The Case of the Dead Diplomat (3 page)

“I suppose that you have not yet had time to look through the papers found on Mr. Everett's body or in the
appartement
?”

“I have them all here, monsieur, including a number of notes and coins which no ordinary thief would have left behind him. I shall not fail to present a copy of my report to his Excellency the ambassador when it is complete. Now, if you are going to the School I think it might be wise for you to go there early. I will ring up our police surgeon and arrange to meet you there.”

The laboratory attached to the Medico-legal School is the most depressing spot in Paris. It seems always to be tenanted; the bodies of the unrecognized are laid on sloping slate slabs behind plate-glass windows. The public, who come to look for missing friends, pass in front of the windows, where they may find their nearest and dearest lying exposed to the general gaze like the wares in a fishmonger's shop.

A youngish man in a black wide-awake hat, who appeared to have been waiting in the doorway, came forward as the taxi pulled up. He swept off his imposing headgear, disclosing a domed head polished like a billiard ball, and introduced himself as Dr. Audusson, a professor of the School. Leading the way into the building, the police officer explained to him the object of the visit of the two Englishmen, and they were taken straight into the room fitted up for post-mortem examinations. There, covered by a sheet, lay the body of Carruthers' late colleague. The sheet was stripped off, disclosing the body dressed in its ordinary day clothes, which were stiffened and discoloured by extravasated blood. Dr. Audusson clicked his tongue and observed to his British colleague that the cause of death was not far to seek. He pointed to the deep incision in the throat. The two professional men consulted in an undertone, and then Dr. Hoskyn came over to Carruthers.

“I suppose that the ambassador wants a complete post-mortem. He wouldn't be satisfied by a report that that wound in itself would account for the death?”

Carruthers had his share of Scottish caution. “The question of drug-taking or poison might arise hereafter. I think that it would be wise to cover all points.”

“Very well; my French colleague is quite willing. and we shall have the help of the public laboratory for analysing the contents of the stomach.”

“Then you won't want me any more?”

“No. As soon as the examination is completed I will come on to the Embassy with my report.”

“You won't forget the possibility of suicide, doctor?”

“We will not.”

Carruthers had scarcely shut the door of his room when Maynard, the second secretary, entered with care graven on his features.

“I'm glad you're back,” he said; “I've had a perfectly awful time with the old man upstairs. He expects everything to be done at lightning speed—made me telegraph to Everett's next-of-kin to announce the death, and I suppose that now we shall have a tribe of them on our backs. Then the ambassador wanted me to account for every moment of Everett's time, and I had to tell him that I knew very little about the poor fellow, but that I would find out as much as was known about him.”

“You're lucky not to have the place beset by reporters.”

“Oh, we've had them by the dozen. I refused to see them. I told Gregory to shoo them out. He must have done the job effectively, for they've left us alone for nearly half an hour.”

“Gregory is the man who knew Everett best, isn't he?”

“Yes; he saw more of him than we did.”

“Let's have him in.”

Maynard left the room and returned with the third secretary.

“Sit down, Gregory, and tell us all you knew about poor Everett.”

Ned Gregory was a curly-headed youngster with red hair. He was trying to discipline his features to the expression which he imagined to be suitable for funerals, but it was an effort; the natural levity in his vivacious eyes was difficult to subdue.

“When did you last see him?” continued Carruthers.

“Yesterday morning. I used to see him practically every morning.”

“You knew him pretty well, I suppose?”

“Fairly well. I never went out with him, but he used to tell me a lot about his job.”

“Was he sometimes depressed?”

A cloud crossed Gregory's eyes for a moment.

“He used to confide in me a lot, but he seemed generally to be in good spirits.”

“Always?” Carruthers had not missed the momentary cloud.

“Always, except once. I don't like betraying the poor fellow's confidence.”

