by John Bude
“One little point, mon ami,” put in Blampignon. “What of the clothes he remove from the body of Shenton? You think he conceal them somewhere up on the mountain?”
Meredith exchanged a meaning glance with Gibaud.
“As a matter of fact we’d already thought of that one. Gibaud’s detailed a couple of fellows to make a thorough search around the spot where we found the body. They’re on the job now.”
“Bon!” ejaculated Blampignon, with a nod of approval. “That is good sense. Please to continue.”
“Well, we come now to the Friday morning expedition that Dillon and his wife made up into the mountains. As the young woman told us, he persuaded her to accompany him so that they could have a final discussion about the damnably unhappy situation in which they found themselves. It was absolutely vital to his plans that his wife should agree to the outing. The reason, of course, is clear. He wanted her to witness his ‘suicidal’ leap over that precipice.”
“But why?” demanded Blampignon with a bewildered expression. “Since you find only the body of Shenton, it is evident now that he did not throw himself off the crag.”
“But he did!” contested Meredith emphatically. “Every detail of the girl’s statement was true. He did cross the road, climb the fence and chuck himself over the edge. Don’t forget we’ve got corroborative evidence of this fact.”
“Hamel, eh?” said Gibaud. “His identification of that portrait?”
“Exactly. You see where that left me when I discovered, without any shadow of doubt, that it was Shenton’s body in the mortuary. Here were two independent witnesses who saw Dillon plunge into space off the Col. There should, of course, have been two bodies in the valley below. But there weren’t!”
“But mon Dieu!” spluttered Blampignon, “how do you explain? A…a…now how do you say?—un corniche, perhaps?”
“A ledge,” chuckled Meredith. “No—I thought of that. I drove out and carefully examined the rock-face. Smooth as a baby’s derrière, my dear fellow.”
Blampignon threw wide his hands in a gesture of despair.
“Sacré nom! Then what is the answer?”
“Remember what I told you about the mystery of the three rucksacks? One on Shenton’s body containing a scarlet Thermos. One containing the picnic meal put up by the cook at the villa, including the blue Thermos. Later found by the Sergeant stuck away under the driving-seat of Dillon’s car. And the third attached to Dillon’s back when he went over the crag.” Meredith paused and gazed round expectantly at the blank, puzzled faces of his colleagues. “Great Scott, don’t you get it now? That third rucksack contained a parachute!”
“A parachute!” exclaimed the three men in unison.
Meredith nodded.
“A specially designed short-drop parachute. You see, Dillon had been working on the evolution of this particular type of parachute in his spare time. The Yard forwarded me the information which they’d picked up from the Hawland Aircraft Company, the firm in which Dillon was employed. Aerodynamics—that was his pet line. And what that fellow didn’t know about aerodynamics you could write on a pin’s head. At least that seemed to be the opinion of his boss in the research department. Dillon had spoken to the chap about his spare-time experiments with short-drop parachutes. He’d evidently thought up an entirely new principle and was hoping to patent it. It was this that first put me on to the modus operandi of his alibi—plus the fact that he’d been in the Airborne during the War. No question that his recent jaunts up in the mountains were connected with these experiments. Heaven knows! Dillon’s got guts.”
“You mean he’s been trying out experimental jumps ever since he arrived in Menton?” asked Gibaud.
“Yes—acting as his own guinea-pig. And, if you ask me, the place he finally selected for these tests was the rock-face up on the Col de Braus. That’s why he was familiar with the lie of the land. Daresay that is how he came to hit on the amazing idea behind his alibi. Simple, eh? But devilish subtle.” Meredith shrugged. “Well, that, gentlemen, more or less covers my reconstruction of the crime. I may be mistaken about some of the details, but I’m certain that—”
There was a knock on the door.
“Entrez!” sang out Gibaud.
A constable entered and, crossing to the Inspector’s desk, dumped on it a dusty bundle of clothes.
“Voilà, M’sieur!”
“Well, I’ll be darned!” breathed Meredith. “A perfect piece of timing, eh?” He turned to Gibaud. “Ask him where he found the confounded things.”
After a brief catechism in French, Gibaud congratulated the constable, dismissed him and turned back to Meredith.
“Pushed in under a thick clump of scrub near the roadside, about half-way between the mule-track and the Col itself. He says there’s a few oddments in the pockets, including a wallet.” As the others crowded round the desk, Gibaud examined the clothes in silence—cream silk shirt, American lumber-jacket, fawn worsted trousers, chequered silk socks, white-and-tan shoes. From the hip pocket of the trousers he pulled out the wallet and extracted from it a thick wad of notes, several visiting-cards and an international driving-licence. “Well,” he announced, holding up the licence and pointing to the attached photo of the dead man, “this settles the question of identification. They’re Shenton’s clothes right enough.”
