The Milliner's Hat Mystery

by Basil Thomson

  “Perhaps Madame Germaine—I do not know. I assure you, gentlemen, that I am not told names; I receive orders to carry out from time to time and when these two men telephoned to me from the prison cells, I knew that my duty was to let them escape, and they dictated the message to Madame Germaine. I thought, of course, that the deputy in question would protect me.”

  Vincent consulted Goron with his eyes, and noting that his colleague made an answering signal, he rose from his seat to indicate that he had no further questions to ask. “I must lose no time in communicating with my chief in London, M. Goron. You will guide me to the office of the long-distance telephone?”

  “I do earnestly hope,” said the mayor, addressing his remarks to Goron, “that I shall not be implicated in any action you may take? I hope that you will allow it to appear that your action is taken in consequence of information that has reached the Sûreté, giving no names and especially guarding against embroiling me with any minister or deputy.”

  “You will understand, Monsieur le Maire, that my action in this interview has been entirely guided by a sense of duty; that I have no kind of animosity towards you and that you may count upon me to keep your name out of the business as far as possible. We will now take our leave of you.”

  As they went down the stairs Vincent observed: “You were very polite and friendly towards the mayor, considering the part he has played in this business.”

  “One never knows what one of these mayors may some day become in the country. I might encounter him as minister of the interior and my chief.”

  “It is easy to see why they do not trust so stupid a man with names. He would blurt them out and ruin the whole organization on the slightest hint of trouble to himself.”

  “We shall have to use a broom and sweep out all the doubtful characters in these northern ports. What would I not give for the name of that deputy, but it’s obvious that the mayor was not entrusted with it.”

  Chapter Twelve

  IT TOOK an unconscionable time to get connected with Chief Constable Richardson at New Scotland Yard. Apparently half the population of France was eager to telephone to half the population of Great Britain, for, according to the operator, the line remained occupied and there were others before Vincent waiting for their turn. At last Vincent heard the voice he knew. He gave a succinct account of what he had done and asked for instructions whether he should go to Paris to pursue his enquiries or leave the French police to carry on. The reply was emphatic.

  “Now that you’ve gone so far, it would be foolish to throw up the sponge. You must go to Paris and I will cover your expenses with the Receiver.”

  Goron was waiting outside the telephone booth.

  “It’s all right,” said Vincent. “We are to travel to Paris together.”

  Goron’s face beamed. “I don’t know how it is, my friend, but I must confess that I should feel entirely lost without you. You may not have the same feeling as regards myself, but I confess that I find you more like a brother than a colleague.”

  “I, too, have the same feeling for you, my friend,” replied Vincent, “and I think that we shall always have the same kind of feeling for one another. We had better see that our car is filled up with petrol and get on our way. An interview with our friend Verneuil is necessary.”

  Both were busy with their own thoughts on the journey to Paris; they exchanged scarcely a syllable. At the commissariat of police they met Verneuil coming down the stairs, thinking that he had finished work for the day, but on recognizing his visitors he insisted on taking them up to his office.

  “But you were just going out.”

  “Only to consume an apéritif at the Rond Point—a bad habit into which one so easily falls. Besides, I have some news that may interest you. We have located the laundry in whose basket we believe Madame Germaine escaped.”

  “Have you done anything about it?” asked Vincent, rather eagerly.

  “Not yet, monsieur, beyond putting that laundry under observation. The fact is, I was keeping any further steps until your return to Paris. Needless to say I am having every basket that passes in or out examined by one of my officers.”

  “Is the laundry doing any genuine business?” asked Vincent.

  “Oh yes, its van goes round collecting work from the best residents in the quarter. It has a considerable staff of laundry women and the proprietor lives with his wife in a flat above the laundry itself. I have made enquiries of the concierge and have ascertained that no strange lady is staying with the proprietor and his wife.”

  “I suppose we could visit the working part of the laundry?”

  “Certainly, if I go with you, but at this hour of the day the workpeople have gone home and the place is locked up.”

  “I should like to see these workpeople arrive in the morning,” said Vincent.

  “You think that Madame Germaine may have converted herself into a laundry woman?” asked Goron.

  “I think that possible; at any rate it would be easier to make a recognition when women are dressed for the street than when they are in working kit.”

  “You are quite right, my friend. The working kit of a woman is a good disguise.”

  “It will mean an early start,” said Verneuil. “You will have to meet me here not later than eight if we are to see them all come in.”

  “Eight o’clock sharp then,” said Vincent after consulting Goron. “And now, my friends, I have a proposition to make. It is that we find a quiet restaurant to dine in and that you should become my guests for this evening. We have a great deal to talk over.”

  “The resolution is carried with acclamation,” said Goron. “Monsieur Verneuil must be an unrivalled guide for this part of Paris. I suggest that we place ourselves unreservedly in his hands.”

  It was not surprising that the conversation at their table should have turned to the subject of drugs. Goron recounted to Verneuil their adventures at St Malo.

