Crimson Snow

by Martin Edwards

  ‘Good for him.’

  ‘But it didn’t save his life. He was murdered, battered to death with a tyre lever, two nights ago.’

  ‘Guydamour murdered? But this is ghastly. Why didn’t you tell me sooner? I can’t believe it.’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s true.’

  ‘Where did it happen?’

  ‘In his bedroom at the Paradise.’

  ‘Have the police any clue as to who did it?’

  ‘They suspect one of the gangs operating in the South of France.’

  De Raun gave a thoughtful nod.

  ‘That’s quite possible. Those jewels had altogether too much publicity for my liking. I told Guydamour so.’

  ‘Yet you yourself made the announcement that you were giving Alouette’s Worms to your wife?’

  ‘Yes, it slipped out over a drink with one of the Press boys. At that time, I confess I didn’t realize what a song and dance would be made of it. It’s amazing what you chaps can dig up, isn’t it, Mr. Sparrow?’

  For answer, Chris Sparrow gave an ominous hiccup. The movement of the yacht might be slight, but his own discomfort was real enough.

  ‘Is there somewhere I can go?’ he said, with a green smile.

  ‘Certainly,’ said de Raun. ‘The second door astern of this one. Don’t lean over the side, it’ll make a mess of the paintwork.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Precipitately, Chris Sparrow made his retreat.

  ***

  ‘We’ll have some hot coffee for you when you come back,’ said de Raun.

  ‘Your friend doesn’t seem to be a very good sailor,’ he went on cheerfully.

  ‘He didn’t have any breakfast. I expect that’s upset him.’

  ‘We’ll soon fix that. By the way, that reminds me, I haven’t asked you your name.’

  ‘My name is Cork, Montague Cork of the Anchor Insurance Co.’

  ‘Howdyedo?’ He lazily stretched out his hand to be shaken.

  ‘And your friends?’

  ‘They’re temporarily advising me.’

  ‘Well, sir, what can I do for you?’

  ‘Mine is the company which has insured these jewels of yours, Mr. de Raun. As I presume you will shortly be making a claim on us for the loss, it’s important that I should make full enquiries.’

  ‘We needn’t bother about that now, need we? I confess I was quite unaware that you were even insuring me. That’s all handled by my brokers. For the present, I’m much too concerned about poor old Guydamour. That’s a bad business. We became quite close friends, you know.’

  ‘Had you known him long?’

  ‘A few years on and off. I remember I met him first in the salle privée at Monte Carlo.’

  ‘So he was a gambler?’

  ‘He liked a flutter, like most of us.’

  ‘Did he play high?’

  ‘I can’t say I ever noticed. Why do you ask?’

  ‘I just wondered what sort of man he was. But it doesn’t matter. The Sûreté are checking up on him.’

  ‘Ah, here’s the coffee. How do you like it? Au lait?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr. Cork. ‘And my friend too.’

  ‘We must keep some for poor old Sparrow. He’ll need it.’

  ‘Did you ever see Alouette’s Worms?’

  ‘But of course,’ smiled de Raun. ‘Many times. I bought them, you know.’

  ‘Has your wife seen them?’

  ‘Certainly not. They were to be a surprise. You know, Mr. Cork, it’s my own view that they’ll be recovered. No thief could get away with a collection like that for long.’

  ‘That’s the opinion of the police, too. I hope you’re both right.’

  ‘I think you said the police have put out a message for me. I shall, of course, be delighted to see them, but I don’t know that I can be of much help. I didn’t actually know that Guydamour had arrived at the Paradise. In fact, I was wondering what had happened to him. He was supposed to contact me on the morning before the wedding.’

  ‘He ’phoned your London hotel all right,’ said Mr. Cork quietly.

  ‘Did he? Well, he never got through to me.’

  ‘I can quite understand that, at the last minute, you decided against going to the Paradise Hotel. But I’m surprised you never told them.’

  ‘Really, that’s my own affair,’ laughed de Raun. ‘But, if you must know, our idea, my wife and I, was that if we kept the hotel guessing we’d keep the Press guessing, too. Still, you’ll be glad to hear that I’m putting them out of their misery to-day. I’ve sent one of the hands ashore to telephone. As soon as the weather improves, we’re setting course for a warmer climate.’

