Dusty Death

by Clifton Robbins

  “Thank you, Baron.”

  “And really why you should have to go smashing furniture.” The Baron pointed to the broken glass of the bookcase. “I should have thought that was hardly necessary. If you had wanted to see one of the books surely you could have asked me.”

  “I never thought of it, Baron,” said Harrison, noticing that nothing in the room had been altered and realising that the Baron must be contemplating a fairly speedy departure.

  “You said a minute ago,” continued Harrison, “that you could not give long to our interview and yet, if you will excuse my saying so, you are wasting time taunting me with my mistakes. I’ve bungled my job, let’s admit all that and get down to business.”

  “Really, Mr. Harrison, you are to be congratulated on keeping so cool.”

  “I don’t want to be congratulated, thank you.”

  “But you surely must realise what is going to happen to you?”

  “I think I do,” answered Harrison, looking the Baron straight in the eyes. “But I imagine you want to talk to me first. I know too much.”

  “Far too much.”

  “How do you know that, Baron?”

  “Very good,” answered the Baron. “You appreciate why I want to talk to you. I want you to tell me how much you know. It would be rather useless to refuse.”

  “I shouldn’t think of doing so,” said Harrison, pleasantly.

  “What an opponent,” said the Baron to the world at large. “If only you had been one of us.”

  “I prefer not to consider the possibility,” replied Harrison. “Now what do you want to know?”

  “Everything,” said the Baron. “And as shortly as possible.”

  “First then,” said Harrison, “about Jeanne de Marplay.”

  “No need,” said the Baron. “I know all about her.”

  “I don’t think you do,” answered Harrison, “unless you’ve heard of her since she went up the Saléve.”

  The Baron started.

  “Obviously you haven’t,” said Harrison, placidly. “I saw her myself at Monnetier.”

  “You saw her?” said the Baron.

  “Yes, I even took away her drugs from her.”

  “But she hadn’t any,” exclaimed the Baron.

  “It was one of the pots she so foolishly placed in my luggage,” explained Harrison.

  “That woman,” said the Baron, angrily. “You can’t trust any of them. She swore she only brought one pot into Geneva and handed it over to me. Then she goes smuggling independently.”

  “So she deceived you, Baron?”

  “Women are all like that,” answered the Baron. “And yet we have to have them in our business and Jeanne de Marplay was the coolest of them all. She got a bit worried about your activities, Mr. Harrison, but women get panicky—even Jeanne—sometimes. But what of the—” the Baron asked anxiously.

  “The concierge, Baron?”

  The Baron looked maliciously at Harrison.

  “I took her away from Jeanne de Marplay as well,” said Harrison.

  “Then you do know far too much,” answered the Baron.

  “Not enough, even then,” was the calm retort.

  “Don’t you think you were rather foolish to let me know this,” said the Baron. “I might have been able to do something for you if you hadn’t told me that but now I must tell you, quite candidly, there is no hope whatever.”

  “But you asked me to tell you everything,” said Harrison gently.

  “Mr. Harrison,” said the Baron, viciously, “you may be pretending to seem cool or you may really be so but, much as I respect you, may I suggest that you do not realise the gravity of your position?”

  “I’m afraid you’re talking as if you were dictating an article on the European situation for one of your many newspapers,” answered Harrison. “I want your mercy. I don’t want your pity. I’m telling you what I know and it would be some small satisfaction to know that my information was right before I am disposed of. That, I presume, being your intention?”

  “I’m afraid so,” said the Baron. “You’re an amazing man, Mr. Harrison, but if that is any satisfaction to you, I am certainly ready to give it.”

  “Excellent,” replied Harrison, taking a good pull at his cigar. “Now let me tell you the story, as far as I know it, and correct me if I am wrong.”

  “Very well.”

  “Don’t worry about small details. They don’t matter. But if I go right off the lines stop me. First of all, there has been a great deal of leakage about the organisation of the drug traffic during the past year.”

