If he was correct as to the size of the town, it was one which would be marked on a fairly small-scale map, and taking his atlas, he began to make a list of all those which seemed to meet the case. He soon saw there were a number—Calais, Amiens, Beauvais, Etaples, Arras, Soissons, Troyes, Ypres, Bruges, Roulers and Malines.
He had by this time become so excited over, his quest that in spite of the hour—it was long past his bedtime—he telephoned to the Yard to send him Bædeker’s Guides to Northern France and Belgium, and when these came he began eagerly looking up the hotels in each of the towns on his list. For a considerable time he worked on without result, then suddenly he laughed from sheer delight.
He had reached Bruges, and there, third on the list, was ‘Grand-Hotel du Sablon!’ Moreover, this name exactly filled the required space.
‘Got it in one,’ he chuckled, feeling immensely pleased with himself.
But French, if sometimes an enthusiastic optimist and again a down and out pessimist, was at all times thorough. He did not stop at Bruges. He worked all the way through the list, and it was not until he had satisfied himself that no other hotel fulfilling the conditions existed in any of the other towns, that he felt himself satisfied. It was true there was an Hotel du Carillon in Malines, but this name was obviously too short for the space.
As he went jubilantly to bed, the vision of a trip to the historic city of Bruges bulked large in his imagination.
16
A Tale of Two Cities
Next morning French had an interview with his chief at the Yard at which he produced the torn hotel bill, and having demonstrated the methods by which he had come to identify it with the Grand Hotel du Sablon in Bruges, suggested that a visit there might be desirable. To his secret relief Chief Inspector Mitchell took the same view, and it was arranged that he should cross as soon as he could get away.
On his return to his room he found Cheyne waiting for him. The young man seemed to have aged by years since his frenzied appeal to the Yard, and his anxious face and distrait manner bore testimony to the mental stress through which he was passing. Eagerly he inquired for news.
‘None so far, I’m sorry to say,’ French answered, ‘except that we have found that Miss Merrill did return to her rooms that night,’ and he told what he had learnt of Joan’s movements, as well as of his visit to Hackworth’s garage, and of Blessington’s exchange of cars. But of Bruges and the hotel bill he said nothing. Cheyne, he felt sure, would have begged to be allowed to accompany him to Belgium, and this he did not want. But in his kindly way he talked sympathetically to the young man, reiterating his promise to let him know directly anything of importance was learnt.
Cheyne having reluctantly taken his leave, French turned to routine business, which had gone sadly behind during the last few days. At this he worked all the morning, but on his return from lunch he found that further news had come in.
Sergeant Burnett, the man he had put on the Waterloo Station job, was waiting for him, and reported success in his mission. He had, he said, spent the whole of the day from early morning at the station, and at last he had obtained what he wanted. A taxi-man on a nearby stand had been called to the footpath at the arrival side of the station at about 2-0 p.m. He had drawn up behind an old black car, which he had thought was a Napier. His own fare, a lady, kept him waiting for a few seconds while she took a somewhat leisurely farewell of the gentleman who was seeing her off, and during this time he had idly watched the vehicle in front. He had seen an invalid lady in a sable coloured fur coat being helped in. There was a second lady with her, and a tall man. The three got in, and the car moved off at the same time as his own. Sergeant Burnett had questioned the man on the appearance of the travellers, and was pretty certain that they were Joan, Susan and Sime. Dangle, so far as he could learn, was not with them.
French felt the sudden thrill of the artist who has just caught the elusive effect of light which he wanted, as he reflected how sound had been his deduction. He had considered it likely that these people would use Waterloo Station to effect the change of cars, and now it seemed that they had done so. Nothing like a bit of imagination, he thought, as he good-naturedly complimented the sergeant on his powers, and dismissed him.
Having too much to see to at the Yard to catch the 2-0 p.m. from Victoria for Ostend, he rang up and engaged a berth on the Harwich-Zeebrugge boat, and that night at 8-40 p.m. he left Liverpool Street for Belgium.
