Death Has Deep Roots (27 page)

It was six o’clock before anyone arrived, and then it was not Monsieur Bren, but one of his assistants, a young lieutenant of police.

“Would a car ride trouble you?” he asked.

“I’m quite fit,” said Nap. “Rather a fraud, really.”

“Some of the going will be rough.”

“To the Ferme du Grand Puits?”

The man looked surprised, then nodded his head.

Nap took leave of his host whose name he still had not discovered and they got into the police car, the lieutenant, the two gendarmes, Nap and a police driver. It was an open car, and Nap was soon glad of the leather coat which someone had lent him. They crossed the river and kept to the north bank, through Saumur and Bourgeuil, and it did not seem long before they were turning off at Pont Boutard. Nap glimpsed the corn chandler’s shop in the headlights as they swung left, up on to the heath. Then a right fork, and they were bumping up the track and his time was fully occupied holding himself off the side of the car as it lurched and slid.

At the last moment, as they reached the point where the track ran out of the woods and he knew they would be coming in sight of the farm, he saw something which puzzled him. It was just over the brow of the hill, a steady glow, like the full moon coming up. As they topped the last rise, he saw that the light did not come from the farm buildings at all: it was lower down the hill. It looked like a small searchlight or an arc lamp, and it was slung on a derrick beside the superstructure of the well.

There were a lot of men there and they were doing something with ropes, which ran to a second derrick and a pulley.

The car drew up, and everyone got out. Their arrival caused a little stir among the group at the well head. The lieutenant had a word with a grey-haired man, who seemed to be directing operations, and whom Nap understood to be the prefect of the district.

“Would you care to descend?” said the lieutenant.

“Descend?” said Nap.

“It is perfectly safe.”

“I’m sure it is,” said Nap weakly.

The next thing he knew was that he was sitting in a sort of bosun’s chair. When he looked up the night sky was a pale oval over his head: an oval with one unnaturally bright star in it. Far below him a glowworm of light came and went. The descent was jerky but controlled, and Nap, like Alice in similar circumstances, found that he had plenty of time to wonder what was going to happen next.

What did happen was that the descent ceased and a hand came out of the darkness and grabbed his boot heel. The electric torch came on again, its beams focused now on to a shallow cavity at a point where the wall of the old dry well met the floor.

The light illuminated the cavity – and what lay in it.

The little heap, the scraps of cloth, the leather belt, green with mildew, the thin, white bones.

“Allow me to present you,” said the voice of Monsieur Bren in his ear, “a gentleman for whom many people have been looking. Lieutenant Julian Wells.”

“Hullo Angers,” said the voice, impersonally. “I have no answer from your London number.”

“Curse it,” said Nap. “What’s the time?”

“Eleven o’clock,” said Madame Delboise. “Your father must be making a night of it.”

“He’s more likely to be in bed and asleep,” said Nap. “I’ll try to get Macrea at his chambers. It’s an off-chance. He might be working late.”

Here he missed both Macrea and Mr. Rumbold by a few minutes. Half an hour later, in desperation, he rang his own home again. His father had just got back.

Then Nap really started talking.

The morning of Thursday, the fourth day of the trial, opened with a drenching downpour of rain. Nothing would now damp the general interest. The queue for the gallery was longer than it had been on the first day. The trial had grown, in the mysterious way that a murder trial can, and had possessed the minds of the public. “Rex
v.
Lamartine” was news.

Possibly the most worried man in the court was Macrea.

The whole case now lay in his hands. Truth had come up from the bottom of a well and he knew everything. He was now able to answer all of the questions which Mr. Rumbold had asked him the night before – and a few more. What had been dark was plain. Yet his next move was far from clear to him.

The procedure of a criminal trial was, he considered, singularly ill-adapted for the bringing out of the truth about any crime, It was shaped and constituted to one end alone: to show whether or not a particular person was guilty. This end it achieved admirably. But it could not be pushed beyond its function.

He knew, of course, now, who had done the murder: why they had done it, how they had done it and when they had done it. Whether he would be able to demonstrate this in court was another matter.

