The Milliner's Hat Mystery

by Basil Thomson

  “Good!” said Vincent; “we’re over the first fence.”

  “The second offence will be your affair; I am curious to see how you will set about it.”

  The first part of their voyage was quite uneventful. They stopped to take in motor fuel and then continued on their way along the coast towards St Malo.

  Vincent was regarding the captain with a fixed stare. The man had his hand on the tiller and it was obvious that the scrutiny disconcerted him.

  “You seem to be uneasy, my friend. You think that I am looking at you more closely than is consistent with good manners. You must excuse me. I was speculating how you would look in the striped overall that they wear at Cayenne.”

  The man stifled an oath and the boat lurched dangerously towards the rock-bound shore. Vincent made a leap towards the tiller and seized it firmly, bringing the head of the launch parallel to the coast.

  “Your steering is erratic, my friend. Let me remind you that we are bound for St Malo, not for the next world. You had better leave the steering to me.”

  The Breton captain still kept his hand on the tiller for the sake of appearances, but he allowed Vincent to control the steering.

  “I am always sorry when I see a man backing the wrong horse at the races, and it grieves me when I think of a man accustomed to the wild fresh air and liberty of the seas heading towards a narrow little cubicle in a cell of corrugated iron, deprived of such amenities as tobacco. They tell me that that deprivation is the worst part of imprisonment; that men would sell their souls for a twist of tobacco leaf. The pity of it is that if you were working for the lawful authorities you would have a quiet life and an easy conscience.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m a plain sailor.”

  “Then let us talk in plain language as man to man,” retorted Vincent. “You have been carrying passengers from England with dangerous contraband about their persons.”

  “I know nothing about that. People take their passage and that’s all that concerns me.”

  “Then why not prove your innocence by helping the police to do their duty?”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “I’ll tell you. We hold a telegram sent to you by those two men, telling you to come to St Malo for them. They are expecting you. What we want you to do when you catch sight of them on the quay is to signal that all is well. Probably you have a code of signals.”

  “You are an Englishman. You couldn’t arrest me.”

  “I might have to denounce you to the French authorities and they have a short way with their nationals who engage in the drug traffic. You might find yourself languishing in a prison cell for months before being brought to trial and all that time you would be on a prison diet, with nothing to smoke and aid digestion. Why, man! Your health would break down under the strain.”

  “Do those gentlemen in the cabin, who are French officers, want me to do this?”

  “They do and they will tell you so.” He signalled to Goron and Lalage to come out of the cabin. The captain now proved to be amenable and their plans were made.

  As they neared the quay at St Malo, Vincent’s heart beat fast when he saw two men waving. They answered the description of those of whom he was in search. It was possible that they were armed and would resist capture, but that was a risk that every police officer had to take. He was relieved to see that there were other people on the quay. The presence of so many witnesses might restrain the two criminals from using their revolvers.

  The three officers remained out of sight in the cabin as the captain steered his launch to the steps. The two men advanced confidently and Vincent leaped for the lowest of the granite steps, followed by Goron and Lalage. The men had not a chance to make off.

  Goron laid his hand on the shoulder of the nearest saying: “You are wanted at the police station.”

  “What for?”

  “They will tell you that at the station.”

  “I demand first to be taken to the American consulate,” said the man. “You have no right to interfere with American citizens.”

  “You are now on French soil, monsieur, and you may both have to answer charges of breaking French law, but you shall have an opportunity of telephoning to the American consulate from the police station.”

  “What is the charge? We have a right to know that.”

  Vincent caught a quick glance in the eyes of one of the men towards one of the little streets that debouched upon the quay. He was measuring his chance of escape. It was the moment for a word of warning in English. “You had better not try to do a bolt,” Vincent said. “They have a short way over here with prisoners who resist arrest. I advise you to go quietly.”

  “You hear that?” shouted the man to his companion. “This guy is a cop from Scotland Yard. These Britishers won’t let the French do their own dirty work without interfering. O.K., we’ll go with you, but you’ll get hell from the State Department in Washington when they get to hear of it, I warn you.”

  Vincent interposed quietly. “There are charges pending against you in England and there may be extradition proceedings. I can tell you no more than that at this stage.”

  The men now appeared to accept the inevitable and followed Lalage without another word. Vincent did some rapid thinking. He drew Goron out of earshot.

  “I shall have to get into communication with my chief at Scotland Yard.”

  “By telephone, you mean?”

  “No, I think it best that I should return to England if you can assure me that the men will be held safely in custody here until their extradition is arranged.”

  “Have no fear,” responded Goron. “You can safely leave them with us.”

  “Then I will lose no more time. I must make enquiries about the boats.”

  “I must accompany M. Lalage and these men. If you don’t get a boat for this evening come round to the little bistro and we’ll meet again there.”

  “I will. In case we don’t meet again, please accept my warmest thanks for your help.”