Apart from his actual business, he was looking forward with considerable keenness to the trip. Foreign travel had become perhaps his greatest pleasure, and he had never yet been in Belgium. Moreover he had always heard Bruges mentioned as the paradise of artists, and in a rather shamefaced way he admitted an interest in and appreciation of art. He had determined that if at all possible he would snatch enough time to see at least the more interesting parts of the old town.
They left the Parkeston Quay at 10-30, and by 6-0 next morning French was on deck. He was anxious to miss no possible sight of the approach of Zeebrugge. He had read with a thrilled and breathless interest the story of what was perhaps the greatest naval exploit of all time—as, indeed, who has not?—and as the long, low line of the famous mole loomed up rather starboard of straight ahead, his heart beat faster and a lump came in his throat. There, away to the right, round the curve of the long pier must have been where Vindictive boarded, where in an inferno of fire her crew reached with their scaling ladders the top of the great sea wall, and climbing down on the inside, joined a hand-to-hand fight with the German defenders. And here, at the left hand end of the huge semicircle was the lighthouse, which he was now rounding as Thetis, Intrepid and Iphigenia rounded it on that historic night. He tried to picture the scene. The screen of smoke to sea, which baffled the searchlights of the defenders and from which mysterious and unexpected craft emerged at intervals, the flashing lights as guns were fired and shells burst over the mole, the sea, and the low-lying sand-dunes of the coast behind. The din of hell in the air, fire, smoke, explosion and death—and those three ships passing on; Thetis a wreck, struck and fiercely burning, forced aside by the destruction of her gear, but lighting her fellows straight to their goal—the mouth of the canal which led to the submarine base at Bruges. French crossed the deck and gazed at the spot with its swing bridge and stone side walls, as he thought how, had the desperate venture failed, history might have been changed and at that touch and go period of the war the Central Powers might have triumphed. It was with renewed pride and wonder in the men who conceived and carried out the wonderful enterprise, that he crossed back over the deck and set himself to the business of landing.
A short run past the sandhills at the coast and across the flat Belgian fields brought the spires of Bruges into view, and slowly rounding a sharp curve through the gardens of the houses in the suburbs, they joined the main line from Ostend, and a few minutes later entered the station. Emerging on to the wide boulevard in front, French’s eyes fell on a bus bearing the legend ‘Grand-Hotel du Sablon,’ and getting in, he was driven across the boulevard and a short way up a long, rather narrow and winding street, between houses some of which seemed to have stood unaltered—and doubtless had—for six hundred years, when Bruges, three times its present size, was the chief trading city of the Hanseatic League. As he turned into the hotel, chimes rang out—from the famous belfry, the porter told him—tinkling, high-pitched bells and silvery, if a trifle thin in the clear morning air.
He called for some breakfast, and as he was consuming it the anticipated delights of sight-seeing receded, and interest in the movements of James Dangle became once more paramount. He was proud of his solution of the problem of the torn hotel bill, and not for a moment had a doubt of the correctness of that solution entered his head.
It came upon him therefore as a devastating shock when the courteous manager of the hotel, with whom he had asked an interview, assured him not only that no such person as the original of the photograph he had presented had ever visited hi
s establishment, but that the fragment of the bill was not his.
To French it seemed as if the bottom had fallen out of his world. He had been so sure of his ground; all his reasoning about the stamp, the size of the hotel and town and the lengths of their names had seemed so convincing and unassailable. And the names Grand-Hotel du Sablon and Bruges had worked in so well! More important still, no other hotel seemed to fill the bill. French felt cast down to the lowest depths of despair, and for a time he could only stare speechlessly at the manager.
At last he smiled rather ruefully.
‘That’s rather a blow,’ he confessed. ‘I was pretty sure of my ground. Indeed, so sure was I, that if I might without offence, I should like to ask you again if there is no possibility that the man might have been here, say, during your absence.’
The manager was sympathetic. He brought French a sample of his bill, stamped with his rubber receipt stamp, and French saw at once their dissimilarity with those he had been studying. Moreover, the manager assured him that neither had been altered for several years.
