‘And if we don’t agree to that?’
‘Then, one morning, you’ll find me dead in my cell in the women’s prison. His reach is a long one. And the killings will go on. Is that the proof you will be looking for?’
‘Up to you, Bonnefoye. I don’t trust her.’
He could see his young colleague had been fired by the chance of landing a male suspect. A foreigner, a well-to-do foreigner. Fourier would not have hesitated. Was it likely that the madame of a brothel, no matter how successful, could devise these murderous attacks? No, there must be a male intelligence and will underpinning everything. And who was to say he was wrong? Here was Alice on the verge of trading a devastating betrayal for her freedom.
‘I agree to your terms,’ Bonnefoye said after a long pause. ‘And, madame, please do not think of deceiving me. I too have a very long reach.’
‘John Pollock,’ she said simply and held out her mug for more coffee.
Joe got to his feet, agitated, barely able to keep his hands off her. He wanted to shake her until she told the truth. A different truth. ‘I don’t believe a word of this. Nonsense! I’ve met the man. A cousin of Sir George’s would never . . .’ He stopped himself from further reinforcing her jaundiced view of men. He was quite certain that she resented the easy camaraderie between them. Why should he trust John Pollock after a half-hour’s interview and herself not at all after five years, was her flawed reasoning.
‘Pardon me, madame,’ said Bonnefoye, icily polite, ‘but to clarify: you are accusing Sir George’s cousin not only of masterminding a series of improbable murders in the French capital and now we must understand in London also – but of accepting a commission from a fellow countryman to kill his own cousin? You say he did not question the projected crime but went along with it, planned it, and had it not been for your intervention, would have executed it?’
Alice considered. ‘Yes. That’s just about it. Well done. Will you write that down or shall I?’
‘I think we ought at this point to mention the word “motive”. Why on earth would he do that?’
‘Oh, come on! Can you be so unaware? What sort of detectives am I dealing with? Must I do all the work?’
‘Be kind, Alice,’ warned Joe.
‘Very well. George doesn’t talk much of it but he’s actually filthy rich, you know. Stands to reason! The man had a finger in every pie in India and many of them are full of plums. That’s what India was all about, you know. John Company . . . exploitation . . . Empire . . . it all boils down to cash. In accounts in Switzerland in many cases. George, with his knowledge of the way things would go – and he it was who pushed them where he wanted them to go on occasions – was well placed to make the most spectacular investments. He’s retired and come home to enjoy the fruits of his labours. He has no heir. For many years his cousin has been – still is – named in his will as recipient of his wealth. But John has lately become concerned about his cousin’s intentions . . . his state of mind . . . Unleashed from the stifling routine of India, he seems about to plunge into a world of gaiety. Who knows? Perhaps he might even be entrapped into marriage by some girl on the make? And produce an heir of his own within the year? It happens a dozen times a season in Paris! Pity I didn’t think of it myself! Much safer to accept Somerton’s timely commission. After all – the responsibility lies with the client, doesn’t it?’
‘Jack Pollock earns a perfectly decent salary. He may well be ennobled in the near future off his own bat. He doesn’t need, like Frederick Somerton, to wait around to inherit a title.’
Again he was rewarded with the pitying, world-weary gaze. ‘Do you have any idea how much it costs to underpin the life of a titled man? The estate? The household? The ceremony? The motor cars? The city house? The upkeep of a future Lady Pollock? He is like, yet not like George. Don’t be deceived. They are opposite sides of the same coin. Made from the same metal but the features are different. Jack is extravagant, fast-living. Ruthless, they are both ruthless, but, unlike George, his cousin has no conscience.’
‘Set and Osiris,’ Bonnefoye murmured. ‘I knew that ugly creature would stick his bent nose in before long. Good God! That little scene at the Louvre must have given him the idea for all this carnage! Planted a seed!’
Alice looked from one to the other in puzzlement. They didn’t bother to explain.
Half an hour later, a document had been drawn up to Alice’s satisfaction and she signed it.
‘My gun, Joe? May I?’
He took it from his pocket and handed it over hurriedly as though it would burn his fingers.
