The Case of the Dead Diplomat (2 page)

Martin Edwards

www.martinedwardsbooks.com

E
RIC
C
ARRUTHERS
, the first secretary at the Paris Embassy, was entertaining his fellow Scotsman, Guy Dundas, the newly joined attaché, at luncheon at a café discovered by himself, in which the cooking and the wine were both beyond criticism.

“You'll find, I'm afraid, that officially this place is not exciting. Nothing ever happens here.”

“All the better. I shall have a better chance of learning my job,” answered the younger man, who was fresh from Oxford and felt that his foot was on a rung of the ladder up which he dreamed of climbing rapidly. “At any rate you seem to be a happy family here.”

“Oh, we don't quarrel and that is always something.” Carruthers looked at his watch. “We ought to be getting along to the Chancery. Though nothing ever happens we must keep to official hours and it's half-past two.”

They took a taxi back to the Embassy; the messenger was waiting on the steps of the Chancery.

“His Excellency has been waiting for you, sir,” he said to Carruthers. “He is in his room now with Mr. Stirling, if you would kindly go up.”

“Asking for
me
?”

“Yes, sir. His Excellency seemed very anxious to see you—told me to keep at the door and be sure to let you know as soon as you came in.”

“Very good, Chubb; I'll go at once.”

Dundas made his way to the little room in the Chancery where he spent his working hours in what his stable-companion, Ned Gregory, the third secretary, irreverently termed “licking stamps,” but which actually consisted in such responsible duties as decoding cipher telegrams and making up the diplomatic bags for the courier. Gregory was not at his table; his voice could be heard holding forth in the next room; the Chancery seemed to be in a flutter. Dundas wondered whether the monotony of which Carruthers had complained was about to be broken.

Eric Carruthers found his chief collapsed in a deep arm-chair in the stately room where he received official visitors and signed dispatches. The Minister Plenipotentiary, Richard Stirling, was with him. Both wore an air of deep depression.

“I hope you are feeling better this morning, sir,” was Carruthers' greeting. He knew that his chief had been brooding over his health and that the Embassy doctor, Dr. Hoskyn, was attending him daily. “They told me downstairs that you wanted to see me.”

“I did. I suppose that you have heard the news about Everett. You seem to be taking it very easily.”

“About Everett, sir? Has he been letting himself go with the native journalists?”

“He's dead.”

There was a pause. Carruthers was trying to take in this startling intelligence; the ambassador leaned forward in his chair.

“Everett dead! Why, I saw him in the Chancery yesterday afternoon. He looked perfectly fit then and seemed in the best of spirits. What did he die of?”

“Suicide or murder, the police say. All I know is that a police
commissaire
from the ninth
arrondissement
called here three-quarters of an hour ago and gave a rambling account of the discovery of Everett's body in his own flat with a knife wound in the throat. They did not know who he was until they found his Embassy card in his pocket-book, and they then came down here to make inquiries.”

“Who saw the
commissaire
, sir?”

“Maynard saw him and came upstairs to tell me, and now, I suppose, it will be in all the Paris papers and be telegraphed over to London. We don't want the business to get into the papers at all if we can help it, but if it must go in, for goodness' sake let it be our version and not a French reporter's.”

“I agree with you, sir. We don't want the French Press to report it,” said Carruthers with a frown. “But I doubt whether we can stop it now without invoking the help of the people at the Quai d'Orsay, and that would only make things worse when it came out. The next thing would be headlines in the
Paris-Matin
—‘
SUDDEN DEATH OF A BRITISH DIPLOMATIST. SUICIDE OR A POLITICAL ASSASSINATION?
'”

“Good God! Is that what they do here?” The ambassador started up from his chair with a groan and hobbled to his writing-table. He was one of those diplomats
de carrière
who had risen step by step to his present exalted dignity—the last post before his retirement—by doing everything he was told to do faultlessly; by making faultless little speeches on occasions when such speeches are called for; by keeping the Press at arm's length under all circumstances. He was now a man of past sixty and looked his age. He was a hypochondriac, always fussing about his health and generally without reason.

