The Monte Cristo Cover-Up

by Johannes Mario Simmel

  quarreling with you. But you'd better realize that it's still my mob and not yours!"

  "I'm sorry, but if that's your attitude we'd better drop the idea altogether."

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "I'm not your employee. We're either equal partners or we're not partners at all."

  She stared at him with half-closed eyes. She murmured something unintelligible. Then she punched his shoulder, mumbling half in vexation and half with delight: "All right then, blast you!" She added immediately: "But don't you go imagining things, see? Thinking I've fallen for you or something like that. That would only make me laugh. All I need is another man I can trust and that's the lot. Get me?"

  "Sure," said Thomas. He blinked facetiously at her. They drank an old brandy each in token of reconciliation.

  After three quarters of an hour Paul and Fred returned. They now looked much more civilized. Over the first course Chantal explained: "Get this, boys. Anyone who says anything against Pierre will have me to deal with, d'you hear?"

  "Hell, Chantal, this is the first time you ever—"

  "Cut that out! Pierre's my partner."

  "Poor kid, you've got it badly, haven't you?" commented the safe-cracker. Next movement he felt a stunning box on the ear. Chantal hissed at him: " Mind your own damn business!"

  "Can't we even talk to you now?" Fred protested.

  "Not if you can't keep a civil tongue in your head." Chantal, obstinate as she was, had already learned something from Thomas. "You'd do better to try and eat decently, you oaf. Manners, man! Look at the bastard cutting up spaghetti with a knife!"

  4r Well, this grub keeps slipping off the fork!"

  "Allow me to give you a. tip," Thomas said amiably. "If you find you can't twist spaghetti round a fork, then just stick your fork into a little of it, take a spoon in your left hand and press the prongs of the fork into the hollow of the spoon. Like this." He demonstrated. "Now turn the fork. See how easy it is?"

  Fred imitated the trick. It worked.

  "Gentlemen," said Thomas. "It will really be necessary for us to go exhaustively into this question of good manners. They are the alpha and omega of any decent swindle. Did you ever see a banker who had bad manners?" My God, thought

  Thomas, I'd better not mention bankers. My bank, my club, my beautiful home, gone, all gone with the wind ...

  MENU

  Spaghetti ^Bolognese

  Cutlets (Robert with Fried (Potatoes

  Sacher ^Torte

  3 JANUARY 1941

  A lesson in gastronomy by Thomas Lieven in preparation for a jewel robbery.

  Spaghetti Bolognese

  Take one pound of spaghetti and one half pound of meat, preferably a mixture of beef, pork and veal. Cut the meat into cubes. Take the same quantity of onions, cut into fine rings, and braise in a little oH or butter. Add the meat, a crushed clove of garlic and some herbs. Fry the mixture well. Add seeded tomatoes or tomato puree. Let the whole simmer on a very low flame until a sauce is formed. The spaghetti should be boiled, but not too soft, in salt water, then rinsed in cold water and, when dry, mixed with the well-seasoned sauce. Grated Parmesan cheese is served with this dish.

  Cutlets Robert

  Take medium thick pork chops, cut in the rind and beat lightly. Place, without adding any fat, in a thick, previously well-heated frying pan. Brown the chops for three minutes on each side, salt and pepper them, add a large piece of butter to the pan and leave them to fry for a further minute on each side. Remove cutlets and place them on a warm dish. Meanwhile mix equal quantities of red wine and sour cream with a tablespoonful of mustard. Pour this into the pan and cook fast till boiling. Then pour this sauce over the cutlets and serve immediately with fried potatoes.

  Fried Potatoes

  Peeled potatoes are cut into finger-thick chips, washed and

  well dried in a cloth. Then fry small quantities in a large pan with hot lard or oil. As soon as they begin to color remove them and place them on a sieve, where they are left to drain and cool. Shortly before serving, the fat must be reheated and the chips once more fried until they are golden-yellow. They are then placed on blotting paper to dry off and sprinkled with salt. They are then ready for serving.

  Sacher Torte

  Take half a cup of butter, stir until foamy. Add three quarters of a cup of sugar, one and a half cups of sieved flour, five yolks, a little vanilla and three quarters of a cup (6 ounces) of melted chocolate.

