The H. Bedford-Jones Pulp Fiction Megapack

by H. Bedford-Jones

Apple-blossom again. The gendarme, who spoke English fluently, smiled.

  “M. Clancy has found something?”

  “What I sought is not here,” said Clancy evasively, then his tone became sharper. “I have finished, m’sieur. If you question Gersault, you’ll find that he’ll confess to theft from this safe—”

  “He has confessed, monsieur,” said the gendarme. “A copy is in the dossier I gave you.”

  “Good,” said Clancy. “Take a look at the body, Logan. The rest is a matter for the nose—the trained, inquisitive nose—and for plodding research.”

  I looked at the dead man. A small, swarthy, fat little chap, he had been one who dressed carefully for his business, with morning coat, starched front and cuffs—even a rosebud in his buttonhole. The left arm was stretched out away from the body. Under it, the coat had been pulled away, vest and underwear cut to permit examination of the wound. From the man’s immaculate appearance, I concluded he had been caught unawares. Whoever had looked at the wound had probably done the slight disarrangement visible—or so I thought.

  “Come along, Logan,” said Clancy.

  * * * *

  We said farewell to the gendarme, and went out to the street. Clancy led the way, more or less in one of his absent-minded dreams, and I tagged along toward the Madeleine. At the Trois Quartiers corner, he halted suddenly.

  “How much money have you, Logan?”

  “All of it,” I responded. “A couple of thousand francs.”

  “You may need to use some of it. I expect you to work—no Watson business for you, my friend! I’m depending on you for a good deal. To follow your nose, for one thing—would you know that smell again?”

  “Anywhere,” I answered readily. “It was faint, but remarkable. Quite unlike the ordinary perfume, I imagine.”

  He nodded approvingly, then gave me a sample of his surprising general knowledge.

  “It’s used very seldom—is made by an English firm, oddly enough. They put it on the market some fifteen years ago and at first it swept things. Then the demand died out, for this apple-blossom had no lasting qualities. It could not be fixed, like ordinary perfume, but died out and was gone. Women wouldn’t use it, despite its rare flavor, for this reason. There are others like it, of course, but none with its peculiar bouquet. Think you’d be misled?”

  “No,” I said, with conviction. One could not easily be misled there.

  “One thing will help you—whoever uses it, must use it heavily, owing to its evanescent quality. Colette was murdered this morning. Whoever did it, used this perfume at home, put on gloves, came straight to Colette’s place and killed him, then got the stamp. Perhaps took off the gloves to pull the stamp loose and pocket it—well, no matter! You must follow your nose.”

  “To find who uses this perfume—in Paris?” I laughed skeptically. “It’s a large order.”

  “You’re not Watson—I hope,” came the biting response. Then Clancy smiled and put his hand on my shoulder. “Go to it! The stuff is imported from England and very few people use it nowadays; that’s all the help I can give you. You’re new to this game?”

  I shrugged. “I’m a newspaper man.”

  “There are as big fools in that game as in others,” he said calmly. “You know enough, then, to neglect no customer who buys that scent. And remember the sort of weapon used! I must interview Gersault and one or two others. We’ll meet around the dental chair at eight this evening—eh? If not before.”

  “Right,” I said.

  * * * *

  Back in my youthful days, I once had a girl who liked apple-blossom perfume, and I bought her so much of it, and she used it so freely, that I became sick of the odor for life. The usual odor, that is. This one particular brand was different, a sweet and freshly invigorating smell that took one straight back to an apple orchard.

  I left Clancy on the corner and ducked down to Prunier’s for a bite to eat. Not the grand joint where tourists get bled, but the little one where you sit at the counter and pay French prices. And, as I crossed the street intersection, apple-blossom struck at me from a gorgeous limousine—the same rare scent. It’s odd how you neglect the existence of a thing until the need comes for finding it, and then you meet it from every angle!

  It was a big car. I was dodging through the traffic, and could only tell from the back wheel hubs that it was of Italian make. When I reached safety and turned to look, the limousine had swept away and gone in the tide of traffic. I had to give it up and run along to get my sandwich and demi of bock. There was no particular haste, for despite the apparent magnitude of my task, I could do little until the noon hour was past and the shops opened up at two.