“You see, sir, the French public has been brought up for seven or eight months to believe that every sudden death of a functionary is a political murder. It makes good copy for the sensational newspapers.”

“Look here, my dear fellow; somehow this must be stopped. Telephone to Dr. Hoskyn and go with him to the police, and if necessary be present when the post-mortem examination is made. Young Everett may have committed suicide; that would be bad enough; but whatever we do we must keep the gutter Press at arm's length. You might ring me up and let me know how you get on.”

Eric Carruthers went down to his own room in the Chancery to use the telephone. He rang up Dr. Hoskyn, whose voice began to flutter when he learned that the call came from the Embassy.

“I hope that you have no bad news about Sir Wilfred,” he said.

“No, doctor, but I want you to take a taxi at once and come here and ask for me, Eric Carruthers. I'll tell you why when I see you.”

While waiting for his visitor Carruthers sent for the second secretary, Percival Maynard.

“Maynard, the ambassador tells me that you were the first person to receive news of Everett's death. Who brought the news?”

Maynard was a young man with a languid manner, who talked French more fluently than his own language. He was a welcome guest at French luncheon-tables and was a mine of information upon the intrigues in the lobbies of the Chamber and the Senate, and the latest political scandals.

“A police
commissaire
, who said that he came from the ninth
arrondissement
, came in about an hour ago. He had Everett's Embassy card in his hand and he said that the body had been found in Everett's flat, with some sanguinary details. I gathered that he was the man who was first called in by the concierge.”

“What did you think of Frank Everett? You saw more of him than I did.”

“Everett? Well, he seemed like any other newspaper man that one meets in Fleet Street and avoids if one can—quite a decent young man within his natural limits and, I imagine, fairly good at his job.”

Carruthers was drumming on the table with his fingers. His complaint was that one could never get a straight answer out of Maynard.

“Do you know who his friends were?”

“Do you mean here in the Embassy or outside?”

“Both. First, in the Embassy.”

“Well, I should think that Ned Gregory saw most of him. I used to hear his voice and his laugh—what a laugh he had, poor devil!—coming from Gregory's room. Gregory's a bit of a wag, as you know.”

“So I've heard,” observed Carruthers dryly. “Did Everett ever tell you about his people in England?”

“Never. I never asked him. Our intercourse was always on official matters. He was quite well informed about Paris Press matters.”

The messenger opened the door to announce Dr. Hoskyn.

Carruthers rose. “Thank you, Maynard. I'm going out with Dr. Hoskyn for an hour or two. Will you mind the baby?”

Dr. Hoskyn was a fussy little man with white hair, purpling cheeks and a soothing, bedside manner. When there was a considerable British colony in Paris, he had had a good private practice and it was natural that he should be called in by the people at the Embassy when a doctor was required.

“Sit down, doctor,” said Carruthers, pointing to the chair beside his table. “You've heard, no doubt, of the death of poor Everett, our Press attaché.”

The doctor's cheeks deepened in hue. “Dead! That healthy-looking young fellow? What did he die of? An accident?”

“The police give us the choice between suicide and murder. There was a knife wound in the throat. I don't know whether you have had any experience in police medical work, but the ambassador has great confidence in you, and he wants you to make a post-mortem examination of the body and furnish him with an opinion if you can.”

“I have never had to do anything of that kind since my old hospital training days,” said the doctor doubtfully.

The taxi was announced.

“Come along, doctor,” said Carruthers. “I don't know how these things are done in Paris—whether they hold inquests as we do, or whether the police get busy and turn the case over to a
Juge d'Instruction
.”

“They will have moved the body down to the Judicial Medical School by this time,” said the doctor gloomily.