  “Yes.”

  “Not, of course, the leakages you arranged for the police, Baron, which was very clever of you, but serious leakages which seemed to be a menace to the whole carrying-on of the traffic. There seemed to be traitors in the camp. Everyone became suspicious of everyone else and yet you could not put your finger on the man—or woman—responsible.”

  “Quite true,” said the Baron.

  “You investigated every possible quarter—your resources in money made it possible for you to spend it freely in so doing and finally you came to the conclusion that you would have to watch very carefully the movements of a certain Gilbert Twining.”

  The Baron nodded.

  “You watched Gilbert Twining at the League office and you discovered that his visits always coincided with some fresh development against your drug trade. Your spies discovered that he stayed in a flat in Geneva where a man named Dawnay lived but you could never trace his arrival or departure in the town. He seemed to appear in the League office one day and disappear another day, almost out of the air, and it puzzled you.”

  “It was a great problem,” said the Baron.

  “Yes. Gilbert Twining was tricking you all the time and you could not see how it was done. It was not safe to get rid of him because you did not know enough of his movements and he might have left so much incriminating matter about, that life might have become unpleasant for you. And also, at that time, Twining did not connect you personally with the drug traffic. That is so, isn’t it?”

  “Perfectly right, up to now,” said the Baron.

  “You tried every way of stopping Twining’s activities, for you have a large circle of influential friends, Baron, but he was working, so to speak, behind a thick curtain and you could never really find out what he was up to. Still the leakages continued, getting worse and worse and it was obvious that, somehow or other, Twining was getting more and more confidential information about your business. He must have talked with many of your most trusted agents without their suspecting it, Baron, until you discovered that not only had Twining found out something that might wreck the whole thing but also that he suspected you personally.”

  “He did,” answered the Baron.

  “My story is correct so far then,” said Harrison. “That being so, it was necessary to take drastic measures. Twining had to be got out of the way, but how? An ordinary murder was unthinkable and yet the world was not safe while Twining and you were both in it.”

  “Twining knew his danger, too. He knew one of us had to go.”

  “Yes, but Twining wasn’t proposing to murder you.”

  “Discovery would have been quite as bad.”

  “Hardly,” answered Harrison. “But, of course, my sympathies are naturally with Twining.”

  “Like you he knew too much.”

  “True,” said Harrison. “That seems to be the only end for people who know too much. Somehow, and this I don’t know, you discovered that Twining assumed a disguise when he went in and out of Geneva and you found out what that disguise was. And then you laid your plans.”

  “One might have said we were rather lucky at that point,” said the Baron, reflectively. “Although, of course, out plans had been carefully laid.”

  “If it is not showing too much curiosity,” said Harrison, “I should like that gap filled in.”

  “Certainly,” answered the Baron. “You have told your story s
o well so far that I think you deserve it.” Harrison noticed that the Baron was obviously listening for any sound outside. “It is, of course, a matter of time. You see, Mr. Harrison, I am expecting you to make a journey with me and, when the conveyance does come, we really mustn’t keep it waiting. Still we can continue this very interesting conversation until we are forced by other circumstances to stop it.”

  “Quite,” replied Harrison.

  “One of my best men had picked up the trail of Twining on his way to Geneva,” said the Baron. “He was in the Paris night train and my man, of course, kept an eye on him. I may say we had never picked up his trail like this before—possibly he had grown a little careless. At Culoz in the early hours of the morning my man noticed Twining get off the train, as if for a ramble on the platform, and naturally he did the same. Just outside the station he saw Twining go up to another man, say a few words to him, and then get back to the train just before it started. The other man, and my own man said he could swear to it, walked swiftly away into Culoz. I am not exaggerating, Mr. Harrison, when I tell you that my man was staggered when, on arrival in Geneva, instead of Twining getting out of the carriage where he had certainly been seen getting in, the man from Culoz got out instead. My man said it was impossible for them to have changed places under his eyes and yet Twining had disappeared and the other man had taken his place. It was very mystifying.”

