Death of an Airman

by Christopher St. John Sprigg

  “That’s the story I heard over in England,” admitted Bray. “It is self-evident he was rich to have bought it, and as even to-day Americans are often rich, it doesn’t really help us much.”

  “Not necessarily rich,” qualified Durand. “The control of the Gazette is vested in a fairly small compagnie anonyme, but the bulk of the capital was provided by debentures. Roget has only bought the compagnie, which might not have been expensive. In any case, French newspapers are on a much smaller scale than yours, with their fabulous circulations and insurance against twins. Besides, although the Gazette has been established so long, it is one of the smallest Parisian dailies.”

  “We’re up against another mystery here, then. Bit curious, isn’t it?”

  Durand smiled. “Perhaps—perhaps not. There are many mysteries in Parisian journalism. But it does not follow that they are concerned with the drug traffic.”

  “Now, look here, Durand, I suppose you are on friendly terms with the members of the Press?”

  “Profoundly so.”

  “Can you give me an introduction to some journalist who knows most of them? I leave it to you whether you introduce me to him as an English journalist—a part I could, I think, sustain with a foreigner—or whether you tell this man the truth, but to the staff of the Gazette I certainly wish to appear as a journalist.”

  “I understand. I know the very man—André Clair. I will tell him the truth—it is better—and he will help you more.”

  André Clair, a lean, fragile-looking exquisite, with a gay wit, proved more than helpful. Bray explained that he was particularly anxious to meet the man who looked after the suspect column in La Gazette. Clair decided that would be, unquestionably, Molineux, the social editor, for the column, as could be seen, was mainly social and personal news. Molineux was often to be found at the Café Hongrois. Clair would take Bray, and if Molineux was there the introduction could be effected as by chance. The rest he would leave to Bray.

  Clair seemed thoroughly to enjoy the whole affair, and his start of surprise on seeing Molineux was almost too good to be true, as was his little panegyric on the virtues of his confrère, Bernard Bray.

  Bray’s French, though sound, was not really good enough to join in the pleasant badinage which Clair was gaily exchanging with Molineux, studded as it was with political personages referred to only by their nicknames. Instead, he devoted himself to studying Molineux, who was a tall, gaunt-featured, fair-haired Norman type. Of course, the physiognomy of a foreigner is always difficult to read, but Molineux did not look anything of a criminal. On the contrary.

  Bray’s chance ultimately came when Molineux was chaffing Clair about some mis-statement in his dramatic criticism. Bray joined in, as light-heartedly as his French permitted.

  “Even La Gazette Quotidienne is not always impeccable. I noticed in mine, as I came over three days ago, that the Crown Prince of Kossovia was to open a cycling championship to-morrow, but he has the ill grace to decide to stay in South America.”

  Molineux laughed. “I absolutely refuse responsibility.”

  “Come, come, Jules,” said Clair, taking the cue, “you can’t. I know that column is under your care because you have been so truly kind as to publish in it little paragraphs about an actress friend from time to time.”

  “And this is the thanks I get!” smiled Molineux. “But it is true. You see, I have a proprietor with queer whims. He sends me little batches of paragraphs—about his friends, no doubt, or people he hopes to make his friends—and all these have to go in, at the top of the column. And who is better entitled to dictate such matters than the proprietor?”

  “But at least one corrects the proprietor’s errors,” suggested Bray. “Or can he do no wrong?”

  “That is the drollest part of it. Once he stated that some tiresome woman, the Hereditary Duchess of Georgina, I fancy, was to do something on a date I knew to be wrong. I altered it to the right one. My God, the trouble that caused, the panic, in fact! I have never heard such language as Maître Roget used to me—passed on, it seems, as it came hot from the proprietor on the London-Paris telephone. Since then those paragraphs go in without query.”

  “An odd fish, your proprietor,” said Bray. “What is he like?”