So he was no further on! French lit a cigar, and retiring to a deserted corner of the salon, sat down to think the thing out.
What was he to do next? Was he to return to London by the next boat, giving up the search and admitting defeat, or was there any possible alternative? He set his teeth as he swore great oaths that nothing short of the direst need would lead him to abandon his efforts until he had found the hotel, and learnt Dangle’s secret.
But heroics were all very well: what, in point of fact was he to do? He sat considering the problem for an hour, and at the end of that time he had decided to go to Brussels, borrow or buy a Belgian hotel guide, and go through it page by page until he found what he wanted. If none of the hotels given suited, he would go on to Paris and try a similar experiment.
This decision he reached only after long consideration, not because it was not obvious—it had instantly occurred to him—but because he was convinced that the methods he had already tried had completely covered the ground. He had proved that there was no hotel whose name ended in … lon in a fair sized town whose name ended in … s in all the district in question, other than the Grand-Hotel du Sablon at Bruges. There still remained, however, the chance that it might be a southern French or Swiss hotel, and he saw that he would have to make sure of this before returning to London.
Still buried in thought, he walked slowly back to the station to look up trains to Brussels. The fact that he was in the most interesting town in Belgium no longer stirred his pulse. His disappointment and anxiety about his case drove all irrelevant matters from his mind, and he felt that all he wanted now was to be at work again to retrieve his error.
He reached the station, and began searching the huge time-table boards for the train he wanted. He was interested to notice that the tables were published in two languages, French and what he thought at first was Dutch, but concluded later must be Flemish. Idly he compared the different spelling of the names of the towns. Brugge and Bruges, Gent and Gand, Brussel and Bruxelles, Oostende and Ostende, and then suddenly he came up as it were all standing, and a sudden wave of excitement passed over him as he stood regarding another pair of names. Antwerpen and Anvers! Anvers! A six-lettered town ending in s! He cursed, himself for his stupidity. He had always thought of the place as Antwerp, but he ought to have known its French name. Anvers! Once more he was alert and full of eager optimism. Had he got it at last?
He passed through on to the platform, and making for a door headed ‘Chef de Gare,’ asked for the station-master. There, after a moment’s delay, he was shown into the presence of an imposing individual in gold lace, who, however, was not too important to listen to him carefully, and, reply courteously in somewhat halting English. Monsieur wished to know if there was an hotel whose name ended in … lon in Antwerp? He could not recall one off-hand, but he would look up the advertisements in his guides and tourist programmes. Ah, what was this? The Grand-Hotel du Carillon. Was that what monsieur required?
A name of twenty letters—which would exactly fill the space on the receipt stamp! It certainly was what monsieur required! The very idea raised monsieur to an exalted pitch of delighted enthusiasm. The station-master was gratified at the reception of his information.
‘I haf been at the ’otel myself,’ he volunteered. ‘It is small, but vair’ goot. It is in the Place Verte, near to the Cathedral. Does monsieur know Antwerp?’
Monsieur did not, but he expressed the pleasure it would give him to make its acquaintance, and thanking the polite official he returned to the time-tables to look up the trains thither.
His most direct way, it appeared, was through Ghent and Termonde, but on working out the services he found he could get quicker trains via Brussels. He therefore booked by that route, and at 11-51 he climbed into a great through express from Ostend to Brussels, Aix-la-Chapelle, Strasburg, and, it seemed to him, the whole of the rest of Europe. An hour and a half’s run brought him into Brussels-Nord, and from there he wandered out into the Place Rogier for lunch. Then returning to the station he took an express for Antwerp, arriving in the central terminus of that city a few minutes after three o’clock.
He had bought a map of Antwerp at a bookstall in Brussels, from which he had learnt that the Place Verte was nearly a mile away in the direction of the river. His travelling impedimenta consisting of a hand-bag only, he determined to walk, and emerging from the great marble hall of the station, he passed down the busy Avenue de Keyser, and along the Place de Meir into the older part of the town. As he walked he was immensely impressed by the fine wide streets, the ornate buildings and the excellence of the shops. Everywhere were evidences of wealth and prosperity, and as he turned into the Place Verte, and looked across at the huge bulk of the Cathedral with its soaring spire, he felt that here was an artistic treasure of which any city might well be proud.