  Mix all well, add the beaten whites of the five eggs, place mixture in a cake tin and bake in medium heat for half an hour. For icing use half a cup of melted chocolate, one and a quarter cups of confectioners' sugar and two tablespoonfuls of hot water. Mix well over heat. Spread apricot jam on the cake and cover it with the icing, replacing it in the oven for one or two minutes to harden. The cake must be well cooled before serving.

  "Yes, good manners are the thing now," said Chantal imperiously. "The wind's blowing from quite another quarter these days, d'you hear? My partner and I have talked it all over. We're going to nobble the boodle ... I mean, our operations will not now be directed, against just anybody . . ."

  "Against whom, then?"

  "Against any swine who deserve it. Nazis, collaborators, secret agents, anyone like that. And for a start we're going after that skunk Pissoladi&re ..." She stopped speaking as Olive, the stout proprietor of Chez Papa, personally brought in the main course.

  Olive, who admired Thomas for his culinary art, gave him a broad smile. "I dipped the fried potatoes in the oil twice, of course, M. Pierre!"

  "I never thought you would do otherwise," said Thomas cordially. He was thinking, Good heavens, how fond I'm getting of this underworld. How's it all going to end, if it begins like this?

  He distributed the cutlets, but immediately raised his eyebrows. "M. de la Rue, please don't use your pastry fork."

  "How the hell am I to find my way about all this hardware?"

  "As to hardware, gentlemen," said Thomas, "you must always work from outside to in. The cutlery you need for the last course is put nearest your plate."

  "I'd like to see the coal cellar in which you were brought up," said Chantal scornfully. She turned, in a most ladylike manner, to Thomas. "Please go on, dear."

  "Gentlemen, in pursuance of our altered regulations we have, as has just been announced, got our peepers on, I mean we have in view, the jeweler already mentioned, who's quite a nasty bit of work—M. Meyer, it just isn't done to pick up your cutlet in your hands and gnaw the bones—now where was I?"

  "Pissoladfere," Chantal prompted him. She was now watching Thomas most affectionately. Sometimes she loved, sometimes she hated him. Her feelings changed so abruptly that she hardly knew herself any more. But she did know for certain that she wouldn't want to live without that wretch, that beast . . .

  "Pissoladi&re, yes, that's right." Thomas described the jeweler's base character. Then he continued: "I hate violence. I detest bloodshed. Breaking in through the ceiling, attacks with leveled revolvers and so on are therefore not to be considered for a moment. Believe me, gentlemen, modern times require modern methods. Only the imaginative will survive. There's simply too much competition in the old fields. M. de la Rue, one doesn't handle fried potatoes. One uses a fork."

  Fred Meyer demanded: "How are we going to get the loot out of Pissoladiere then?"

  "With two umbrellas."

  Olive brought in the last course.

  "I should like you gentlemen to get into the habit at once," said Thomas, "of eating pastry with your small forks, not with your spoons."

  Chantal said: "You two will have to put in some real hard studying in the next few days. No boozing and loafing and womanizing, do you hear?"

  "But, damn, it, Chantal, now we've managed to get to Marseilles at last—"

  "Business before pleasure, my friends," said Thomas. "You'll have to learn how gentlemen dress, walk, stand and speak. And if possible drop your accents. Youll have to learn too how to make artic
les disappear unobtrusively."

  "It won't be as easy as lapping up honey, I can tell you that," Chantal declared. "You'll be at the disposal of my partner from morning till night"

  "But not during the night itself," said Thomas. He kissed her hand. She instantly turned crimson, lost her temper and aimed a blow at him. "Don't go on like that in front of other people, man! I can't bear that damned hand-kissing!" The bitch in Chantal had flared up again.

  [14]

  Things really happened very fast after that

  The jeweler produced a number of watch straps for Fred Meyer at the lower end of the counter. At the top end Paul de la Rue was bending over the nine sparkling diamond bracelets. Beside him hung the two umbrellas.

  His next movement had been practiced for hours under the supervision of Thomas Lieven. He picked up, without a sound the bracelet priced at three million francs, leaned forward and dropped it, just as noiselessly, into the slightly open umbrella of his friend Meyer. Its ribs had of course been previously enveloped in cotton wool. Then he took two more diamond bracelets and disposed of them in the same way.