  He shook hands with both his French colleagues and made his way to the steamship office. He was just in time to get a passage on a boat that was leaving within an hour.

  On his way back to England Vincent reflected a little ruefully on the difficulties that lay before him in persuading the powers above that this was a case in which extradition might properly be applied for. He knew that it would be useless to cite the drug traffic because this was not at that period one of the scheduled offences to which extradition applied, even if the evidence had been sufficient to convince the Director of Public Prosecutions that it was a water-tight case. That is always the difficulty that confronts police officers. They may be certain that an offender is breaking the law, but unless they have evidence sufficient to convince a court of justice their hands are tied. The wide powers conferred on the police under the Defence of the Realm Act had been repealed for more than ten years. They were now back in the old rut in which personal liberty even of the criminal counted for more than the safety of the public.

  True, there was the question of the murder charge, but a charge of wilful murder is not lightly to be preferred on evidence that was largely circumstantial and even more largely conjectural.

  On arriving in London, Vincent reported himself to his immediate superior, Chief Constable Richardson, who listened patiently to his story and said that the proper course was to go over to the Director of Public Prosecutions to lay the whole case before him. This was an ordeal that in former days had daunted most men in the department, for there came a moment when the director put his elbows on the table and joined the fingertips of both hands before he spoke. His speech on those occasions damped the spirits of most of his colleagues, for the gesture was invariably followed by destructive criticism. Vincent’s hope was that he would find the assistant director in temporary charge of the department: he could always deal with that gentleman.

  It was not to be. The director himself was in his room and diseng
aged. He was a curious product of the departmental machine. His name had been prominent in the newspaper reports of most of the important criminal cases as prosecutor for the Crown; his appointment as Director of Public Prosecutions had therefore occasioned no surprise and very little heartburning from those of his profession who aspired to the appointment. He had been knighted; he was now a permanent official like any other civil servant but he had retained the forensic mannerisms of his earlier days at the Bar, being neither fish nor fowl, since he had not been through the Civil Service mill that grinds all men to something of the same pattern. Sir John Manning wore a fringe of grey hair about the conical dome of his skull; otherwise his skin was naked, not, it was alleged by the subordinate members of his staff, through the attentions of the razor, but because Nature, in designing him, had taken the hen’s egg for the model to work upon and had denied him the hirsute adornments that decorated his fellow men. But lest anyone should think that there was anything feminine in his make-up, she had endowed him with the deepest of bass voices, at which timid solicitors’ clerks introduced without warning into the Presence had been known to leap three inches from their chairs.

  It was not the first time that Vincent had been required to undergo the ordeal, indeed he found that he was a persona grata with the great man.

  “Well, Mr Vincent, what are you bringing us to-day?—something interesting, I feel sure. Someone told me that you had gone abroad on a confidential mission.”

  “Yes, Sir John, and I am just back.”

  “Did your travels take you as far as Geneva? I was there the other day and I was immensely struck with that great building they have erected for the League of Nations. You have seen it, of course?”

  “Yes, Sir John, and I have attended little international conferences in one of the rooms there.”

  “On criminal questions, I suppose?”

  “Yes, Sir John. On the drug traffic and on the question of the form of cheque which would be proof against forgery. The interest lay in the fact that even the Americans had deputed their expert police officers to attend.”

  “I am glad to think that the League of Nations is serving some useful purpose; otherwise there will be nothing for it but to convert that building into a hospital for incurables.”

  “I am not sure, Sir John, that it has not already gone some way in that direction, judging from the curious long-haired people that one meets in the corridors.”

  “But we are gossiping about international politics when we ought to be talking business. You have something to tell me.”

  Thereupon Vincent gave him a succinct account of the problem that was facing him. When he had finished, the fingertips of the director came together. “If I understand you correctly you suggest that there are grounds for applying for extradition on the charge of wilful murder. Is that correct?”

  “Yes sir, it is.”

  “The evidence, as I see it, is purely circumstantial—the hiring of a car, the breaking of one of the windows by a revolver bullet, the finding of the body of a murdered man by a witness who can be produced, and this coat that was found in the tool box of the hired car. I confess that I have known stronger cases; but when I have your report I will go very carefully through it and send for you again. In the meantime I understand that the men in question are being safely held by the French authorities.”

  “That is so, sir. Thank you very much. I will go and write my report at once.”

  On his way to the chief inspector’s room Vincent knocked at his chief constable’s door and was at once admitted.

  “Well,” said his chief, “what did the director say?”

  “He told me to go and write my report, sir, and he would consider whether there were sufficient grounds for charging these men with murder. In that case he did not anticipate any difficulty in obtaining an extradition warrant.”

  “Very well,” said Richardson, “you had better lose no time in writing your report, but let me see it first.”

  To Vincent, writing a convincing report was child’s play. He was a strict economist in words, but that was so refreshing a contrast with the reports of many of his colleagues that he had no fear about the verdict of the director, nor did his chief constable find any fault with it.