“I quite understand, but with this mystery about his death…”

“Well, he was very much in love with a French girl he had met somewhere or other. He told me that he intended to marry her. I tried to dissuade him, and then, much to my surprise, he came in yesterday morning and told me that it was all off—that he'd found out the girl was a married woman. He seemed to be very hard hit. He wanted my advice as to whether he ought to break with her entirely. I told him that if it was my case I should. He said that if he dropped her like a hot potato she would feel it acutely; she had told him that she hated her husband.”

The two secretaries exchanged glances, and Carruthers said, “Thank you, Gregory. If you remember anything else that would tend to clear up Everett's death, please come and see me.”

“There's one thing I should like to ask before I go. Does the French Penal Code prohibit the use of man-traps for journalists? You never saw such a crew as I've had here this afternoon—camera men as well as reporters. If I'm led away with gyves upon my wrists it will be because I've sent one or two of them to the place where they belong.”

“Maynard tells me that you've been very successful with them…”

Before Gregory had time to reply the messenger opened the door. “There's some more reporters asking for you, Mr. Gregory,” he said.

Ned Gregory threw up his hands and disappeared.

“What he's just told us, Maynard, cuts both ways. It might have been murder by an injured husband or it might equally have been a suicide.”

C
ARRUTHERS
ran upstairs to see the ambassador. He found him querulous and impatient. “I've been waiting all the afternoon for your telephone message and for word from someone who knows what has been happening.”

“There was really nothing to tell you, sir, that I could not do quicker by returning to the Embassy. Dr. Hoskyn and I saw the body in the Institute of Legal Medicine, which has taken the place of the Morgue, with the French police doctor. I left the two doctors to make the post-mortem examination together. I asked them to make their report as full as possible.”

“Couldn't they say offhand what was the cause of death?”

“Yes, sir. Everett had been stabbed deeply in the throat with a German dagger—one of those Nazi weapons with which German schoolboys are armed. The police showed us the dagger stained with blood.”

“Do you mean that the crime was done by a German Nazi?”

“No, sir; the dagger belonged to Everett himself. It had been sent to him by a friend on the other side of the frontier. But just now young Gregory told me that Everett used to confide in him about an unfortunate love-affair with a French girl. He wanted to marry her and she seemed willing, but somehow he discovered that she was a married woman and that her husband was alive. Gregory says that he advised him strongly never to see her again, but it struck me as possible—”

“You mean that the murderer may have been an injured husband?”

Carruthers nodded; his chief groaned and fell back in his chair. “Why do they saddle us with newspaper men? It's a legacy from the old bad days of the war. If the Press gets hold of this…”

A light tap on the door; Chubb entered with the latest edition of the newspapers and retired discreetly, after winking covertly at Carruthers and jerking his thumb towards the topmost journal. Chubb considered himself a privileged person. He had been an N.C.O. of exemplary character during the war, and had since served three ambassadors. He judged men as he found them, without much consideration of their official rank.

The ambassador was fidgeting in his chair. If he had been alone it was obvious that he would have pounced hungrily on the papers and scanned their headlines. It was cruel to keep him in suspense; Carruthers snatched up the topmost print and read it with curling lip.

“What do they say?” asked his chief.

“The usual sensational garbage on which these papers live. ‘British Embassy Mystery.' ‘The Crime in the Rue St. Georges.'”

The ambassador ran his eye down the column with quick-coming breath. “Scandalous! Have they no decency, these cursed reporters? What's this? ‘The secretary swallowed his fifth cup of tea before replying to my question. “The mysterious Mademoiselle X,” he said. “No, I can tell you nothing about her.”' Which of the staff drinks five cups of tea?”

“Gregory saw the man, I believe, and hunted him out, and Gregory hates tea. The whole article must have been concocted in the office.”

“Yes, and it will be quoted in the English papers. Now I suppose these jackals will hunt the woman down and magnify the business into a political crime, bringing in incidentally the names of one or two French Ministers. By the way, I sent a sympathetic telegram to Everett's father this afternoon. Maynard found the address in the boy's papers. I suppose some of the family will come out. Of course I telegraphed also to the Foreign Office, and, talking of the F.O., how would it be to suggest to them that a man from the C.I.D. in Scotland Yard be sent over to make independent inquiries?”