‘Well, I think I’ll be off now. Don’t bother to get up. I’m sure I can find my way out. I’ll mind my manners and pause to thank Moulin graciously for his hospitality and be on my way. I’ll leave you to curse me when my back’s turned.’
* * *
‘Moulin keeps his brandy in a bottle behind The Man in the Iron Mask,’ said Joe heavily. Bonnefoye poured out generous measures into the dregs of the coffee and they sipped it silently.
‘Which of us is going to tell George?’ asked Bonnefoye.
‘I will. You must be getting pretty fed up with all this palaver. Foreigners messing about in your life, murdering each other on French soil. Jolly bad form, what!’ he finished in an imitation of Wilberforce Jennings’ braying voice. ‘And I must find time to stroll into the Embassy and slap the cuffs on Pollock.’
‘And we’d better watch our backs on the streets. I haven’t forgotten there’s a pet Zouave slinking about.’
‘Well, well! Who’d have thought Fantômas, stalking the streets of Paris, would turn out to be a blue-eyed Englishman reciting the latest cricket scores!’
On their way through the morgue, Joe averted his eyes from the busy scene at three of the marble tables. He’d had enough of death for one day. But he was not to be allowed to ignore it entirely. Moulin called out to them as they appeared. He was holding something bloodstained up to the light in pincers and, carrying on with his work, said: ‘Somerton. Your last customer but one. The toxicology report came through. No, he wasn’t poisoned but they mentioned that he had a very high level of an opiate in his system. A pain-killer. I took a further look at the body. And there it was. A cancer. Well developed. I’d say he had no more than a month at the most to live. Pity the killer didn’t know that. He could have saved himself a tidy sum.’
Quietly Joe absorbed the news and, going to stand at Moulin’s shoulder while he worked on, murmured: ‘The killer did know. The killer, the instigator of the crime, was Somerton himself. He knew, then, he hadn’t got long and was determined to treat himself to a variety of luxuries before he snuffed it. He wanted to see Sir George suffer and in the most dramatic way . . .’ He filled in the story as far as it was known to them.
‘Mon Dieu! But – what a lucky escape! You must take your friend out to celebrate his good fortune.’
‘He’s not going to be much in the mood for celebrating when he learns the identity of the man we’ve been calling Set.’
‘Great heavens! You managed to get it out of her? I heard no squeaks of outrage, no rattling of irons?’
‘In the end she was all co-operation. Largely, I think, because the information she was giving us, she knew was most unwelcome to our ears. Set is, in fact, the alter ego of Sir George. The obverse of the medallion – his young cousin. Very sad and disturbing. And it’s not over yet. We’re just off into the night to find and arrest Set. Can’t say I’ve ever tangled with the God of Evil. Any suggestions? Ah well . . .’
‘Do I need to prepare a few more slabs?’ said Moulin lugubriously. ‘For goodness’ sake, take care, Sandilands. What gun are you carrying? Are you armed?’
‘Not so much as a toothpick,’ said Joe.
‘Here, take this,’ said Moulin, selecting a shining silver tool from his tray and rather embarrassed by his gesture. ‘Put it away in your pocket. It’s my best scalpel. Razor sharp. Don’t touch the edge! Handle with extreme care.’
Chapter Twenty-Six
They stepped out into the grey and gold light of a spring evening. There was a faint glimmer in the sky to the west and, across the river, dying rays were caught up and given a last flicker of life by the open windows of high attic rooms, still hot from the day. But a mist was already beginning to curl up from the Seine and Joe shivered.
‘Now I know you won’t want to hear me say this,’ Bonnefoye began cheerfully, ‘because I’m quite aware you’re all fired to go and stick your newly acquired weapon into the black heart of Set, but there are two people we must see first. Fourier and Sir George. Any preference?’
‘As we’re on the spot – Fourier. Let’s start with him, shall we?’
‘I’d prefer it. I have to report back on the fracas in the boulevard just now. He’ll be waiting to see me. Seems to be taking more of an interest. He grudgingly gave me ten blokes to mount the raid, after all! Feel up to the stairs, then, do you?’
