he said diffidently. He was ill at ease, and took his embarrassment out on his mustache points. “But I have to report to my principals. Wasn’t that rather a—ah—cursory investigation of a theft involving twenty million francs?”
“In the case of a theft by Le Chat, it was more than adequate. I know what you are thinking, monsieur. But have investigated half a dozen of Le Chat’s thefts, and waste less and less time, to use your own words, with each. Once the jewels are gone, they are gone. I have learned that he leaves no clues. Fingerprint powder and carpet crawling are as useless against Le Chat as your own hopeful newspaper advertisements. He will not be caught that way.”
“How do you expect to catch him?”
“In my own way. By being cleverer than he is. This latest theft supplies me with an extremely important piece of information about him.”
“What is that?”
“He is here in Cannes.” Lepic smiled and bowed. “Bonjour, monsieur. Reassure your principals that their interests are being protected.”
Mr. Paige frowned at Lepic’s back as the commissaire divisionnaire got into the elevator with his men. A reassurance would not weigh with his principals against a further loss of sixty-one thousand dollars. They were inclined to demand more tangible forms of protection.
Mrs. Stevens did not think much of Lepic’s investigation, either, or of Lepic himself. When they were alone she said to Francie, “I could have done better myself. He didn’t even ask the manager if there were any suspicious characters in the lobby when I came in last night. Why, any American cop—”
“I don’t want to talk about it now, Mother,” Francie said. “I’m terribly tired. I’m going to bed.”
“All right, honey. You do look worn out. How was your party with Mr. Burns?”
“So-so.”
“Win any money?”
“No.”
“I wish I’d given you my lucky dog to wear instead of the beads. I hate losing that dog. I’ll have to borrow Mr. Burns from you and see if he can win me another one. You know, it’s funny about him. He likes to gamble, but I’ve never seen him bet more than a hundred francs on anything. With his luck—”
She stopped, hurt. Francie had gone into her own room and closed the door.
Bellini’s source of information at the Hotel Midi was a switchboard operator, from whom he got the quickest kind of service. He listened to the operator’s report, then put the telephone back in its cradle and wiped moisture from his face and hands. The cubbyhole of an office was like an oven, in spite of open windows. The door, which might have provided a cross draft, was closed, and the key lay on Bellini’s desk. All four men in the room, Le Borgne, Coco, and John as well as Bellini, were sweating.
“Lepic just left the hotel looking pleased with himself,” he said. “He was there less than thirty minutes. He must have found something.”
“There’s never anything to find,” John said.
“Maybe the girl has already talked,” Le Borgne said.
“I don’t think so. She promised me until six o’clock.”
Bellini said, “Are you sure she will really talk then?”
“Unless I produce the dog.”
“Then we will have to produce it, or a duplicate.”
“There isn’t a duplicate. Cartier’s doesn’t turn them out that way. It would have to be made to order.”
“The money itself, then. With a story of some kind.”
“The money wouldn’t satisfy her. It’s become a kind of an issue between us. She said I couldn’t have it, and she thinks I tricked her. I have to give it up to put her back on top again. It’s hard to explain.”
Coco said, “I still say let me conk her. That will save explanations.”
“Keep quiet,” Le Borgne said.
He and Coco had been there when John arrived, reporting to Bellini as they had been told to do. Nothing exceptional had happened during the night. The Souzas had had another screaming match, and the Sanfords had not come in before Le Borgne left his post at dawn. John alone had failed to cover his end. He had an excuse, but it was still a failure.
Le Borgne said, “It was only bad luck. We haven’t finished with him yet. You had better run
while you can, John. Leave the rest of it to us.”
“It’s been too late to run since she found out who I was. I can’t get away.”
Bellini said cheerfully, “The air of pessimism is not natural to you, John. Have you thought of telling her the truth?”
“It’s the only idea I’ve had. I’m trying to think of a better one.”
“It should be enough. She was on your side before. If you can convince her that you don’t have the dog, and that her best chance of recovering it is to cooperate, she should keep quiet.”
“I think she might.”
“What is the objection, then?”
“I just don’t like it. The more she knows, the more hold she has. She’ll have you all on the same leash she has me, if I tell her the truth.”
“So?”
“In the maquis there was a name for a man who identified his friends to save his skin.”
Le Borgne said, “This is not the maquis, and if it were I would still say tell her. It’s your only chance.”
Coco said, “I say hit her on the head, but the next best thing is clearly to talk. If she sells us, we’re all sold sooner or later anyway, unless we catch this pig of a burglar.”
Bellini nodded. “I agree.”
“Just as long as you know,” John said. “I’ll try it if I can’t think of anything else. Whatever happens, keep the traps covered somehow. They may save all our necks.”
“On that subject, I don’t like the gypsy,” Coco said. “He will have to be taken off.”
“Another fight?”
“Not yet, although I almost conked him last night. He smokes on the job, for one thing. He denies it, but I smelled the tobacco. For another thing, he moves around like a cow with two calves. Michel is good enough. The gypsy will never do.”
John said, “Better take him off today, Bellini.”
“What about a replacement?”
“I’ll replace him myself, if I’m still loose tonight. If not, get somebody else tomorrow.”
“If the girl sells you, I’ll conk her for my own satisfaction.” Coco stretched, yawned, and stood up. “Tell her that for me, and that I am expecting you under the bushes at midnight.”
