Dusty Death

by Clifton Robbins

  “The concierge and a young man. They came out of the house soon after I telephoned to you and put a suitcase in the car. The young man got into the driver’s seat, pulled the concierge down beside him—I don’t think she wanted to go—and off they went. I followed them as quickly as possible. I believe the young man thinks I am after him. But that can’t be helped. It’s very difficult to give any other impression up here. Now they look as if they’re off again. What am I to do?”

  “Keep an eye on them as far as you can. Mr. Dawnay and I are coming straight away now.”

  “By the way, I’ve promised my driver an awful lot of money. I couldn’t do anything else, could I?”

  “Of course not. Go ahead now and good luck.”

  He heard the receiver replaced at the other end with a bang and he smiled to himself. Enthusiasm was a great gift and all his voluntary helpers were turning out trumps.

  “Is the car outside?” he asked Dawnay.

  “Of course it is,” was the answer. “All ready for you.”

  “Well, we’re going up the Saléve.”

  “Wherever you like,” answered Dawnay, resignedly. “I’ll have a shot at Mont Blanc, too.”

  “You’ll do nothing of the sort,” said Harrison. “You’re taking me up the Saléve as quickly as you can. Don’t you see, the concierge is up there.”

  “My glory, why didn’t you tell me?” replied Dawnay. “But do you really want me to go with you?”

  “You must,” said Harrison. “First, you can deal with this continental traffic better than I can, and second, we may have to use a certain amount of force.”

  “Why?”

  “Miss Warley says the concierge has been taken up there by a young man. I don’t know who that young man may be, but we shall have to steal the concierge from him, whether he likes it or not, and that may mean a little persuasion.”

  “Right ho,” said Dawnay. “We’d better get off.”

  They dashed out of the League office and into Dawnay’s car, and Harrison was rather amused to see a Swiss policeman eyeing him carefully. He was obviously watching for the sign of the dropped gloves, and Harrison thought gratefully of the efficiency of M. Ringel.

  They were soon out of Geneva and speeding towards the French frontier. Harrison could never conquer his wonder at the nearness of the frontier to the town. He felt that it was rather like being asked to produce one’s passport at Hammersmith Broadway to be allowed to proceed to the inner sanctuary of Ealing or Hounslow. The formalities were, however, very few and they were again soon on their way, rising above Geneva to the heights of that queer tableland whose length seems to dominate that end of the lake. Certainly not a beautiful background and yet with some individuality of its own.

  There were some curious bends in the road which seemed to have no effect on Dawnay’s driving, and Harrison at times thought that the path of detection was strewn with dangers, and those not always created by the person you are trying to detect.

  They were practically in Monnetier, which is well up the Saléve but, of course, not its highest point, when a figure appeared in the middle of the road and waved to them to stop. It was Miss Warley, who seemed even more excited than when she had telephoned.

  “Oh, Mr. Harrison,” she gasped, “I’m so glad you’ve come.”

  “Calm yourself, Miss Warley,” said Harrison. “Everything’s all right, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose so,” she answered. “But somehow I don’t like it. That poor woman’s so terribly frightened.”

  “And the young man?”

  “Tolerably good-looking, but with terrible eyes. But it’s the poor woman I’m worried about. I’m afraid he’s going to do something to her.”

  “What do you mean, Miss Warley?”

  “I don’t know what I mean, Mr. Harrison, but it’s rather getting on my nerves. I’m certain the man knows I followed them.”

  “Well?”

  “I know I’m a bit disjointed but you understand, don’t you? When they arrived here, they went into the hotel and I followed after them. A porter took them upstairs and so I had a chat with the reception clerk and found that they had only taken one room. The man said the woman was his mother and that he had only just brought her up there, but did not intend to stay himself. So I thought you would like me to take the room next to him.”

  “Of course I would,” said Harrison, with a smile.