Police headquarters was busy. Fourier, they were told, was busy but he had asked to see them as soon as they arrived. The Chief Inspector appeared not to have left his desk or changed his clothes since Joe had last seen him on the morning after the murder. A closer look, however, revealed a different pattern of coffee stains on his shirt front.
Juggling papers and cards, the Chief Inspector demonstrated his busy-ness and asked them to take a seat. The enquiry, he informed them, was progressing. His sergeant dashed in with a sheet of foolscap. Fourier was instantly absorbed by what he read there and, taking out his pen, made a few alterations and additions to the text.
‘The copy,’ he announced. ‘The copy, as we call it, for the press. I have it. Anything vital missing? Not having had your report yet, Bonnefoye, I’m working in the dark. What do you think?’
He began to read out the salient points. ‘Now then . . . Brigandage in Bohemia. Here we go. Guaranteed to get them going, a reference to brigandage . . . Officers working under the direction of Commissaire Casimir Fourier . . . dramatic shootout . . . three gangsters dead . . . no bystanders hurt . . . police squad remain on the alert and ensuring public safety in this erstwhile peaceable quartier . . . Well? What are you thinking?’
‘Can’t argue with the facts, sir,’ said Bonnefoye. ‘It will do as a preliminary account.’
‘Had you thought, Fourier, you might insert something on the lines of: The peace of Mount Parnassus was shattered last night when . . .’
‘Good. Good.’ He scratched in the insertion. ‘Now. Next. Take a look at this line-up, will you? You requested it, I believe. Anything there you like the look of?’
He passed them a hand of six Bertillon identity cards. They shuffled ugly face after ugly face complete with cranial measurements and descriptions of distinguishing features. Three had accompanying fingerprint records stuck along the bottom of the card. All the men were aged between twenty and forty and all had a scar on the right jaw.
They spotted him at the same moment.
‘That’s him!’ said Joe.
‘Gotcha!’ said Bonnefoye.
He handed one of the cards to Fourier. ‘Everything we need to know about our knifeman. Vincent Viviani. You’ll find, sir, he’s known in his milieu as Vévé. Ex-Zouave. Scar as reported by Miss Watkins. He works for the outfit who run, or have been running until this evening, the premises in the boulevard du Montparnasse. And – icing on the cake! – some genius in the ID department bothered to take his prints when he was last a guest here, evidently. Sir, if you can get someone to check the fingerprints from the box at the theatre, you’ll find a sticky one to the left of the exit. Fixed in pomade from the dead man’s hair. We think it will correspond with the prints recorded here.’
Fourier exchanged a glance with Joe. It trembled on the edge of enthusiasm.
‘Though, of course, we need to take the man into custody in order to make a comparison,’ Bonnefoye said carefully.
‘You’re telling me you haven’t got him yet? I would expect him to be standing in manacles outside the door by now,’ grumbled Fourier.
‘We’ve been busy tracking down, not this underling, vicious killer though he be, but the mastermind who has set the whole organization in operation,’ said Joe. ‘Bonnefoye, will you tell him?’
Bonnefoye’s account was succinct, sure and surgically precise. It just managed not to be sarcastic.
‘And now I’m to understand that, though you have an identity for the killer, he’s beyond our reach? Another bloody diplomat! Buggers! Corral the lot in their embassies and you’d reduce the crime in the city by half! I sometimes think they send their rogues and scallywags over to us to get rid of them. Now what the hell do we do? Can’t touch him. He can sit in there as long as he likes, drinking tea. And when he’s ready, he can jump in the back of an embassy car, pull a rug over his head and scuttle off back where he came from on the next plane.’
His eyes narrowed in cunning. ‘You!’ he said, addressing Joe. ‘These are your countrymen. You can gain access. Go in there and get him out. As soon as he’s out of protective custody, so to speak, he can be provoked into a rash act and you can shoot him. We’ll back you up – swear it was self-defence. There’ll be an almighty stink but they’ll just have to accept it. And better if the whole thing is set up by one of their own. It’s the only way. What do you think?’