“I shouldn't do that just yet, sir. The principal
commissaire
that I saw seemed to be taking an intelligent line about the case, and if the French police solve the mystery we shall be glad that we kept out of it.”

“Perhaps you're right. When Dr. Hoskyn comes in, please send him up to me.”

In his room Carruthers found another copy of the
Paris-Matin
spread out on his writing-table; Chubb had even taken the liberty of marking the column. It was certainly a startling testimony to the enterprise of the Paris journalist, according to whom Everett had been seen two nights before, taking leave of a maiden of astonishing beauty outside the Café Weber, and tears were coursing down the lady's damask cheek. “Who was this fair unknown whom we will call Mademoiselle X? Had she anything to do with the crime in the rue St. Georges? Was she another Mata Hari?”

Chubb entered the room at this moment, bringing the usual cup of tea.

“You've been having a busy day, Chubb—with these journalists and people?”

“It's not the reporters I mind so much—Mr. Gregory deals with them and they go out faster than they came in. It's these camera men I object to—the saucy blokes. Fancy them holding up their cameras to take a shot of me on the doorstep. What's the sense of it?”

“They have their living to make like everybody else,” observed Carruthers.

“If I had my way with them, sir, they'd be getting their living chained to an oar in the galleys in Cayenne with a cloud of mosquitoes gnawing at them. Why, what do you think one of them did this afternoon? Came in with a pair of opera-glasses, he did, and looked through them at the blank wall in the courtyard. ‘
Ca y est!
' he said, and grinned at me. ‘What do you mean?' I said. Then he showed me. While he was looking at the blank wall he was taking a photograph of me through a little trap-door at the side. He told me I'd be in all the papers to-morrow. There ought to be a law about it.”

“You might ask Mr. Gregory to look in here for a moment.”

“Right, sir. He's just thrown out a gang of these reporters, but there's more waiting to see him.”

“He can leave the others to Mr. Dundas. I shan't keep him a minute.”

Ned Gregory looked a little dishevelled and heated when he made his appearance.

“I'm sorry to disturb you in your important diplomatic labours, Gregory, but you may not have seen this,” showing him the lines about the maiden of startling beauty at the Café Weber. “I suppose they did not get a hint about this woman from you?”

“Good Lord, no! One of them had the impudence to mention this to me, and I told him plainly that if he shoved in any inaccuracy he'd be for it.”

“What! You threatened him?”

“I did, but it wasn't the kind of threat that he'd dare to publish.”

“What was it then?”

“Well, I'm getting to know quite a lot about the ins and outs of the Paris Press.
Paris-Matin
has a mortal enemy—the
Courrier du Midi
—so I told this blighter that if he didn't mind his step I'd shove a
démenti
into the columns of the
Courrier
: that made him sit up. He comes and feeds out of my hand now.”

“Well, don't go too far with them, or you may find that you've started a dead set against us and there'll be a pained inquiry from the Foreign Office asking who's responsible, and you may be offered up. Did you gather what was likely to be their line now?”

“Yes, they're all running the scent of the mysterious Mademoiselle X. There's nothing we can do to stop them, unless we get the Quai d'Orsay to muzzle them. There's some unholy pact between the Government and the Press in this country. A word from the mandarins on the other side of the river would stop the whole thing. One of these fellows seems to have got wind of that German dagger stunt, and if they run that for all it's worth, Everett will be turned into a German spy in the British Embassy.”

“The Lord forfend it! It would be the death of the ambassador!”

Dr. Hoskyn bustled into the room. “I'm afraid I haven't anything very definite to tell you yet, but everything is in train. When I left they were applying the laboratory tests to the stomach and digestive organs, and that far the result was negative. I shall have the final report late this evening or early to-morrow morning.”