  “I couldn’t hear anything,” said Miss Warley, with an air of disappointment, “although I glued myself to the wall between. They didn’t seem to talk much. Then they came out of the room, and the woman looked more terrified than ever. Being the worst detective that ever was, I had been fool enough to leave my door open and, as they passed, they looked in. The woman gave me a kind of pleading look, rather like a frightened animal, while the young man looked very fiercely at me. Terrible. Then he seemed to change his mind and went back into the room with the woman, and, I suppose, sent for some lunch. A tray came up soon after, and so I decided to stay up there until something fresh happened. About ten minutes ago they came out again and I followed them downstairs. They walked down one of the side roads and I thought I had better come along and wait for you.”

  “You did quite rightly, Miss Warley,” answered Harrison. “I congratulate you on the way you have acted. You couldn’t have done better.”

  “But the door, Mr. Harrison, why on earth didn’t I close it?”

  “You never know, Miss Warley, but that may have been the best thing that happened. If the man knew he was being followed, it might have meant he had to delay, and would have to take greater precautions than he expected. Still, we’ve got to find them quickly; the woman may be in very great danger. Dawnay, follow Miss Warley’s directions and we’ll drive as near as we can to the road they took.”

  Miss Warley jumped in and directed them to the entrance of the side-road down which she had seen the man and woman disappear.

  “What was their car like?” asked Harrison.

  “A two-seater Hasbeck,” answered Miss Warley.

  “With a dickey?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the suitcase?”

  “I don’t remember seeing them take it out of the car.”

  “It was in the dickey.”

  “Yes. I think so, but I’m certain they didn’t take it into the hotel.”

  “Very well,” said Harrison.

  They all got out of the car and went down the side-road. It soon finished, and they found themselves in a meadow, if such it can be termed, stretching out towards the edge of the face of the Saléve.

  “You two had better wait here while I do some scouting,” said Harrison, as he moved very gently across the meadow.

  They watched his progress as he went cautiously to the edge. They saw him look over and then move quickly back and start retracing his steps.

  “They’re down there together, not very far away,” said Harrison, as he got back to them. “Now we have to plan our campaign. You, Miss Warley, must get down the cliff as far as possible, so that it’s not going to be difficult for you to get back again, and attract the young man’s attention. I don’t care how you do it but you must make it as effective as possible. You have to startle him so much that he is temporarily off his guard. Dawnay and I will then rush down from another direction, grab the good concierge, and I hope, get her to the top before the young man can really interfere. It’s not an easy proposition but it seems the only way to do it.”

  “Is she very heavy?” asked Dawnay.

  “I shouldn’t say she was a light-weight. Still, we shall have to do our best. You thoroughly understand, Miss Warley?”

  “Yes, I was trying to think of something really insulting.”

  “Don’t start until we are all ready to jump. You go straight across and look down and we’ll go a little to the right.”

  The three moved carefully across the rough ground and Miss Warley, looking over the edge, saw the concierge and the young man sitting on a
rough plateau below. The concierge was on the right of the young man and she understood why Harrison had chosen this direction. Looking along she saw that Harrison and Dawnay had also reached the edge, and then the former waved his hand.

  With a terrific shriek she called to the young man, accusing him of white slave traffic in its vilest forms. The young man and the concierge jumped up, both taken very much by surprise. The concierge gave a moan, while the young man looked up at Mona Warley with an evil glare and started demanding an explanation.

  At that moment Harrison and Dawnay slipped down the bank and took a firm grasp of the concierge between them. It was the work of a few seconds. Harrison whispered comfortingly in her ear, asking her to trust him, as the woman was by this time almost paralysed with terror.

  By the time the young man could turn round and properly grasp the state of affairs, so sudden had the movement been, Dawnay was up the bank again and was pulling the concierge’s arms while Harrison was propelling her up in most undignified fashion from behind.

  The young man turned to do battle with Harrison but one look at his face and all life seemed to vanish.

  Mona Warley ran to help Dawnay and very soon the concierge and Harrison were both at the top. Dawnay and Harrison, each taking an arm, dragged rather than led her swiftly to the road and placed her in the car, while Mona Warley, whose fund of spontaneous remarks had been kindled, seemed unable to refrain from hurling a few more piquant suggestions at the young man who was, by this time, up the bank himself and running towards them.