There was also the judge to consider. Mr. Justice Arbuthnot was a good judge and a likable person. But he was not a man you took liberties with. Macrea had upset him once already. Once was more than enough. None of this was betrayed by his well-trained face as he rose.

“My lord, members of the jury, I had intended to begin the proceedings with my final address. In the interim – to be precise at ten minutes to midnight last night – information of such importance reached me that I realised I should not be doing my duty to my client – or to yourselves – if I did not make some especial effort to present this to you. My difficulty has been how to do so. Particularly since most of this information concerns what I may call the French side of this case, and the witnesses who could speak to it are either dead or not easily available.

“In the event, I have asked the co-operation of the prosecution – and I must place it on record that this co-operation has been very generously given.”

He smiled at Mr. Summers who smiled back thinly. He had been roused from his bed by telephone to a conference at six o’clock in the morning and he was not feeling at his best.

“I have decided, with your lordship’s permission, to recall three of the prosecution witnesses. Their attendance here has been arranged. I have further asked – as would be normal when they were giving evidence in chief – that none of them be in court when the others are giving evidence. That has also been agreed.”

“I have no objection,” said Mr. Justice Arbuthnot warily. “Are the matters on which you wish to question them connected with their previous testimony?”

“I shall ask them nothing, my lord, which could not properly have been put to them on the previous occasion.”

“Very well.”

“Call Major Ammon.”

“Major Ammon, in your evidence you stated that you were responsible for the English end of Major Thoseby’s operations in Occupied France?”

“I and others.”

“Were you also responsible for dispatching Lieutenant Wells?”

“I certainly knew he was being sent, and assisted in some of the preliminaries. I didn’t actually brief him myself.”

“Now, Major Ammon. When Lieutenant Wells was parachuted into France did he – I want to be particularly careful not to lead you on this – did he take anything with him beyond the usual outfit which a man on such a mission would take?”

“Did he—oh, I see what you’re getting at—yes—”

“I am afraid I must interrupt you,” said Macrea with a smile which robbed the words of their sting. “I’m not ‘getting at’ anything. You must just answer my question.”

“Very well. Yes, certainly. He took a great deal of money.”

“Perhaps you could tell us why he took this money.”

“Yes. We thought it important – particularly at that time, you know, when the Resistance Movement was beginning to get the support of the better class of Frenchman – we insisted that everything taken should be properly paid for.”

“I quite understand.”

“It was necessary to replenish funds from time to time and it so happened that Lieutenant Wells was selected as a carrier.”

“In what form was money carried?”

“Sometimes in franc notes. Sometimes in gold.”

“In this case?”

“To the best of my knowledge and belief, in gold.”

“Can you give us any idea how much he carried?”

“Yes. The gold was cast in thin tablets each weighing exactly seven ounces. The carrier had a special belt, with slots to contain a great many of these tablets. One man could carry approximately eight thousand pounds sterling in gold without discomfort. I am speaking, of course, of gold as it was then. It would be worth more now.”

“Have you any idea what happened to this gold?”

“We presumed that it had fallen into the hands of the Gestapo.”

“All of it?”

“Certainly. Wells, so far as we know, had no contact with anybody, between the time he landed in France and the time he was captured, to whom he would have been authorised to hand the gold. The supposition was that it was all on him when he was taken.”

“The gold was never traced?”

“Never to my knowledge.”

“Thank you, Major Ammon. I do not know if my learned friend—?”

“No questions,” said Mr. Summers.

“I am afraid that I do not quite follow all this,” said the judge. “If this gold never reached Major Thoseby, Mr. Macrea, surely it could not constitute a motive for Major Thoseby’s murder?”

“I agree with your lordship,” said Macrea smoothly. “It might, however, constitute a motive for the murder of Lieutenant Wells.”

“Point one slipped across,” thought Mr. Rumbold.

Monsieur le Commissaire Lode was then called.

“Monsieur Lode,” said Macrea, “when you were giving evidence you spoke about your work on the Tracing Staff at Arolsen. Can you tell us something more about it?”