  ‘I hate to spoil your honeymoon, Mr. de Raun, but I fancy the police will want you to remain here, certainly until after the inquest.’

  ‘You talk as if Guydamour’s death were my personal concern. I’m terribly sad about it but, apart from the loss of the jewels, it’s none of my business. By the way, I suppose there’s no doubt that robbery was the motive; I mean you’ve got evidence that he had the jewels in his possession?’

  ‘An empty jewel-box was found in the room with the body.’

  ‘A heart-shaped case with a double-compartment and Fanny’s initials on the lid?’

  ‘I don’t know about the initials but the rest of the description fits.’

  ‘Then it’s a bad business, all right. That’s the jewel-case. We had it designed specially.’

  ‘I suppose you realize that there’ll be a lot more publicity over this.’

  Anton de Raun threw up his hands in mock dismay.

  ‘Poor Fanny,’ he said. ‘She’s worn out with it.’

  He poured himself some more coffee.

  ‘Well, I think that’s all,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘In view of your sad news, I won’t weigh anchor until I’ve given the police all the information I can. But I don’t think there’s much more that you and I can say to each other.’

  ‘Would you think me impertinent,’ said Mr. Cork, ‘if I asked to meet the crew of this vessel before I leave?’

  ‘What an extraordinary request. What on earth for?’

  ‘If they’re the regular crew, it’s possible that my friend here may be able to identify one of them. If he can, it’s of great importance to our case. That’s so, isn’t it, Harry?’

  ‘’Tisn’t necessary, guv,’ said Harry warily.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘’Cause ’e’s ’ere. The chap what tipped me off on the job was him.’

  He pointed accusingly at de Raun.

  ***

  De Raun gripped the edge of the table with long, strong fingers. He half rose from his swivel chair.

  ‘You keep odd company,’ he said to Mr. Cork.

  ‘When I’m in odd company, I suit myself to circumstances. Please sit down.’

  De Raun dropped stiffly into his chair.

  ‘Are you sure you’re right, Harry?’

  ‘’Course I’m right. He knows it, too. Him and his gentlemanly ways. He was dressed as a seaman when I met him.’

  De Raun smiled again.

  ‘I can’t think what this fellow’s talking about, but it’s hardly likely that I should associate with a cheap little crook like him.’

  ‘How did you know he was a crook?’ asked Mr. Cork evenly. ‘No, it’s not your first mistake, de Raun. Your first mistake was when you said you didn’t know that Guydamour had arrived at the Paradise; but you did know. Guydamour put through a call to you at your hotel in London, on the morning of your wedding. It wasn’t an ordinary call; it was a personal one. It’s recorded on the hotel bill that the call was completed. What did he tell you? All right, I’ll tell you myself. He informed you that the insurance company was getting suspicious. He told you that he’d just had a call
from Paris warning him that I’d been asking pertinent questions. He’d got cold feet. But you wouldn’t call it off. You arranged to keep a secret rendezvous with him that night in his bedroom at the Paradise. I can’t prove that yet, but the murderer was careless about finger-prints, because he never doubted that a celebrated honeymooner like himself would ever be suspected. Indeed, he was even stupid enough to use a tyre lever as a weapon which probably came from his own car. I’ve no doubt Guydamour made you a prearranged signal to show you his room as you waited in the gardens.’

  ‘You forget. I was with my newly-married wife.’

  ‘Not at that moment. You sent your wife away to the yacht in the motor-boat while you held back on the excuse of parking the car or something of that sort. It didn’t take long to accomplish your plan. Guydamour, your accomplice, was waiting to welcome you. When you shinned up the ivy, he opened the window and held out his hand…’

  ‘All of which shows to what limits insurance companies will go to evade paying a claim. I don’t want your money. Everybody knows that I’m a well-to-do man.’

  ‘You mean everybody knows that you’ve got a well-to-do wife.’

  ‘I can afford to ignore your cheap insults. What you don’t explain, in this cooked-up story of yours, is what possible advantage it can be to me to lose the jewels and accept rather less than their proper value as compensation from the insurance company.’