  “To your man—”

  “Not to me, of course,” answered the Baron, complacently. “I saw at once how Twining had been beating us. All he did in the train was to disguise himself as the Culoz stranger and appear in Geneva as someone very unlike himself. Does that satisfy you?”

  “It supplies a part of the puzzle I had been unable to fit in.”

  “But I think it is time you went on with your story, don’t you?”

  “You’ve made it a bit easier, Baron,” said Harrison, “for I was not certain at what point you found out Twining’s disguise. You set your men on to tracking him in Geneva, I assume, and you discovered this address—”

  “Not quite that, Mr. Harrison.”

  “Things were as critical as that, were they,” said Harrison. “There was another way, of course, you decided to dope Twining sufficiently to make him nearly helpless and then you were going to follow him home in his disguise. He would be easier to track then.”

  “Roughly, yes,” said the Baron.

  “Things must have been getting very threatening at the League office,” continued Harrison, “and so, having arranged an alibi, in case too much was known about you, you found Twining in one of the corridors and, before he knew where he was, I don’t expect he realised it was you even, it would have been done from behind, I expect, you pushed a hypodermic needle into his wrist and injected just the amount of drug you intended. You must have been a strong man to do that, Baron.”

  “The jiu-jitsu expert is not necessarily strong, Mr. Harrison,” said the Baron. “He just knows the right way to do things.”

  “You must have given great thought to the method then,” said Harrison. “Of course you had all your people ready to shadow Twining, either as himself or disguised, when the drug began to take effect. You calculated that Twining would not make a fuss in the League office but would get away in the hope of medical help as soon as possible.”

  “That was my belief,” said the Baron.

  “That was what he did, too,” answered Harrison. “He went straight to Dawnay’s flat, disguised himself, and decided to make for the Chemin des Noisettes. But he felt so ill that he thought it essential to keep a promise to send a telegram. One of your people picked him up as he was making for the Post Office and followed him there. He tried to see what Twining was doing but had no luck. He was not one of your best men, Baron—”

  “He certainly wasn’t.”

  “For he made the Post Office official suspicious. Still, I assume he picked up the trail again and followed Twining right to the Chemin des Noisettes. And that, you say, was the first time you know of this address, Baron?”

  “Absolutely,” was the reply.

  “So Twining was an adversary worth fighting,” said Harrison. “He kept his secret up to that moment. You, of course, called upon him directly you were told where he was. We know the rest of the story, don’t we, so it is hardly necessary to repeat it.”

  “Thank you,” said the Baron. “I should prefer not to go into further details.”

  “Except that Dr. Kellerman really thought it was suicide,” said Harrison.

  “It might have been,” said the Baron.

  “But it wasn’t,” replied Harrison.

  “There will be no need to go into that,” said the Baron, dangerously. “The result of your telling me your story proves that you know far too much, Mr. Harrison. You have been very foolish to get mixed up with me at all. I admit you have shown a certain smartness in putting things together but unfortunately the ending of the story is left to me. You might have considered that before you started.”

  “I did.”

  “Then I am afraid you had too much self-confidence.”

  “I did not,” answered Harrison, taking out his watch, for the time he had allowed for the arrival of the others was quickly drawing near. “I said that Twining was an adversary worth fighting, I might add he was also a man worth fighting for. I have found his murderer, and I am satisfied.”

  “I have treated you courteously up to now, Mr. Harrison,” said the Baron with annoyance. “And I expect good manners from you in return.”

  “Good manners to a murderer,” said Harrison, scornfully, as he thought he heard a sound of scuffling on the stairs.

  “I’ll show you,” shouted the Baron, angrily, advancing towards him.

  “Listen,” said Harrison, as the noise outside grew louder. “Surely that can’t be our conveyance.”