  A little reasoning over my lunch showed me that one who used apple-blossom and knew Colette’s, must be in the habit of shopping in the Rue St. Honore neighborhood among the solemn tourists with their long purses and omnipresent canes. So I set forth to dip into the perfume shops, even unto the Rue de Rivoli, but none of them yielded anything beyond the modern variant of my apple-blossom—a sweeter, more enduring, sickish smell. The one I wanted could not be fixed in its alcohol base, so was not popular; but while it lasted, it was like a breath of orchard with children playing in it.

  I thought of an English druggist, and looked one up. Here I struck oil. He found a wholesaler’s list which gave the address of the Paris importers of this stuff, he gave me a card and his blessing, and I sallied forth on sounder premises.

  This trail took me to a third-floor office near the Porte de St. Denis, where the druggist’s card made things easy for me. A very efficient girl clerk looked up the four shops in Paris where this perfume was sold and wrote down the addresses—four places in all Paris! Which shows how one cannot see the trees for the forest. One of those shops, and the likeliest, was in the Rue de Rivoli, not far from Rumpelmayer’s, and had been almost under my nose!

  This shop drew me first. I found a stodgy, middle-aged man who regarded my inquiries with distinct suspicion until, French fashion, I reached his interest by telling my personal affairs, or seeming to. When my hints made him understand that this was an affair of a secret passion and a beautiful incognita, he woke up.

  He had two steady customers for my apple-blossom. One was the Baronne de la Seigny, at present in charge of a base hospital on the Moroccan front, where her husband held high command. She, obviously, was out of it. The other was a certain Madame de Lautenac, probably gone to her villa at Nice, but perhaps still in Paris. The address of this so charming madame—he hesitated doubtfully, but the fact of being in on the edge of a love affair shattered his commercial virtue. So did my hundred-franc note. I got the Lautenac address.

  * * * *

  I departed for the other three establishments. In one I was refused information point-blank: confidential hints effected nothing, nor did the bank notes. I tried to buy two bottles of the perfume, but they had only one. Back to the Porte St. Denis I went, interviewed the wholesaler’s clerk again, spent a little money. The last order from this shop had been for three bottles, twelve months previously. Obviously, they had no regular customer for it. Time gone to waste!

  One other shop, toward the Place de la Republique, was uncertain of its customers and afforded nothing. The fourth and last, near the Printemps, yielded gracefully to my persuasion. Four regular customers; Marquise d’Auteuil, a wealthy title bought under the Empire and of high society. A premiere danseuse at one of the Folies run for tourists. A lady, about whom the less said the better, just now sharing the establishment of a deposed potentate from the far east; and last—ah! A milliner in the Rue St. Honore!

  There came the difficulty; a flat-footed refusal to furnish names and addresses of the last three. The hunt was over, I told myself, and went for the milliner’s address. I bought her business name—Nicolette—for five hundred francs, and went my way rejoicing to see her.

  I think Nicolette had a lot of fun with me. She was fat and fifty, if a day. When I asked to buy a hat and obviously knew nothing
about millinery, she gave me pleasant ridicule. Neither she nor her assistant was perfumed. My idea of buying a hat without bringing a lady to try it on struck them as delicious. When I asked abruptly if there were any stamp dealers in the vicinity, they evidently thought me crazy.

  “Ah! That poor M’sieur Colette was murdered this morning!” responded Nicolette. “So far as I know, there are no others nearer than the Rue Drouot. My husband, who was killed at Verdun, was a collectioneur, but I myself am not interested. Perhaps if you will bring madame, or mademoiselle, to choose her own hat—”

  I got out of the place. In Paris, they suffer fools gladly.

  The afternoon was wearily wasting along by this time. I went back to the English druggist to make sure of my premises. No, the English makers would supply only through the wholesale house; they were very strict about it as regarded the Paris trade. I had missed nobody.