  ‘I don’t believe you paid a farthing for the jewels, de Raun. Guydamour was in the conspiracy with you. You made a plot together to defraud my company. A very clever plot, too. By virtue of your social position and your engagement to Fanny Fairfield, you agreed with Guydamour to pretend to buy Alouette’s Worms. You undertook to insure them and you took it on yourself to see to it that they’d be burgled the moment you got them. But you meant to do it properly. You wanted a real burglar and a real burglary. So you picked on poor little Harry here, a clever cracksman but a stupid man, as your tool. Because you were anxious not to introduce a third person into your plot, you took the foolish risk of dressing up as a seaman and tipping-off Harry yourself. You gave him the know-how on a plate, even to the position of a secret safe in the wall. You knew that, after the event, you could deal with Harry.

  ‘In the end, Guydamour lost his nerve. But you couldn’t afford to. So you made an even better job of it. You murdered your own accomplice. And you might have got away with it if you hadn’t previously done such a good job with Harry. Because there were no newspapers, Harry knew nothing of the murder. Because I couldn’t sleep, I caught him red-handed. Harry led me to you.’

  ‘Have some more coffee,’ said de Raun coolly. ‘That lot’s cold. I’ll ring the bell for some.’

  He put his hand under the table. When he lifted it again, he held a small automatic.

  ‘I’m sorry to do this,’ he said, ‘but you’re talking rather dangerously.’

  ‘Don’t move, Harry,’ said Mr. Cork over his shoulder.

  ‘Wise advice,’ said de Raun.

  ‘I must remind you that the police are on their way here, de Raun. That pistol is scarcely a recommendation of your innocence.’

  ‘Get into that locker.’

  With the muzzle of his pistol, de Raun indicated a large press in the corner of the saloon.

  ‘Hurry up. Stand with your backs to the wall.’

  He gave Mr. Cork a push, and launched a kick at Harry.

  ‘You can shout your hearts out in there. Nobody will hear you. We’re going for a long sea voyage together.’

  He slammed the door and locked it.

  ‘You told me not to shoot, guv,’ whispered Harry in the dark.

  ‘I’m glad you didn’t try. De Raun, I’m sure, is a much quicker gunman than you are. But you can use your pistol now.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘People who carry pistols always have one-track minds. I don’t want you to shoot anybody. I just want you to blow the lock off this door.’

  Harry felt about for the lock.

  ‘If I had time,’ he said, ‘I could pick it.’

  ‘If you took your time, we’d be half-way across the Channel.’

  Harry let go with two shots from his gun. In the confined space of the cupboard, the noise was ear-splitting. The two of them burst out, in a cloud of powder smoke, like magicians in a pantomime.

  They ran along the covered sundeck towards the bow of the ship. But they halted in time. The crew, eight of them, were standing on the fo’c’sle with their hands up watching the superstructure. Chris Sparrow was one of them. Mr. Cork took Harry by the arm, and drew him back.

  ‘De Raun is obviously threatening them from the wheelhouse. Sparrow, I think, wasn’t as green as he looked. He went out to make sure that the hands were on our side.’

  ‘Can he start the boat, guv, without ’em?’

  ‘I don’t know enough about it, but I shouldn’t be surprised.’

  ‘What do we do?’

  ‘We distract his attention, Harry.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I’ll see to that. You wait here.’

  Mr. Cork quietly opened the door at the foot of the companion-way leading up to the wheelhouse.

  ‘Do you want the gun?’ said Harry in a hoarse whisper.

  Mr. Cork shook his head. With hunched shoulders, he jutted out his chin and slowly climbed the creaking stairs. De Raun must surely hear him coming.

  The door at the top of the dark companion-way was half-open, swinging gently with the movement of the anchored yacht. He could see the glittering brass of instruments in the wheelhouse and the gritty white enamel of the paintwork. But de Raun made no move.