Carruthers directed the taxi-man to drive them to the police office of the ninth
arrondissement
. There they found a senior police officer and were ushered into his room. Carruthers made the necessary introductions. “This is Dr. Hoskyn,
monsieur le commissaire
, medical officer of the British Embassy, and I am the first secretary. We have called about that distressing case of M. Everett, a member of our staff.”

“Ah! You mean the case of the gentleman found dead in an
appartement
in the rue St. Georges this morning.” The officer touched a bell-push and a constable made his appearance. “Chairs for these gentlemen.”

Two chairs were brought in, dusted and placed at a corner of the table.

“May I inquire, monsieur, whether you have reached any conclusion?” asked Carruthers.

“Monsieur is, of course, aware that the body bore a deep wound in the throat. To judge from the state of the
appartement
it seemed clear that there had been a violent struggle. Furniture was over-turned; a table-lamp was broken and on the floor was lying this knife.” He flung open a drawer and took from it a heavy dagger in a sheath with blood-stain upon it; on the blade were engraved the words, “
Blut und Ehre!
”

“These daggers, we understand, are carried by young schoolboys in Germany when they march along the road on the German side of the frontier. You will notice the symbol in the coloured shield on the handle—the swastika in the middle. It is Hitler's device for fostering a warlike spirit among German schoolboys.”

Carruthers examined the weapon, which was about a foot long. The blade was stained with dried blood. He passed it to Dr. Hoskyn who said, “Does this mean that young Everett was murdered by a German?”

“We do not know, monsieur. When the
concierge
was interrogated she said that when dusting the
appartement
she had often noticed this dagger lying on the table in the sitting-room. It must have belonged to M. Everett himself.”

“I believe it did,” said Carruthers. “I remember hearing that Mr. Everett had displayed a dagger like this to his colleagues in the Embassy. He said that a journalistic colleague on the frontier had sent it to him to use as a paper-knife.”

“We should be grateful, monsieur, if that could be verified. It will help us in reconstructing the case. This much we know already from the
concierge
: Mr. Everett had arranged with her that she should prepare his
petit déjeuner
every morning and bring it up to the door of his
appartement
; then she would knock and set down the tray. Sometimes he opened the door and took it from her; more often it stayed for some minutes on the landing before he took it in. It was so this morning. She left the breakfast on the landing and went downstairs to her other duties. When she went up to do her dusting the breakfast was still lying untouched. She knocked repeatedly but could get no answer, and on opening the door was shocked to find that her tenant was lying fully dressed on the floor. She thought at first that he had had some kind of seizure and that in falling he had pulled the table over him; but on going to the body she saw blood on the floor, and she left the body as it was and ran down to telephone to us. As I told you the room was in the utmost disorder, and so much blood on the floor that they thought Mr. Everett must have bled to death. The
concierge
did not think that Mr. Everett brought anyone back with him last night and she heard no one go upstairs.”

“You have formed a theory, monsieur?”

The officer spread his forearms wide. “We have not yet had time to consider theories beyond this: at some time after the poor gentleman returned to his
appartement
he received a visitor—a person who must have known him well or he would have had to make inquiries of the
concierge
. For some reason yet to be ascertained there must have been a quarrel; one of them must have attacked the other and in the struggle that ensued the visitor must have snatched up this dagger and plunged it point first into his adversary's throat. Then he must have shut the door behind him as gently as possible and made off without awaking the
concierge
. At present officers are searching the
appartement
for finger-prints, but these seldom lead to identifications, unless they were made by some well-known criminal. I do not think that this crime was the work of any known criminal.”

“Where is the body now?”

“It has been taken to the Medico-legal School. If you desire to see it I will send one of my officers with you.”

“I should be very glad if you would. I was hoping that you would allow Dr. Hoskyn to join your medical officer in making the autopsy.”

The
commissaire
bowed politely. “That does not rest with me, monsieur, but with the authorities of the School; but I imagine that they would be very glad to avail themselves of Dr. Hoskyn's good offices. I will inquire.”