‘You’re suggesting I enter the Embassy, slap his face with my glove, and call him out? “The Bois de Boulogne at dawn, Pollock! Your choice of weapon,”’ Joe drawled. ‘Oh, very well. It’s a plan, I suppose. Just leave it to me, old man.’
As they made their way over the courtyard to pick up a taxi Bonnefoye spoke, concerned. ‘Sandilands, you’re not –’
‘Of course not!’ said Joe. ‘But, all the same, I’d rather Fourier left it to me. Not that he has much of a choice. You know how slow these negotiations with embassies can be. It was crudely put but Fourier was right. There’d be representations, accusations, rebuttals, counter-accusations . . . oh, a mountain of work for the eager young tail-waggers they employ over there. And it would all end exactly as he forecast. Pollock would disappear in the night and the French would retaliate by blackballing the English entrant in the Gold Cup race at Longchamp. Or even worse – withdrawing the loan of their string orchestra. We’ve got to sort this out ourselves. And we’ll take advice from the best-placed source.’
‘Sir George?’ said Bonnefoye. ‘Oh, my God! Right then. It’s back to the Mouffe!’
Sir George and Amélie Bonnefoye were playing a game of piquet at the kitchen table and attending to what smelled like a lamb stew when the two men arrived.
After a shrewd look at their expressions, George put his cards down and said quietly: ‘Would this be a good time to have a drink of wine or do you have to maintain a clear head for the rest of the evening?’
‘Both,’ said Joe. ‘So – one glass would be most welcome, Madame Bonnefoye.’
She brought a bottle and four glasses and a dish of olives and settled down with them in the salon.
‘Maman, if you don’t mind . . . we have some disturbing things to reveal . . . ‘ Bonnefoye started to say.
‘I don’t mind. So, go on then – disturb us.’
‘Sir,’ Joe began, ‘I have now met and interviewed your cousin at the Embassy. He is well and sends his warmest regards and hopes to see you when this is all over and you come out of hiding. Though whether such a reunion will ever take place now remains to be seen . . .’
Sir George listened calmly to the account, occasionally shooting a question to Joe or Bonnefoye, but without exclamation or hand-wringing or hair-tearing.
‘So that’s why she was there, at the theatre,’ said Madame Bonnefoye. ‘Your guardian angel! She was protecting you. Fearful for your life, not her own. Thank God she was there!’ She patted his hand comfortingly.
Confidences, it seemed to Joe, had been exchanged over culinary activities at the kitchen table.
‘But where is she now? You let her go like that, unes
corted, friendless, into the night? She must be feeling very uneasy at large in the city with two men pursuing her. I’d have taken my chances with you and Jean-Philippe,’ Amélie Bonnefoye said loyally.
Finally George spoke up. ‘You’re right, Amélie, so we must assume that she, in fact, is not in any danger. She’s a calculating woman. Always comes out on top. I admire her for it. Wouldn’t want to see a woman of her quality humiliated by the likes of this pair of hounds, in fact. And, to look at this positively – of whom exactly does she have to be afraid? I think she’s been pulling the wool over your eyes, you fellows. Her Zouave? Saved his life, did you say? Well, there you are! Sounds like an eternal ally to me. He was probably waiting for her on the street corner. Seen this with the roughest, toughest fellows you can imagine in India – give their lives to protect the Memsahib.’
Bluster, Joe thought with a stab of pity. Even Amélie looked away, uneasy.
‘And her other nightmare is, as she and you would have it – my cousin. My cousin! Little Jackie. No, he’s a good fellow. Self-opinionated, over-active, too clever by half and something of a bounder in his early years but – by God! – the man’s a gentleman!’ He thought intensely for a moment and added: ‘I think you’ll probably recognize me in that description? And you’re right. He’s very like me, you know. Do you seriously believe I would go about taking orders for bespoke crimes?’ He put on the unctuous tones of a Savile Row assistant: ‘“And does Sir have a style in mind? We can offer the assisted leap from the Eiffel Tower, the dagger in the ribs at the Garrick, and, on special offer this week, blood-letting in the Louvre? A snip at two and six!”’
Folly Du Jour Page 26