  “That’s the worst of our provincial police system in France,” said Verneuil. “The mayor is responsible for the municipal police and if someone buys him over…Then you must remember that these drug traffickers can afford to bribe heavily.”

  “You must know,” said Goron, “that our English friend here is a walking encyclopaedia on the subject. He is the personage who is in charge of the traffic at Scotland Yard and he is sent out to Geneva to represent his country whenever the subject is discussed.”

  “Indeed! Then perhaps he can solve a good many of our difficulties in Paris.”

  “I take no credit to myself for knowing something about it, monsieur,” said Vincent. “It chanced that the Central Narcotics Intelligence Bureau came across a certain Monsieur Voyatsis and took the liberty of making a search of his baggage. In this certain papers were found which were handed over to me. They included a pocketbook and a code book. The code book was a compendium of all the persons in China and Japan to whom Voyatsis was in the habit of sending telegrams. On the first page was a list of names of the members of the gang, together with the names of the factories which supplied the poison, for example the Société Industrielle de Chimie Organique and Roessler of Mulhouse.”

  Verneuil wrinkled up his eyes until they were the merest slits.

  “Then it was due to your information that we were able to close those two, which were the most active of our drug manufacturers.”

  “And what about Hédouin—the name that was in Madame Germaine’s book.”

  “That has been under suspicion for some time, but it is difficult to get direct evidence against the firm. Now, perhaps, we can get a move on.”

  “Were there no European names?” asked Goron.

  “None; probably these were contained in another book which has never come into our hands. In my belief these two Americans about whom we are so much concerned are merely runners—that is they carry the drugs between France and England and France and America.”

  “And what do you think are the duties of Madame Germaine in the business?�
��

  “She supplies the means of transport. In her case it is hats. Every kind of ingenious device has been pressed into the service. For example, a considerable quantity was concealed in millstones, hollowed out and plastered up so that the stones had to be broken before the drugs could be discovered.”

  “Now I understand the part played by the wives of the two men: they were employed to buy the hats,” said Goron.

  “Yes, and I doubt whether their parts were important enough to justify us in following them and searching their rooms. The main thing is that we now have the sources of the supply; what we want to find out is the headquarters of the organization in this country,” said Verneuil.

  “And I,” said Vincent ruefully, “am less concerned with the drug traffic than I am with locating and procuring the arrest of those two men, not on the charge of drug trafficking, but on that of murder.” His forehead was wrinkled; he had something on his mind. “Let me be quite frank, Goron. In England, as you know, we cannot arrest people unless we have more than a suspicion that they are concerned in a felony, but in France you are not so strait-laced in your view of these powers. You can arrest on suspicion.”

  Verneuil’s anatomy was disturbed by an eruption of silent laughter. Before Goron could reply he had supplied the answer. “In practice, my friend, and it is only practice that counts, we can arrest anyone. The only risk is that if he’s entirely innocent, he may make a fuss, but generally he is so well content to be set at liberty that he says nothing.”

  A waiter behind Vincent’s chair was showing signs of impatience. The other clients had departed a full quarter of an hour earlier. The two French guests took the hint and rose to take their leave.

  “Au revoir until eight o’clock tomorrow, then,” said Verneuil.

  Goron and his English colleague met actually on the stairs of the police post at the Grand Palais next morning.

  “What a gift is punctuality!” exclaimed Goron, looking at his watch. “We are on the stroke of eight, and here, if I mistake not, comes our colleague Verneuil himself. I recognize his light footfall.” It was thus that he described his colleague’s heavy tread on the stairs above.

  After the usual morning salutations, Vincent enquired how they were to go to the laundry.

  “As time presses we will take a taxi,” said Verneuil.

  “There are not many to be found at this hour, but I have rung up the depot.”

  He had scarcely finished speaking when a taxi drew up beside them; it had come in response to the telephone message. Verneuil gave the driver the address and they all bundled into it.

  By a friendly arrangement with the concierge the three police officers were accorded a position in the courtyard which gave them a view of everyone who passed into the building. A number of women passed in; none was in the least like Madame Germaine. They waited still a few minutes and as there were no new arrivals Verneuil crossed over to a little window at which he had seen all the women record their arrival. The woman behind the glass he recognized as the proprietor’s wife. It was no moment for finesse. He asked her bluntly whether all her employees were now in.

  ‘‘Yes, monsieur,” she replied in a sullen tone.

  “Then my colleague and I would like to see them at work.”

  “You will have first to give them time to get into their overalls. Are you looking for anyone in particular?”

  “Yes, for the woman who escaped in one of your laundry baskets; you know perfectly well who I mean.”

  The woman allowed what she hoped to be taken for crass stupidity to pervade her countenance. “I do not know in the least what you mean.”

  “Well,” said Verneuil, “you will know it when we have been through your workers, and if we don’t find the woman among them we shall have to search your flat.”

  “You people seem to do whatever you like,” grumbled the woman as she led the way into the sorting room. There, there were only two women, but in the ironing room there were ten. None of these corresponded in the least with the description of Madame Germaine.