  “Make for the hotel,” shouted Harrison, as Dawnay started the car with tremendous uproar. The car dashed off as the young man just reached the road and, as they forged ahead, the could see him running down the road behind.

  The hotel was not a great distance away and, at the side of the main building, was standing the motor-car which Miss Warley had described. Harrison jumped out beside it and pulled open the dickey. From this he took a suitcase and started rummaging among its contents. Light and flimsy women’s clothes were displayed to the bright sunshine and he callously let them drop into the dickey with no delicacy or sentiment whatever. But his search seemed to be rewarded, for he quickly placed a small object in his pocket and, with a grim look, marched back to Dawnay’s car.

  “Now we can sit quietly and wait for our friend,” said Harrison.

  “Good lord,” said Dawnay.

  “Won’t there be trouble?” asked Mona Warley.

  “I think not,” answered Harrison. “You see we know each other rather well.”

  After a very short while the young man came quickly along the road they had followed. He was not running but was still making a good speed although his breath was obviously becoming very difficult. He came right up and leant on the side of Dawnay’s car.

  Harrison looked serious for a moment and then said solemnly, “I warned you, de Marplay, you know that.”

  “I know you did,” answered Jeanne de Marplay, who did not look unnaturally non-masculine in her young man’s clothes. “But I had to do it. The Baron made me. I didn’t want to.”

  “What were you going to do?” asked Harrison, sternly.

  “You know very well,” she answered with despair, still gasping for breath. “But I had to. I swear I had to. I did mean to get out of Geneva when you told me, but the Baron forced me to do it.”

  Suddenly she noticed the disorder in the back of the car with the ransacked suitcase in an exceedingly dishevelled condition, perched at a perilous angle on the dickey.

  “You didn’t think you’d find anything there, did you?” asked de Marplay.

  “I did,” replied Harrison. “And I have.”

  De Marplay’s eyes almost started out of her head as Harrison put his hand in his pocket and drew out a pot of a well-known brand of face-cream.

  “Give it back to me,” cried de Marplay.

  “It isn’t easy to do anything to you, Jeanne de Marplay,” said Harrison. “And perhaps I have no right to try a bit of punishment of my own. But I still think of that poor man in London and I feel justified. This jar is full, so the other may be empty. I expect this is your supply for a little time to come, and I know you are going to feel the need of it. When you have a craving for drugs remember the man who died from them.”

  A look of horror came over de Marplay’s face. She turned an imploring look to Harrison, so poignant was it that Mona Warley buried her face in her hands and began to cry.

  “Give it back to me,” murmured Jeanne. “Give it back to me.”

  “Impossible,” answered Harrison.

  “You don’t know what it is to be without it,” she cried. “It is worse than hell. Give it back to me if you have any mercy at all.”

  “Drive on, Dawnay,” said Harrison, sternly.

  The car began to move slowly away, leaving Jeanne de Marplay standing in the middle of the road. Suddenly all her energy seemed to flame forth again, and she began running behind it. “Give it back to me,” she called in a low voice as she ran.

  The car drew away and those sitting in it saw her stop exhausted, raising her arms incongruously in her masculine clothes, to heaven, while her shoulders shook with devastating sobs.

  Chapter XX

  The Baron’s Victim

  The occupants of the car went on silently for some minutes. The concierge gradually realised that a miracle had happened and that she was really with friends. She smiled a little nervously and looked at the bright, flushed face of Mona Warley.

  “Where to?” asked Dawnay.

  “Your flat would be the best, I think,” answered Harrison.

  “I shall have to ask the woman a lot of questions, and we can be quiet there.”

  “I should never have thought that was the de Marplay woman,” said Dawnay.

  “You don’t know enough about her,” answered Harrison. “I was not surprised, but I don’t think I was as quick at it as Henry would have been. She frightens Henry and I begin to feel he’s right. She frightens me a bit, too.”