  He then walked a considerable distance away from the umbrellas, right to the end of the shop, where some gold bangles were on view. Paul de la Rue examined them with admiration, while he stroked his recently groomed hair with his right hand.

  On this already agreed signal Fred Meyer decided quite suddenly to purchase a watch strap priced at 240 francs. He paid for it with a five-thousand-franc note.

  Pissoladiere stepped to the cash register. He booked the transaction, obtained Meyer's change and called across to Paul de la Rue: "I'm free to attend to you now, monsieur."

  The jeweler handed the watch-strap purchaser his change. The latter picked up his umbrella and left the shop. If Pissoladiere had gone to the door with him he would have noticed that this customer, though it was raining hard, did not open his umbrella. Not just then at any rate ...

  The jeweler hurried back to wait on his aristocratic client "And now, monsieur," he began. But he did not finish the sentence. He had seen at a glance that three of the most valuable bracelets were missing.

  Pissoladiere at first believed that his customer had abstracted them as a joke. He knew that degenerate aristocrats occasionally went in for weird hoaxes of this sort. He smiled wryly at Paul de la Rue and said with a chuckle: "You gave me quite a shock then, monsieur!"

  Thomas Lieven's excellent training enabled Paul to raise his eyebrows quite inimitably as he answered: "Eh, what's that? You don't feel well?"

  "I didn't say so, monsieur. And I think this joke has gone far enough. Please put those three bracelets back on the tray."

  "Eh? Not drunk, are you? Are you implying that Fve got those three ... ah, yes, I see. What on earth's happened to those most remarkable ..."

  Pissoladiere turned purple. He exclaimed shrilly: "Now then, sir! If you don't instantly put those bracelets back here on the counter, I shall have to call the police!"

  Thereupon Paul de la Rue bungled his part slightly. He began to laugh.

  His laughter deprived the jeweler of the last traces of his self-cohtrol. He pressed the button under the counter which set off the burglar alarm. Heavy iron shutters came rattling down in front of the showcases, the street door and the back exit.

  A big pistol suddenly appeared in Marius Pissoladiere's hand. He screeched: "Hands up! Don't move ... keep still!"

  Paul de la Rue, obediently raising his hands, drawled negligently: "You poor silly fool! You're going to regret this."

  The flying squad arrived shortly afterward.

  Paul de la Rue, with the utmost coolness, handed them a French passport made out in the name of Ren6, Vicomte de Toussant, of the Bois de Boulogne, Paris. It was a flawlessly forged document, the work of the best experts in the Old Quarter. All the same, the detectives stripped Paul de la Rue to the skin, went through all his pockets and undid the lining of his overcoat.

  All in vain. Nothing came to light. Not a single diamond, not a single fragment of the three missing bracelets.

  The police asked the Vicomte to prove that he had been in a position to pay out three million francs.

  The accused man smilingly requested them to ring up the manager of the Hotel Bristol. The manager declared that the Vicomte had deposited a sum of six million francs in the hotel safe. This was a master stroke. Paul de la Rue had of course

  really put up at the Bristol and deposited six millions of the gang's capital.

  The detectives became noticeably more polite.

  But they put through a trunk call to the Paris police, who confirmed that a certain Rene, Vicomte de Toussant, in fact resided in the Bois de Boulogne, that he was very wealthy, hand in glove with the Nazis and the Vichy Government, and for the time being absent from Paris, probably in southern France. Thereupon the flying squad released the accused man with many apologies.

  Marius Pissoladiere, in a state of utter collapse and white to the lips, also stammered out his profound regrets.

  The unobtrusive watch-strap purchaser, of whom Pissoladiere could only give a very vague description, could not be traced.

  The whole transaction had been foreseen by Thomas Lieven when he picked out Paul de la Rue on account of his appearance and had a passport forged in the name of the Vicomte. The Perpignan Messenger of January 2, 1941, had also been useful. For under the heading. "Rural Notes'* Thomas had seen a photograph of the Nazi-loving aristocrat with the caption: "Rene Vicomte de Toussant, the Paris industrialist, has arrived to take the waters at the picturesque village of Font Romeu at the foot of the Pyrenees."