  “I haven’t the remotest idea,” said Molineux carelessly. “He is almost a legend. He is always on the point of coming to the office to visit the staff, but he never does. He is a rich American, we are told, but who he is and what is his name are matters I am as ignorant of as you.”

  After he had finished his déjeuner and bade farewell to the two journalists, Bray went for a leisurely stroll in the Bois de Boulogne to think. He was baffled by what he had heard. Assuming Molineux spoke the truth, it was not a case of a member of the staff being tampered with from the outside. On the contrary, the responsibility for that receded to the proprietorship itself. Some colour at least was lent to this by the fact that the proprietor was unknown even to the Sûreté, and had taken careful precautions to remain in the background. The rich American sounded a myth. He was the sort of person to whom eccentricities might be more safely attributed in Paris. But then why this fantastically complex and expensive machinery to publish a message which could have been put in The Times for fifteen shillings? And why, and how, suborn a Parisian notaire with a reputation?

  Of course, Molineux might have been lying. He might have suspected Bray, even known his name as a detective, though that was extremely unlikely. If he had, however, it would be plausible that he had tried to clear himself by throwing the blame on an innocent but obscure proprietor. Yet Bray hardly believed that. The explanation had come so simply and instantaneously, without a change in tone or expression.

  After all, now he came to think it over, perhaps the new explanation was not so fantastic. For while it was extraordinary to imagine that a dope organization should have gone to the trouble of tampering with the staff of a French newspaper merely to send messages to English customers, it was more understandable if in some way the proprietorship was already mixed up in the game. But how?

  It was a lovely day and the air of Paris was going to Bray’s head. He was beginning to feel dangerously untrammelled of the official restrictions which sat so heavily upon him in England. He therefore decided on a step he would never have dared to take in London. He decided to interview Roget under an assumed personality.

  The lawyer’s name was, he found, in the telephone directory, and he presented himself with assurance. To the clerk who interviewed him in the ante-room of the suite of offices occupied by the notaire he said curtly: “I come on business connected with the Crown Prince of Kossovia. That should be sufficient for your master.”

  It was. It secured him instant admission to a puzzled little man with the lined forehead and lips of the lawyer, a physiognomy that transcends national boundaries.

  “To what can I attribute the honour of this visit? Are you a member of His Royal Highness’s suite?”

  Bray nodded. When it was necessary to depart from the way of honesty, he still believed in telling as much of the truth as was practicable, and he now said: “I am an enquiry agent. I have been in the British Police Force. My name is Bray—Bernard Bray.”

  “None is finer than the British Police Force,” said Maître Roget pleasantly.

  Bray bowed. “Thank you. I came primarily about this.” He produced from a wallet the Gazette cutting relating to the Crown Prince’s activities. “You will see it states here that His Royal Highness is to open a cycling championship to-morrow. He is, however, in South America, and it is plainly impossible for him to do so.”

  Roget looked suitably apologetic after glancing at the cutting. “I am very distressed by this error. As you will appreciate, these mistakes will occur with all newspapers. If you will have the goodness to communicate with the editor-in-chief, the mistake will be rectified in to-morrow’s issue.”

 
Bray bowed again. “If that were the only purpose of my visit, the task would have been carried out by one of the Prince’s equerries. No, monsieur, the matter is serious.” Bray lowered his voice. “You will appreciate that an announcement of this nature, which will induce many people to expect the Prince, but without success, may compromise his popularity in this country.”

  “Surely not!” smiled Roget.

  “But yes. His advisers cannot help supposing some malicious influence is at work here.”

  The lawyer looked genuinely startled. “Monsieur! A journalist’s error! Surely you are taking too grave a view?”

  “Not without reason, I assure you. Preliminary investigation has convinced me that the paragraph was not written in your office, but came from your proprietor.”

  Maître Roget smiled weakly. “My compliments to the British Police Force. You are very acute. It may be the source of the paragraph, although I was not aware of it. But I assure you there is no element of malice.”

  “Who is your proprietor?” pressed Bray.