  ***

  Mr. Cork had only the vaguest notion of how to tackle him. It would be adequate if he could distract the man’s attention long enough to give the crew on the fo’c’sle a chance to make a getaway. The risk that de Raun would shoot on sight couldn’t be discounted; but the fact that he himself was unarmed was a certain protection. Normally, the best way of dealing with a man waving a pistol about was to reassure his immediate sense of security. Apart from that, there were very few people who could use one with any accuracy. He remembered with grim inconsequence that, in his own soldiering days in the First World War, he had failed completely to hit a tin hat with one of the old Webley revolvers at five yards range.

  Outside the wheelhouse, he flattened his back against the wall of the companion-way. He slowly put out his hand and, with the tips of his fingers, he pushed the door wide open. Nothing happened.

  ‘Are you there, de Raun?’

  There was no answer.

  ‘I’m coming in there with you. It’s unnecessary to shoot at me because I’m unarmed. To reassure you, I’m going to show myself with my arms raised over my head.’

  He took a deep breath. Raising his hands, he stepped into the glass-fronted cabin. As he crossed the threshold, he was grabbed round the waist. De Raun had been waiting for him behind the door. Half-thrown off his feet, he struggled in the hugging grip of de Raun’s left arm; in his right, he still held the pistol levelled at the men grouped below on the foredeck.

  ‘Keep still or I’ll brain you.’

  Wriggling in de Raun’s grasp, Mr. Cork kicked him sharply on the shin. He was rewarded with a yelp of pain. De Raun fell down. Below on the deck, he heard a shout. The crew started running towards them. De Raun got to his feet, and he, too, ran.

  He threw his leg over the rail and dropped overboard into the motorboat as the hands crowded in on him. But they fell back as, bending over the engine, he flourished his pistol menacingly.

  The motor picked up with a gurgling hum. He cast off and, reeling back as the boat surged forward, he drove towards the shore. He was almost at the groin when a posse of police, led by Trelawny, came through the gap in the cliffs.

  De Raun swung the boat away again. The lau
nch was a fast one. With the throttle full open, it settled down on its stern with its bow slapping on the swell. With a spuming wake, it circled round the yacht in a wide arc and raced out of the shelter of the cove into the open sea.

  Then, from a thing of fleeting beauty, it was reduced to the pathetic impotence of a cork. It rolled and plunged in the broken water, one moment with its bow pointing to the sky and the next with upraised stern showing the screw spinning aimlessly in the air. Against the crested cruelty of the ocean, it was lost. With every roll, de Raun was shipping water like a bucket dripping in a well. The seagulls crowded round, wailing like mourners at a wake. From the yacht and the shore, they watched him wrestling with the unconquerable. He went overboard a few seconds before the launch heeled over and, raising her cream bows in the air, slid to the bottom to make a bed for the congers and the other carrion-eaters of the sea. They didn’t see de Raun again. They didn’t expect to.

  ***

  It was a quarter of an hour before they could swing out another boat to bring the police aboard. Fanny Fairfield woke up feeling so much better that she peered out of the porthole. Seeing so many men coming aboard, she took her time dressing and getting her make-up in proper order. When she came on deck, Inspector Trelawny had renewed the laborious business of taking statements and his officers had started the search of the yacht for the missing jewels.

  ***

  Chris Sparrow scooped the biggest story of his life as a newspaperman. Harry, until economic circumstances led him astray again, enjoyed for a while the strange experience of being an honest citizen. M. Aloysia, contrary to all his expectations, did a record New Year’s business. Phoebe had an emerald ring from her husband to make up for the way he’d spoilt her Christmas. Fanny Fairfield married again, quite soon. Only Mr. Cork seemed discontented.

  He called conference after conference with his chief executives. He harried his staff with a paper chase of memoranda dictated from the formidable sanctum of his private office. He was determined that there’d never be a de Raun case again.

  But he couldn’t avoid the publicity. Under great pressure, when the police proceedings were over, he consented to grant an interview to the Press. He’d never done it before and, after the event, he swore that he’d never put up with it again. At the conference, he explained, with his usual grave clarity, the main details of the fraud. He emphasized that people who try to cheat the insurance companies are pitting themselves against the experience of a business which survives by its capacity to distinguish the honest man from the dishonest one.