“Here, wait a minute!” snapped Meredith, making a grab at the notes. “Let’s take a dekko at—” A smile spread over his aquiline features—a smile that broadened to a grin, and finally resolved itself into a prolonged and unchecked roar of laughter. “Well, of all the…!” he spluttered. “What do you know about that? I reckon M’sieur Hivert of the Bar St. Raphael’s all set for a pretty nasty jolt.”
“What do you mean, mon ami?” asked Blampignon.
Meredith held up the notes and flicked through them with a forefinger.
“These notes, gentlemen. All guaranteed original works of the master! Perfect examples of Cobbett’s later period! Any bids, gentlemen?”
Chapter XIV
Au Revoir
I
“Well,” said Freddy with a melancholic sigh, “I suppose this is it! No good kicking against the pricks. It’s been fun while it lasted. We’re off tomorrow as soon as it’s light.”
He and Dilys, cosily intertwined, were leaning over the terrace of Le Rocher de Monaco gazing out across the placid waters of the harbour towards the lights of Monte Carlo.
Dilys asked with a faint hint of apprehension:
“But surely you’ll…you’ll be glad to get home again?”
“What!…To Willesden, N.W.2? After this?” He gestured toward the insubstantial fairyland that seemed to be suspended between sea and sky like some spangled and impossibly romantic backcloth. “Have a heart, darling!” Freddy sighed again. “I suppose you realize you’ve just about knocked me for a six? I came down here a carefree, uncomplicated sort of chap. And now look at me! Befogged, bewitched and bewildered. You’ve got a heck of a lot to answer for, Miss Westmacott.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Well, you don’t look it!” snorted Freddy, gazing down at her upturned face with an expression of agonized approval.
“Really? Then how do I look?”
“Unbelievable,” breathed Freddy. “Out-of-this-world.”
Dilys laughed.
“A week from now you’ll remember saying that and blush to the roots of your hair.”
“A week from now,” contested Freddy, “I shall be sitting in my lonely bachelor room writing you a ten-page letter.”
Her hand tightened over his. She demanded earnestly:
“You will write, won’t you?”
“Every dreary day until we meet again. Though heaven alone knows,” he added glumly, “when that will be.”
“Why not when I come to London?”
“What!” whooped
Freddy, twisting her round and almost whirling her off her feet. “You’re coming to London? Why the deuce didn’t you tell me? Why? When? How long for?”
“Well, I don’t know exactly. But Aunt Nesta wants to let the villa for at least six months. We’ll probably be coming over to England in a few weeks. You can imagine how dreadful she feels about poor Tony.”
Freddy nodded and went on in more sober tones:
“Yes—a rotten show. I didn’t mean to talk about all this—but now that it’s cropped up…well, I may as well tell you.”
“What?”
“They arrested that poor devil Dillon this morning at the Gare du Nord in Paris. I suppose he was trying to edge his way back across the Channel. You know, darling, I can’t help feeling sorry for the fellow. Take it all round he’s had a pretty raw deal. More sinned against than sinning, eh?”
“And now…” asked Dilys unhappily, “now that they have arrested him…?”
Freddy shrugged.
“Difficult to say. Heaven knows he had plenty of provocation for what he did. It’s what they call a crime passionel over here, isn’t it? So perhaps they won’t hand out too stiff a sentence.” For the third time Freddy sighed. “Funny how some blokes get all the hard knocks, whilst others…” He broke off and slowly shook his head. “No—maybe I’m being a bit too optimistic.”
“Over what?”
“You, darling. You see, when you come to London…”
“Well?”
“Well, I was wondering if we could sort of…well, knock around together—see the sights, do a few shows and all that.”
“But why not? I’d get lost in London on my own.”
“Yes, but I mean…er…officially. You see, I was wondering if you and I…” Freddy gulped, took a firm grip on himself and blurted out: “Good heavens, darling, you know I’m absolutely crazy about you! Do you think we could make a go of it? Do you? I mean, sort of…er…together.”
“Is this a proposal of marriage? It sounds ominously like it.”
“Well, it is…actually,” mumbled Freddy with a hangdog look.
“I rather thought it was,” murmured Dilys.
“And your…er…reaction to the idea?”
She threw him a provocative, sidelong glance.
“As a detective I must naturally leave you to find that out for yourself.”
“Find out? How?”
“By exercising your well-trained powers of observation and deduction.”
Freddy took a single, infatuated look at her smiling, upturned face and scooped her unceremoniously into his arms.
“O.K.,” he murmured. “O.K.! Good enough, my girl. Case closed!”
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