  The lawyer’s lips closed firmly. “I regret to say that I cannot communicate the name of my client without permission.”

  Bray managed an expressive shrug. “It is very strange. The Prince’s advisers will hardly be satisfied.”

  “I am desolated, monsieur. But the mistake was made in all innocence, I assure you. May I suggest that a statement to the effect that the Crown Prince is still in South America, despite erroneous rumours to the contrary, should be inserted in our next issue? Perhaps even a column article on the Crown Prince, appreciative in tone? The Prince’s Press agent could write what he liked.”

  Bray felt he was getting no further. In spite of his preconceived ideas, he was impressed by Roget, who showed every sign of being what he purported and was reputed to be, a lawyer of good reputation and practice. Moreover, it was quite plain that Roget’s client, if such a person existed, had been absolute in his demands for secrecy. If, on the other hand, his client was a myth, then Roget would be even less informative.

  “Naturally, such an amende honorable would be a token of good faith,” answered Bray cautiously.

  “I will ensure it this instant,” exclaimed the lawyer, brightening, and went into the outer office.

  Bray glanced idly about him, and fell to looking closely at the papers on Roget’s desk. One in particular caught his eye—a letter from England sent by air mail and marked “Urgent.” He hesitated a moment. A fatal moment, for at the end of it he swept the letter into his pocket with hardly a protest from his conscience.

  Shortly afterwards Roget returned. “I have seen to that. Express my extreme regrets to the Prince’s secretary. Ah, monsieur, as you say in your own idiom, ‘it is not all jam’ being responsible for the conduct of a newspaper. None of my other trusts gives me one-tenth the trouble.”

  With a rather guilty feeling as his conscience stirred, Bray returned to his room in M. Durand’s flat and carefully opened the letter. Inside it was an enclosure, addressed to “M. Maurice Grandet, The Foreign Publisher, La Gazette Quotidienne. (Private and Personal.)”

  The enclosure, which was heavily sealed, was accompanied by a letter. It was in English, and read:

  101, Banchurch Street,

  London, E.C.4.

  Dear M. Roget,

  Please see that these instructions are delivered into M. Grandet’s hands this afternoon in the usual way.

  Yours sincerely,

  Theodosius Vandyke.

  Bray made a note of the address, which looked like that of an office in the City, and then proceeded, with the same regrettable lack of compunction, to lift the seal of the enclosure with a hot knife. The message he read was brief enough.

  The next consignment to be on Friday.

  The Chief.

  Before he went down to dinner he strolled out to a newsagent and arranged for a copy of La Gazette Quotidienne to be delivered to him next morning. He then retired to his room and began to think hard. “Consignment” irresistibly suggested the drug he was searching for. But how could it be despatched when he had already ascertained the impossibility of doing this? Perhaps some other method of distribution was used. At least, it seemed that Roget was the channel of some mysterious communication between the paper and some persons unknown, and that the proprietor was not a myth. Who, then, was Theodosius Vandyke? Was it a nom de guerre? Or was he the proprietor, or the man’s secretary? And was “The Chief” the same person? Or was he yet another member of the organization? And did his pseudonym mean that he was the head of the organization?

  He examined the curious paper on which the inner message was written. It was an orange-coloured paper, and when Bray held it up to the light he noted an elaborate watermark which could hardly be the makers’ trademark, and suggested to him that it might be a kind of guarantee of the authenticity of an important message and therefore known to all members of the organization. The letter to Roget, which was typewritten on ordinary business paper, was of little use, but he wrote out at once a telegram to his assistant, Sergeant Finch:

  Make enquiries about occupation age address past history nationality Theodosius Vandyke 101 Banchurch Street E.C.4.—Bray.

  Bray opened his paper eagerly next morning, and at the top of the now familiar column he saw, with a quickening of interest, that H.R.H. Prince Francis of Dayreuth was leaving Cannes on Friday.