  The Baron’s face went purple with fury.

  “You think you’ve trapped me,” he shouted. “You poor fool. You can’t escape, at any rate.”

  The Baron jumped at Harrison as there came a hammering on the door, and the two men, locked in a fierce embrace, crashed round the room as shouts came from outside demanding that the door should be opened. The deadly struggle went on and those outside put their shoulders to the door to force an entry. The door was a stout one and strongly resisted their efforts, while Harrison felt that the Baron was overpowering him. He felt himself getting weaker and weaker, and when finally the door came in with a terrific wrenching of torn wood, the Baron picked up Harrison and hurled him crashing in a corner of the room where he lay a tumbled heap.

  The Baron turned with a glare to face M. Ringel, Dawnay and Crill, with two dishevelled policemen beside him.

  “What does all this mean?” asked the Baron.

  “I’m sorry—” began M. Ringel.

  “It’s very lucky you came, M. Ringel,” said the Baron, doing his best to smile. “I have just been viciously attack by that man—” he pointed to Harrison, lying in the corner. “And I have great pleasure in handing him over to the police.”

  Dawnay and Crill had rushed over to Harrison and had seated him on a chair. Some water rather quickly revived him, and he looked rather vacantly at the Baron.

  “Why, it’s Mr. Harrison?” said the police chief.

  “Exactly,” said the Baron. “He nourishes some grievance or other against me. Thinks I had him arrested this morning and then comes here and attacks me like a madman.”

  M. Ringel produced a pair of handcuffs and looked at Harrison. Then, with a deftness which would have made his fortune as a sleight-of-hand performer, he twisted round to the Baron and snapped them on his wrists before he could make any movement in opposition.

  “This is monstrous,” said the Baron.

  “I am very sorry, Baron Meyerling,” answered M. Ringel, impassively. “It is my duty.”

  “You don’t realise what you are doing, M. Ringel,” said the Baron, angrily. He then noticed Crill standing near him and, by a grea
t effort of control, he gained the upper hand of his temper and said, almost with a smile: “What story have these gentlemen been telling you, M. Ringel?”

  “Enough to convince me,” was the answer.

  “Very well,” replied the Baron. “You are easily convinced. But I warn you that you are making the greatest blunder of your official life.”

  “I think not,” answered the police chief.

  “And was this necessary?” asked the Baron, shaking the handcuffs.

  “Perhaps not,” said M. Ringel. “I have already apologised. But Mr. Harrison wants to talk to you and I thought you would find it easier to listen to him. Indeed, we might all find it easier.”

  “I have no desire to listen to Mr. Harrison,” said the Baron.

  “Then I was justified,” replied M. Ringel.

  “I prefer that you should take me away at once,” said the Baron.

  “But you would miss what Mr. Harrison has to say.”

  “I have no desire to be gloated over by Mr. Harrison, I tell you,” said the Baron angrily.

  “You have no need to fear that,” said Harrison, now practically recovered. “But I am afraid you must listen to me. You see, Baron Meyerling, my one trouble all through this business has been, even if I traced everything to you and had you in the position you are in now, how were you to be punished?”

  “The courts will settle that,” answered the Baron.

  “Will they?”

  “That is what they are there for,” said the Baron insolently.

  “I wonder,” answered Harrison solemnly. “That has been my difficulty. What do you say, M. Ringel?”

  “I am in your hands, Mr. Harrison,” replied the police chief.

  “What nonsense,” said the Baron.

  “I suppose it is,” said Harrison. “I suppose the courts would do their duty and acquit you. But that is not what I want. With your influence, prestige and everything else, Baron, it is impossible to imagine that any verdict is going to be got against you. I regret to say that I feel you are too powerful.”

  “Quite so,” said the Baron, complacently. “That is why I warned M. Ringel. And I would suggest that the sooner he takes these things off the better. Things aren’t quite as simple, even now, as you imagine, Mr. Harrison.”