  “Right. You can take that round to the director and tell him, if you like, that I have seen it.”

  All this had eaten away the morning and Vincent was beginning to feel the pangs of hunger. He was about to make his way up to the floor where dinners were served when a telegram was put into his hands. He tore open the envelope and felt on reading the message that all appetite for food had deserted him. The message was signed “Goron.” It was quite brief.

  BOTH MEN ESCAPED FROM CUSTODY DURING THE NIGHT.

  There was nothing for it but for Vincent to take the telegram to his chief and ask for further instructions. For once, Richardson betrayed impatience. “Thank God,” he said, “that our men know how to hold their prisoners without giving all this trouble. You’ll have to run over to France again.”

  “To Paris, sir?”

  “Yes, because by this time Goron must have returned to duty in Paris and rascals of this kind would find Paris their safest hiding place.”

  “Very good, sir; I’ll cross by the night boat to Dieppe—unless you think that it would be better to take St Malo on the way?”

  “No. You must go to Paris. Get into touch with M. Verneuil again, as well. He is not very quick in the uptake but when the scent is strong he never abandons the chase.”

  Chapter Ten

  ON ARRIVING at the Gare St Lazare, Vincent’s first objective was the Ministry of the Interior. He went straight to Goron’s room and was fortunate enough to find him alone.

  “Come in, my friend. I am very glad to see you. I thought it not improbable that my telegram might bring you again to Paris, where you are always welcome.”

  “Thank you. The atmosphere of Paris is always exhilarating to the jaded Londoner but, on this occasion, it has been your bad news that has brought me. Those rascals have escaped?”

  “Yes. I can scarcely contain myself when I think of the laxity of these provincial police officers, if indeed it was slackness and not bribery.”

  “I should not have dared to make that suggestion myself, but since you have made it…One must remember that the profits in the drug traffic are so considerable that bribes can be offered on quite a liberal scale. M. Verneuil may have found some corroborative evidence in Madame Germaine’s address book showing that our surmise that drugs are concerned in this case was correct.”

  “Then let us go and see M. Verneuil.”

  By this time they had become familiar figures to the doorkeeper, who saluted them with a forefinger and indicated the lift. Verneuil received them with his usual bluff welcome and inquired after their health. As usual, in the public offices in France, minutes were expended in the preliminary courtesies.

  “Pleased as I am to see you, my friend,” said Verneuil, “I feel sure that it is the laxity of those miserable police in St Malo in allowing those rascals to escape that has brought you back to France.”

  “It is,” put in Goron, “but I have assured our English colleague that they should be recaptured if they are still on French soil. Orders have been given to all ports and frontier towns to stop them. And now, to turn to another phase of the case, did you find that little book of any use to you?”

  “Yes. The most important bit of evidence it contains is the name of that suspected factory in Belfort. As you were averse from alarming the lady by direct interview, I put her premises under observation and my man is instructed to make notes of every visitor to the shop. He is one of my most trusted officers, so you need have no misgivings.”

  He had scarcely finished speaking when there was a tap on the door and a young man with deep anxiety graven on his features exposed his head to view and at once withdrew it on seeing that his chief was not alone.

  “Ah, this is the man I posted to watch those premi
ses. Come in, André,” he shouted. “What have you to report?”

  “Monsieur, in some mysterious way, that woman in the rue Duphot has disappeared. Yesterday afternoon and this morning a number of people came and tried the door of her shop. Some of the more impatient thumped on the door. This morning the baker called with bread but could get no one to take it in.”

  “But there are no back entrances to those old shops in the rue Duphot.”

  “That is true, monsieur.”

  “And yet you are satisfied that she did not leave by the front door?”

  “Quite satisfied, monsieur.”

  A flush began to suffuse Verneuil’s weather-beaten countenance as a horrible suspicion assailed him.

  “Did no vehicle stop at the shop door while you were on duty?”

  “No, monsieur, except of course the baker this morning, who tried the door and went away.”

  “And yesterday?”

  “Only the laundry van, late in the afternoon.”

  “And the driver carried into the shop an empty basket—a basket large enough for a week’s family washing?”

  “Yes, monsieur, it was a large basket: it required the driver and another man to carry it.”

  “And after a few minutes they came out again with the basket and loaded it into the van?”

  “Yes, monsieur,” replied the watcher, surprised at the intuition of his questioner.

  “My God! That any Parisian should be so lacking in intelligence as to let that basket pass unopened.”

  “Why, monsieur? It was an ordinary laundry basket.”

  “And I suppose that you would describe yourself as a man of ordinary intelligence? But if you had raised the lid of that basket you would have had the shock of your life. It had a woman in it.”

  The poor constable looked as if this last remark was all the shock he needed.

  “Well, you will say that you were only told to watch for people who came and went on their two legs—not for ladies who chose to be carried out in laundry baskets. But there it is. The harm is done. Can you give me a description of the people who tried the door after the laundry van had gone?”