  Durand teased him with his preoccupation at breakfast, and Bray looked grave.

  “The fact of the matter is, Durand, that I ought to be moving from here.”

  “My dear friend!” said the Frenchman reproachfully.

  “Yes, indeed, sad as it will be for me. But my presence may well be embarrassing. I have committed one illegal action in this pleasant city of yours, and I am turning over in my mind more illegal ones. It would be annoying if there were complaints made and it turned out that the person complained about was the guest of that shining light of the Sûreté, M. Durand!”

  Durand laughed. “Yes, it might be awkward. But perhaps it can be avoided. What is your problem?”

  Bray told him.

  The Frenchman did not seem at all perturbed by the theft of the letter from Roget’s desk. “A bagatelle. But what were you proposing to do with the letter afterwards?”

  “I was thinking of restoring it, sealed up again, of course. I could visit Roget on the pretext of expressing the satisfaction of the Crown Prince’s aide, and leave the letter behind then. It is obviously important that it gets to its destination, so that no suspicions are aroused.”

  “And what further crimes did you contemplate?” asked Durand.

  “I had in mind to break into this precious publishing office somehow and try to find the stuff on the premises. Obviously Grandet, whoever he is, is in the thick of the business.”

  “But I do not see why we of the Sûreté should not get a search warrant ourselves, on information received from you.”

  Bray looked a little embarrassed. “It is very kind of you, Durand, but that is just what I don’t want. To be perfectly frank, the English end is the only one I’m interested in. It won’t help me if we break up the French organization and leave the English end intact. I can follow this dope from France to England if the French group is left undisturbed. But first I must get some assurance that it really is here, and some inkling how it gets through to England.”

  Durand thought for a moment, the play of his famous brain almost visible on his delicate features. Then he smiled. “I have it, my dear Bray, to perfection! A scheme that needs finesse, courage, and tact, but you have all of these. Listen!”

  Bray listened and was enchanted.

  ***

  Bray, looking a little slovenly in old flannel trousers and a tweed jacket, was soon directed to the publishing office of the Gazette. This, it appeared, was separate from the editorial offices. He went up to the trade cou
nter and asked boldly for Grandet.

  The office boy told him confidently that M. Grandet was not accessible to strangers, but Bray sent in a message that he, Robinson, had a letter from England which could only be delivered personally into Grandet’s own hands. The office boy presently returned to take him to Grandet. This meant climbing several stairs and walking down a long corridor, through a door marked “Abonnements Étrangers,” and into a dusty little office.

  Grandet was an impressive individual at first sight, with a broad white face and a mane of silver hair that gave him a leonine aspect. Close inspection revealed very thin lips, a weak chin and the pinched, decided nose of the selfish egoist. Bray placed him as the first really criminal-looking type he had struck in his efforts to establish a dope organization in connection with La Gazette Quotidienne.

  Grandet looked at him with close attention, and then took the envelope Bray offered him, which had been the enclosure in the letter to Roget.

  He examined the seal carefully, and this for a moment made Bray anxious, but he felt sure that his and Durand’s joint efforts in this respect had been good. Grandet, too, seemed to be satisfied and tore open the envelope without remark.

  Between them, Durand and Bray had altered “The Chief’s” laconic message. Plenty of room had been left between the signature and the message, and it had thus been possible to add a few words with a typewriter of similar make and ribbon colour. Scrutiny with a lens would reveal a difference in alignment, but it was permissible to suppose that Grandet would not carry suspicion to that length. The message now read:

  The next consignment to be on Friday. Robinson, the bearer of this note, is to travel with it. He knows everything and can be trusted.

  The Chief.

  Grandet read the note and then opened a drawer and removed from it a sheet of orange-coloured paper, identical in appearance to that which bore “The Chief’s” message. He held the two sheets of paper to the light, one on top of the other, evidently to confirm the perfect register of the watermarks. This proved the accuracy of Bray’s guess that the watermark was a kind of guarantee of authenticity.