  The umbrella trick could not of course be repeated in Marseilles. That sort of thing gets talked about sooner or later. But it could be played in Bordeaux, Toulouse, Montpellier, Avignon and Beziers. During the next few weeks jewelers and dealers in antiques in those towns had melancholy and financially disastrous experiences with gentlemen carrying umbrellas. But oddly enough the victims were invariably persons of the same kind of reprehensible and stingy mentality as Marius Pissoladiere.

  As already noted, this was the feature that all these proceedings had in common. No one could feel sorry for those who suffered from them. On the contrary rumors soon began to go round southern France that a sort of super Robin Hood was operating in secret in that part of the world.

  Through a certain chain of events with which Thomas Lieven was not altogether unconcerned the police were set off on a false scent. They had come to the conclusion that those responsible for the impudent jewel robberies were to be found in the ranks of "Baldy's" gang.

  One of the oldest of the Marseilles criminal establishments

  was controlled by a certain Dantes Villeforte, a Corsican who for obvious reasons was known as Baldy.

  When the transport of refugees to Portugal was organized Villeforte and his mob were in on the racket. But Chantal's activities in this direction suddenly started on a colossal scale. Her operations, moreover, defied all the recognized regulations. She acted in accordance with a motto which had quite wrongly fallen into disuse: low prices, big turnover, good profit. Sometimes her slogan was even: escape now, pay later.

  It was intelligible that Baldy's temper did not improve when he found that Chantal was completely ruining his racket. For the vast majority of potential clients were now applying to her, while he could book hardly anyone.

  One day someone told him that all these innovations were due to the farsightedness and intelligence of Chantal's lover, in whom she had the fullest confidence. He was alleged to be the brain of her gang and a first-rate brain too, apparently.

  Baldy resolved to take a certain amount of interest in this fellow.

  [15]

  In July 1942 he called a plenary session of his gang at No. 4 in the rue Mazenod, where he lived.

  "I've had enough now, boys," he said. "That gang of Chantal's sticks in my throat She was always a bit of a pest when she was alone. She played us up and did us down over and over again. But now, with
that blasted Pierre or whatever his name is behind her, it's past a joke."

  Murmurs of approval greeted this exordium.

  "What I say is, we could come to terms easily enough with Chantal. She's not too bad to deal with. Now, I hear that she's fallen for this character Pierre. How could we best give her a hell of a big jolt?"

  "We could rub her sweetie out," said one of the men.

  "You crazy?" Villeforte shouted at him. "Rubbing out's all some of you prize idiots can think of. What's the good of our being in with the Gestapo if we don't take advantage of it? I've found out that the beggar calls himself Hunebelle among other things. And the Gestapo is looking for someone called Hunebelle. We can all line our pockets if we ... don't have to say any more, do I?"

  He didn't have to say any more.

  In the evening of September 17, 1942, a thunderstorm burst

  over Marseilles. Chantal and Thomas had meant to go to the movies. But in view of the weather they decided to stay at home.

  They drank calvados and played gramophone records. Chantal was in a most unusually soft, sentimental and submissive mood.

  "It's amazing how you've changed me," she whispered. "I can hardly recognize myself sometimes."

  "Chantal," said Thomas. "We'll have to get out of here. I've had bad news. Marseilles is no longer safe from the Germans."

  "Let's go to Switzerland, then," she suggested. "We've got enough money over there to live on. We'll have a wonderful time."

  "Yes, my sweet," said he, giving her a kiss.

  She murmured with tears in her eyes: "Oh, darling, I've never been so happy as now. It can't last forever, nothing does. But just for a while, just for a little while ..."

  Later on she suddenly felt she would like some grapes.

  "Well, the shops are closed now," Thomas said. "But I may be able to get some at the station."

  He stood up and put on his overcoat. "Oh, but it's crazy to go out in this weather," she protested.

  "Not at all. You've got to have your grapes. Just because you love grapes and just because I love you."

  Tears came into her eyes again. She struck herself on the knee with her little fist and swore. "Damn this bloody nonsense, it's too silly! Here I am crying because I love you so . . ."