“What exactly is it you would like to know?”

“Well, perhaps you could explain to the court, roughly, the lines on which the bureau worked.”

“The work was complex. We were an international team of investigators. Our first object was to trace the victims of the war. Inquiries reached us from all parts of the world, about displaced persons, victims of the racial persecutions, prisoners of the Gestapo—”

“Let us take the latter type of case, then. Your organisation would be able, in time, to determine the fate of a Gestapo prisoner?”

“It was usually able to do so.”

“How did you work?”

“In many ways. We had the records of the prisoners – and even when the records of a prison had been destroyed there were often duplicate records, kept by a higher authority that we were able to consult. The German passion for order and method were very useful to us there.”

“I see.”

“In many cases, also, we were able to interrogate the prison staffs themselves. Unless they happened to be accused of war crimes, they had no incentive to suppress the truth. Then, their stories could be cross-checked.”

“In short, Monsieur Lode, a thorough use of the investigating machinery at Arolsen would most often produce a positive result?”

“Almost always.”

“And you said, I think, that Major Thoseby was pursuing his inquiries through your channels?”

“That is so.”

“Let me put this to you then – as a hypothetical case. If Major Thoseby was looking for traces of some Gestapo prisoner – for the sake of argument, let us say, if he was looking for Lieutenant Wells – and if, after diligent inquiry
he failed to find any trace of him,
what conclusion would you come to?”

“You say that he had made careful inquiry—?”

“Yes. Over a number of years.”

“And the prison in which Lieutenant Wells was supposed to have been confined was, of course, known?”

“Yes.”

“Then I should say that it was almost certain that Lieutenant Wells never fell into the hands of the Gestapo at all.”

“Thank you.”

The judge said gravely, “I should like to be quite clear, Mr. Macrea, exactly what it is you are suggesting to the court.”

“I am suggesting,” said Macrea, “that Lieutenant Wells was murdered for the gold in his belt. I am further suggesting that Major Thoseby, slowly, cautiously – reluctantly, perhaps – had at last reached the conclusion that Wells had been murdered. I am suggesting that when you find the men who murdered Lieutenant Wells you will not have to look any further for the murderers of Major Thoseby.”

“I see.” Mr. Justice Arbuthnot thought this out. The silence in court was uncanny. “You wish to call one further witness, I understand?”

“If you please. I have some questions now that I should like to ask Monsieur Sainte.”

An usher went out; minutes passed but the swinging doors remained closed. Then the usher reappeared and spoke to one of the policemen, who also went out. Another minute passed, and the burly figure of Inspector Partridge was seen, pushing his way through the crowd at the door.

Macrea’s voice rode over the rising tide of conjecture.

“If Monsieur Sainte is not here,” he said, “then perhaps his waiter, Camino, could assist us.”

Nobody seemed able to do much about this, either.

A very long minute passed.

The public in the gallery were showing signs of getting out of hand, whilst the press were clearly torn between a desire to reach a telephone and an urge to see the matter through to its conclusion.

Claudian Summers was observed to be in consultation with the clerk to the court, who got to his feet and spoke to the judge.

Mr. Justice Arbuthnot nodded briskly, and a sudden silence fell as he addressed counsel.

“It would appear, Mr. Macrea, that neither of the witnesses you have named can, at the moment, be found.”

“You surprise me, my lord,” said Macrea, untruthfully.

“All right,” said Inspector Hazlerigg. “All right, all right. You were right and we were wrong – Inspector Partridge was wrong. But don’t gloat about it.”

“I’m not gloating,” said Angus McCann. “I’m just glad that Miss Lamartine got off, that’s all. The crowd gave her quite a reception, didn’t they?”

“I’m surprised they didn’t come along the Embankment and break a few windows at Scotland Yard,” said Hazlerigg sourly.

“Oh, I don’t think they felt like that at all,” said McCann. “They were just glad that a nice girl like Miss Lamartine hadn’t got to be hanged and that the villains turned out to be a couple of foreigners – that’s always satisfactory, too. Where are Sainte and Camino now, by the way?”