The Grand-Hotel du Carillon was an old, quaint-looking building looking out over the Place Verte. French, entering, called for a bock in the restaurant, and after he had finished, asked to see the manager. A moment later a small, stout man with a humorous eye appeared, bowed low, and said that he was M. Marquet, the proprietor.
‘A word with you in private, M. Marquet,’ French requested, when they had exchanged confidences on the weather. ‘Won’t you take something with me?’
The proprietor signified his willingness in excellent English, and when further drinks had been brought, and French had satisfied himself that they were alone, he went on:
‘I am a detective officer from the London police, and I am trying to trace an Englishman called Dangle. I have reason to suppose he stayed at this hotel recently. There is his photograph. Can you help me at all?’
At the name Dangle, M. Marquet had nodded, and when he saw the photograph he beamed and his whole body became affirmation personified. But certainly, he knew M. Dangle. For several weeks—he could not say how many, but he could ascertain from his records—for several weeks M. Dangle had been his guest at intervals. Sometimes he had stayed one night, sometimes two, sometimes three. Yes, he was usually alone, but not always. On three or four occasions he had been accompanied by another gentleman—a tall, well-built, clean-shaven man, and once a third man had come, a short, stout man with a fair moustache. Yes, that was the photograph of the short man, M.—? Yes; Blessington. The other man’s name he could not remember, but it would appear in the register: Sile, Site—something like that. Yes, Sime: that was it. No, he was afraid he knew nothing about these gentlemen or their business, but he would be glad to do everything in his power to assist monsieur.
French, his enthusiasm and delight remaining at fever heat, was suitably grateful. He wished just to ask M. Marquet a few more questions. He would like to know the last occasion on which M. Dangle had stayed.
‘Why,’ M. Marquet exclaimed, ‘he just left yesterday. He came here, let me see, on Tuesday night quite late, indeed it was nearly one on Wednesday morning when he arrive
d. He came, he said, off the English boat train which arrives here about midnight. He stayed here two days—till yesterday, Thursday. He left yesterday shortly after dejeuner.’
‘He was alone?’
‘Yes, monsieur. This time he was alone.’
French, metaphorically speaking, hugged himself on hearing this news. Through his brilliant work with the torn bill, he had added one more fine achievement to the long list of his successes. He could not but believe that the most doubtful and difficult step of the investigation had now been accomplished. With a trail only twenty-four hours old, he should surely be able to put his hands on Dangle with but little delay. Moreover, from the fact that so many visits had been paid to Antwerp it looked as if the secret of the gang was hidden in the city. Greatly reassured, he proceeded to acquire details.
He began by obtaining from M. Marquet’s records lists of the visits of the three men, and that gentleman’s identification of the torn bill. Also he pressed him as to whether he could not remember any questions or conversations of the trio which might give him a hint as to their business, but without success. He saw and made a detailed search of the room Dangle had occupied during his last visit, but here again with no result. Dangle, M. Marquet said, had been out all day on the Wednesday, the day after his arrival, but on Thursday he had remained in the hotel until his departure about 2-0 p.m. M. Marquet had not seen him leave, but he had sent the waiter for his bill after dejeuner, and the proprietor believed he had gone a little later. Possibly the porter could give more information on the point.
The porter was sent for and questioned. He knew M. Dangle well and recognised his photograph. He had been present in the hall when the gentleman left on the previous, day, shortly before two o’clock. M. Dangle had walked out of the hotel with his suit-case in his hand, declining the porter’s offer to carry it for him or to call a taxi. The trams, however, passed the door, and the porter had assumed M. Dangle intended to travel by that means. No, he had not noticed the direction he took. There was a ‘stillstand’ or tramway halt close by. Dangle had not talked to the porter further than to wish him good-day when he met him. He had not asked questions, or given any hint of his business in the town.
Inspector French and the Cheyne Mystery Page 20