  “Frightens you, Mr. Harrison?” said Mona. “What a queer word.”

  “It’s the only one which really applies, Miss Warley. I don’t like the word ‘soulless’, but really that’s the only one to apply to her. It is difficult to call her evil because I don’t think she has any conception of a distinction between that and what other people regard as the decent things in life. She has no feelings at all—no conception of decency.”

  “It is difficult to believe that, with a face like that—” said Dawnay.

  “That’s the trouble, Dawnay,” answered Harrison. “You’ve seen a fair number of pretty girls in your time, I expect, and yet she impressed you rather powerfully. And when she uses the beauty given her, as an unscrupulous ally, she becomes about four times as dangerous.”

  “You were pretty stern with her just now,” commented Mona Warley, with a somewhat compassionate note in her voice. “Was it necessary? I hope never to have to see again a woman give way as she did when you spoke to her.”

  “I can understand your kind-hearted feelings, Miss Warley,” said Harrison. “But she is only a beautiful woman on the outside—she’s loathsome underneath. You can’t show any sympathy for a thing like that.”

  “I still don’t see it,” said Dawnay.

  “Now, look here, you two, speak your best English so that the concierge doesn’t understand us, and then you shall,” answered Harrison. “Jeanne de Marplay had no objection to committing murder when it suited her purpose.”

  “Murder?” exclaimed Mona Warley.

  “I shouldn’t like to say how many she has actually been responsible for in her time,” said Harrison. “Possibly very few, but when murder was the only way out she would use it without hesitation. Take to-day, for instance.”

  “You don’t mean—” said Dawnay.

  “Now don’t look round at our passenger quite like that, Miss Warley,” said Harrison. “But that’s exactly what I do mean. She was sent up here to get this poor
old soul out of the way and she intended to do it.”

  “Murder her?” whispered Mona Warley, in an awed tone.

  “I’m afraid so,” said Harrison. “And I may add that you probably saved her life. Time was very important to Jeanne de Marplay, and things might have happened much more quickly if she hadn’t realised you were following her. I shouldn’t think she intended even to take a room in the hotel, but she wanted to make certain about you and so she made you take a room, too. Your leaving the door open gave her the chance of complete discovery of you. She knew then that you were on her heels and she had therefore to make a plan to fit the new situation. That’s why I said you probably saved her life.”

  “I am glad,” said Miss Warley. “But what would she have done?”

  “She obviously had lunch to give her time to think things over. Then I should say she took the poor woman out on to the fields and intended to keep her there until it was dark. I don’t think you want any further details, do you?”

  “No,” answered Miss Warley, with a shudder.

  “I assume that she would then have come back and immediately driven off in her car before the hotel people could stop her. The suitcase was there already and she could have got well away before anybody could realise what was happening. It was quite bright to leave the car there, too, because nobody would be at all suspicious so long as that was outside the hotel.”

  “But why dress as a man?” asked Dawnay.

  “It simplifies things. A man can do all sorts of things still that a woman can’t.”

  “But wasn’t it a bit risky?” asked Mona Warley.

  “You mean that she might be recognised as a woman in man’s clothes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you notice anything yourself?” asked Harrison.

  “No,” answered the girl.

  “Did the hotel people notice anything?”

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  “There you are,” said Harrison. “People make such a mistake about women being dressed as men. The think discovery is inevitable through difference of figure and that sort of thing. But it’s only the very feeblest of amateurs give themselves away like that. A girl gets into her brother’s clothes at a party and it’s obvious that she will give herself away. But suppose the clothes have been specially made for her, it’s not so easy. And then suppose she’s a professional rather than an amateur, if I can put it that way, recognition is going to be exceedingly difficult. There must be any number of women walking about in men’s clothes at the present time. You occasionally get an echo of it in a case in the papers. And I expect it was one of Jeanne de Marplay’s tricks of the trade. She did it professionally and was equally at home in both kinds of clothes. I should think she was seen as a man nearly as much as a woman.”