  I went to Fauchon’s, which opened earlier than most, and dined by myself. The four shops selling my apple-blossom had not provided one decent clue among them. The premiere danseuse and the potentate’s lady friend I had failed to locate, and Nicolette was ruled out. None of these was probably on the lookout for a Niger Coast one-pound surcharge at any price, even that of murder. There remained two very unlikely candidates—Madame de Lautenac, who seemed out of the city, and the Marquise d’Auteuil, member of very exclusive circles. I got an evening paper and read about the murder of Colette.

  Nothing new there, except that he was really an Italian, whose original name had been Coletti.

  * * * *

  In something of a bad humor, I entered Clancy’s office at eight o’clock. He was in the dental chair, with a packet of stamp mounts scattered over the instrument tray, a loose-leaf album in his lap, and the operating light blazing on him. He glanced up but did not rise.

  “This business started me off again,” he said dreamily. “Niger Coast—mine is a fine set, too. The ten-shilling red surcharge on five pence, for example: I came across it ten years ago at the Hotel Drouot—”

  He closed the album and nodded happily.

  “I’ve tracked down the apple-blossom,” I said abruptly.

  “With no result, eh?”

  “How do you know that?”

  “By your face. How much did you expend?”

  I told him. He brought out a wad of notes and refunded my expenditures, and I gave him an exact account of all I had done. He stroked his goatee and nodded.

  “You did well. Hm! The premiere danseuse can be ruled out—she would not be up before noon, and those ladies are hard-working. They do not go around sticking knives into shopkeepers. About Madame de Lautenac, I know nothing; it will be easy to find whether she has gone to Nice. However, I am attracted by the two remaining possibilities; the Marquise, and the pretty favorite of the eastern potentate. She must be Lottie Harfleur—of course!”

  He got out of his chair and went to the shelves on the wall. He took down first one and then another volume of “Le Bottin”—the voluminous directory that will give you all France and its people, if you know how to use the thing. Then he gave me a cigarette and lighted another at my match, and smoked thoughtfully.

  “There’s a stamp auction tomorrow at the Drouot,” he observed dreamily. “Another of those sweet little games managed by the dealers for their own benefit. Everything in Paris touches the Hotel Drouot at some point; draft horses and Greek statuary, all come to the auction block there—they sold Marie Antoinette’s nightcap the other day. I’d be tempted to look there, except—the Premier visiting the prefect of police—”

  “Politics?” I asked hopefully.

  Clancy smiled. “Why not? This Colette was an Italian, yet in Paris you can never tell who anybody is in reality. He may have been a secret agent for some foreign government—anything! Yet, his murderer took a stamp of priceless value, a Niger Coast stamp also, a colony in which few collectors here are interested—”

  He tossed his cigarette to the floor, French fashion, and stepped on it, then looked at me.

  “Do you know any newspaper men here?”

  “One or two,” I said.

  “Good. Find out all you can about the private life of the Marquise d’Auteuil. Leave the others to me. Follow your nose. To tell the exact truth,” and he smiled in his whimsical, kindly fashion, “you and I are both up a stump, young man! I want more information and I mean to have it—from somewhere. There’s something to this I don’t know.”

  “Obviously,” I said with heavy wit. He chuckled and slapped my shoulder.

  “Right! We’ll get it tomorrow. Follow your nose—follow your nose! Eight tomorrow night at the dental chair, if not before. And here’s luck to you!”

  I went back to my lodgings, feeling that my first essay as a detective was not up to storybook style, by a long shot.

  With Phil Brady, who does a weekly column for New York and syndicate papers, and who knows everything and everybody in Paris, I had a nodding acquaintance. Like most of the top-notch correspondents, Brady has the Legion of Honor. I reached him by telephone, and next morning he met me at a corner terrace table outside the Cafe Madrid. He was large, comfortable and middle-aged, had married a Frenchwoman, and was universally liked.

  “Spill it,” said Brady, when we had ordered a cafe fine. “What d’you want?”

  “The Marquise d’Auteuil,” I said.

  “Expensive,” grunted Brady, “but get her if you want her—not with my help. Run your own tourist agency. I thought this was serious business.”