  Meanwhile Vincent was quietly counting the women in each room. He whispered to Goron at the door of the next room in which nine women were washing: “I counted only twenty women who came in and there are now twenty-one at work.”

  The women at the washtubs had their hair tucked into mob caps and large coarse aprons enveloped their figures. It would have been an effective disguise for the beautifully groomed milliner of whom they were in search. Vincent was concerned not with their faces or figures, but with their hands. He noticed one whose hands were not wrinkled. He stopped in front of her and made an unobtrusive signal to Goron and Verneuil.

  Verneuil addressed the woman: “You must be finding this work hard and distasteful, madame.”

  The woman behaved as if she had not heard him and went on with her work with redoubled energy.

  “You can now drop this disguise, Madame Germaine, and come with me. I am, as you know, an officer from the Prefecture of Police.”

  She dried her hands on her apron and said with dignity: “I think you will agree, gentlemen, that we cannot discuss things in this room. I suggest that we ask the proprietress to lend us her office for our interview.”

  She led the way and the three officers followed her. The proprietress was still in the office.

  “The curtain has fallen on our farce, chéri,” said Madame Germaine; “perhaps you will allow these gentlemen to come in and make their explanations.”

  Once inside the room she removed first the coarse apron and then an overall, revealing a graceful figure in ordinary morning dress. Lastly she removed the mob cap and then all doubts about her identity were removed.

  “Are you taking me far?” she asked in polite tones. “Because, if so, I must run upstairs for my hat.”

  “We’ll send for your hat,” said Verneuil, bluntly. “You may not want it for some time.”

  “You mean that I am to be taken to prison?”

  “You will be taken to a place where they supply coverings for the head.”

  She flushed. “This is an outrage. Of what am I accused?”

  “I understand that the charge is trafficking in drugs, but all that can be discussed at the place to which you are going.”

  “You have no right to take me. No doubt you have searched my shop and, naturally, without result. I have never had drugs there.”

  “May I suggest, madame,” said Goron, “that an innocent woman does not escape from her shop in a laundry basket.”

  “That was a theatrical joke on my part. You were having my shop watched, although you had no grounds for suspicion. I knew you expected a dénouement and so I gave you one. Also it gave me an opportunity for showing that your subordinates are not from the top drawer in the matter of intelligence.”

  “I fear that you will have now to pay for the fun you have had,” said Goron. Turning to Verneuil he said: “We will leave you to escort this lady, comrade.”

  As the two friends left Vincent said: “But you forget that I must get from that woman the addresses of those two men and I must follow them up with all haste and get back to London.”

  “Have no fear, Vincent. We may safely leave that to Verneuil, who has his own rather rough-and-ready methods of getting the truth out of people, and you might not approve of them. We will call on him later in the day. Meanwhile I am sure that Verneuil will not object to our going round to see whether the postman has dropped any other letter into Madame Germaine’s letter box. The man who is keeping observation will be able to tell us.”

  They walked to the rue Duphot and Goron engaged the watcher in conversation. He said that no one had visited the shop except the little employee who came each morning to see if her employer had returned and couldn’t understand her absence.

  “I suppose that Verneuil is satisfied that the employee knows nothing,” said Vincent.

  “Yes, and if Verneuil is satisfied we can take that as proved. It takes much to satisfy Verneuil; he has a di
strustful nature.”

  The man who was keeping observation opened the shop door for them, telling them that the postman had dropped a letter in the box.

  The letter bore a London postmark and was addressed to:

  Madame Lewis,

  chez Madame Germaine, Modiste,

  rue Duphot.

  Goron did not scruple to tear the envelope open. The letter was in French, written in an uneducated hand. It ran as follows:

  DEAR MADAME,

  Please ask your husband to bring a double supply when he comes on August 1st.

  Accept, dear madame, the expression of my most devoted sentiments.

  ALICE DODDS.

  “What address does she give?” asked Vincent eagerly.

  “None.”

  “Then give me the envelope.” He examined the postmark, which was not very clear, but he was able to make out W.11. “I must get back to London at once. August 1st is the day after tomorrow.”

  “But not without seeing Verneuil?”

  “No. I’ll make my preparations and be at his office at two o’clock. Will that be convenient to you?”

  “Quite. You take the letter. Au revoir, at two o’clock.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  WHEN VINCENT ARRIVED at the rendezvous he found Goron waiting at the bottom of the stairs; Verneuil had not yet returned from lunch.

  “I should be glad if you’d give me an expert opinion on this letter,” said Vincent; “as you see it is written in an illiterate hand, but the composition of the text strikes me as being anything but illiterate, considering that French is a foreign language to the writer.”

  Goron studied the letter and handed it back. “The handwriting is certainly illiterate, but I judge that the letter has been copied from a text supplied to the writer by a well-educated woman.”

  “That coincides with my opinion. At any rate I will try to locate Alice Dodds as soon as I get to London and get from her some information about Lewis.”