  “Confound you!” I exclaimed. “I didn’t mean what you mean. I’ve got a line on something in this Colette murder affair, if you’ve heard of it, and this dame is one of the exhibits.”

  “Oh!” Brady grinned. “Exclusive story to me when it’s ready for release.”

  “Agreed. If I’m on the right track we’ll both win.”

  “Who you working with or for?”

  “A chap named Clancy.”

  He gave me a queer look. “Oh! You’re a lucky devil. What do you want?”

  “The lady’s life history. Perhaps an introduction.”

  He grunted. “You don’t want much. Meet me at the Gallos Cafe, back of the Louvre store, at one-thirty. Best place to eat in the city and not a confounded tourist to be seen. I don’t carry life histories in my head, but I’ll have the dope for you then. Order a bottle of their Vouvray ’06 but go light on it—strong stuff. What’s back of this Colette murder?”

  “Search me, so far. Know anything? Politics?”

  He sniffed. “I know your friend Clancy—he doesn’t fool away time on nothing. If it’s politics, it may reach anywhere. Well, see you for lunch, then.”

  His opinion of my new employer was extremely reassuring, but I wondered whether Clancy had not side-tracked me. It did not seem probable that a marquise would have committed the murder, though I did not have any high opinion of Continental nobility. Clancy’s half-formed notions about the Hotel Drouot, however, struck me as more to the point. This huge building of lofty halls, center of all the auctions in Paris, was a remarkable institution. Here were sold estates, goods seized for taxes, government confiscations, collections of books, stamps, coins, everything! Few tourists ever reached it: the place was haunted every afternoon by all the antique dealers in Paris, by collectors of every walk in life, by society women and hotel-keepers. Something might show up in line with my quest at this afternoon’s sale, and I determined to drop around.

  * * * *

  At the time and place appointed, I met Brady again. He brought three different portraits of the Marquise d’Auteuil, two being studio views and the third a snap taken at Longchamps. This gave her as tall and willowy, wearing the last thing in summer frocks, with a feather boa about her swanlike neck—the odious phrase fitted her exactly. The portraits showed her classic features as cold and proud, somewhere in the early thirties, and I did not care for her looks a bit.

  “And what about her?” I demanded.

  “Co
nvent educated,” said Brady. “Daughter of Armand de Chevrier, of the old noblesse. Married Auteuil at nineteen, when he was forty. They have a big place in Auteuil, another at Cannes, another in Normandy, but have let the chateaux—money is rather tight with them just at present. Neither she nor her husband are up to snuff. He has his actresses, she has her lovers, to put it baldly. Just now, Jean Galtier is the favorite of the fair dame. That’s about all the general information I can pick up, and blessed if I can see where it would lead to the Colette affair.”

  I agreed with him. “Who’s this Jean Galtier?”

  “Average man about town,” replied Brady. “If you golf, I can get you in with him—if he’s any use to you. He has money and time to spend, that’s all; a languid devil, despite his passion for golf.”

  “Does he collect stamps?”

  “You can search me.” Brady shook his head and attacked his Chateaubriand. “However, I have something useful for you. There’s a big political reception in the Avenue Kléber tonight, with some of the press invited—you can take my card and go if you like. Galtier will be there; he has stock in a newspaper, which means politics. The Marquise may be there. Georges Lebrun is the general master of ceremonies. Tell him I sent you, and he can manage an introduction to the lady—if you want it.”

  I pocketed the pasteboards he handed me. “And the Marquis?”

  “If he’s not at the reception, you’ll find her there, and vice versa,” said Brady with a touch of cynical amusement. “He patronizes Montmartre, however, rather than social affairs.”

  “And this Georges Lebrun?”

  “You can’t miss him. Just five feet, rosette of the Legion, beautiful black hair with a white patch over the left brow. He’s very proud of it. Mention my name and he’ll do anything in reason for you. I’ve a few further details, if they’re any use.”

  He had—many of them, and I wondered how he had got hold of them. An expensive lady was the Marquise. He had a list of her debts, her habits, and her companions; and before our luncheon was finished I had a worse opinion of my fellow man than previously. It was a scandalously intimate story, once Brady was fairly launched.