The Case of the Dead Diplomat (9 page)

Pinet emitted a forced laugh. “What a searching question, monsieur! I am one of those wise men who never refuse a tempting offer.”

“At what hour did you leave the flat?” asked Verneuil.

“There again you put me in a difficulty, monsieur, for how can anyone speak of the passage of time without looking at his watch. This afternoon, for example,
you
might put the length of our interview at half an hour and I at two hours or three. I think I must have been in Mr. Everett's flat for perhaps half an hour.”

“You know, of course, that he was found dead in his flat the next morning?”

“I saw it in the newspapers and you can guess what a shock it was to me.”

“You did not stay longer than half an hour, you think?”

“Certainly no longer; perhaps not so long. As a matter of fact M. Everett seemed anxious to be rid of me, though his manners remained perfect. He seemed to be nervous about the visitor he was expecting; seemed constantly to be listening for sounds from the staircase.”

“This other visitor did not arrive before you left?”

“No, monsieur; there was no one on the stairs when I went out. Mr. Everett came out on the landing with me to switch on the light, and he begged me to turn it off when I got to the bottom.”

“Did he give you any hint about the identity of the visitor he was expecting?”

Pinet reflected with knitted brow. “My first impression was that it might have been a lady, and then another suggestion flashed across my mind…that it was…no, I don't think that I ought to repeat it to you.”

Verneuil cocked a humorous eye at him. “Come on; you may as well tell the whole story.”

“I don't want to keep anything back, monsieur, but it was only my surmise. I thought that it might be one of M. Quesnay's seconds who was calling upon him again to get him to write an apology to his principal. Every journalist knows that M. Quesnay will not let the matter drop until he has obtained satisfaction.”

Verneuil seemed puzzled. “Satisfaction for what?”

“Ah! I thought that everybody in Paris knew that story. M. Everett had told a journalist that M. Quesnay had escaped from the Chamber during the disturbances on February 6th and had boarded an omnibus; that the crowd in the rue Royale recognized him and tried to drag him out of it, but that he took refuge in a café and hid himself in a lavatory. M. Quesnay declared the story to be a lie, and sent his seconds to challenge M. Everett to a duel. Monsieur repulsed them with insults.”

“Who were M. Quesnay's seconds?”

“That I cannot tell you. I know no details, but I believe the story to be true. I am not suggesting that one of the seconds committed the crime, and I know nothing of what happened in the flat after I left.”

“On the way home, we understand, you had an accident?”

“Yes. I had come on my motor-bicycle. You know what the traffic is like at night when you reach the Place de la Concorde—vehicles and lights going at incredible speed in every direction. It was in trying to avoid an automobile coming across the Place from the Champs-Élysées that I struck the kerbstone and was flung forward against a lamp standard. I was dazed, my arm and hand were bruised and bleeding; my motor-cycle was badly damaged. If a bystander had not come to my aid I might have lain there all night. No, monsieur, it is very unsafe to ride through Paris on a motor-cycle after dark.”

“Did you bleed much?” asked Verneuil.

“I cannot tell you that, monsieur; I was too much dazed to see.”

“What happened to you then?”

“One of your
agents
came up and telephoned for an ambulance, which took me to the Hospital Beaujon. He told me not to be anxious about my motor-cycle; that it would be taken to a garage for repair. Well then, there I was. They dressed my arm in the accident ward and put me into a taxi for St. Lazare, and I was fortunate in finding another taxi at le Pecq station; it was a costly journey.”

Sergeant Cooper had been busy taking notes. He asked for the address of the hospital and learned that it was in the Faubourg St. Honoré. There were several points in the man's narrative that required checking. There was a long pause; Verneuil appeared to be reflecting.

“May we see the shirt and coat you were wearing?”

“Alas, monsieur, both have been washed.

“The name and address of your doctor, monsieur?

“Dr. Monier; 17 rue d'Ourches, St. Germain.”

“When does he think you will be fit to go to Paris again?”

“He did not say.”

“Have you a camera, monsieur?”

“I have. Do you wish to see it?”

He rose painfully to his feet and whispered to the platinum blonde lady who appeared to be lurking in the passage outside. She was heard struggling with something heavy under the staircase and presently appeared with an imposing studio camera of large dimensions.

“Is that your only camera?” asked Richardson. “Have you no portable camera like other journalists?”

“No, monsieur. I practise photographs as an artistic hobby—not for news purposes.”

Verneuil became restless. He rose heavily from his chair, closed his note-book slowly as if he was cudgelling his brains to suggest any other questions. “Well, monsieur,” he said at last, “those are all the queries I shall put to you to-day. You had better get back to bed as soon as you can.”

Followed by his two companions he made for the door, scaring away the platinum blonde, who seemed to have had her ear at the keyhole. With a curt “
Au revoir
, madame,” he passed out of the house.

“Where are we going now, monsieur?”

“To St. Germain to call on Dr. Monier. We'll check that fellow's statement as we go. The doctor may have something useful to tell us; an alleged accident might be a good cover for wounds received in a fight; one never knows.”

“You don't think he was telling the truth, then?” interposed Cooper.

“Bah! How many men in this world tell the truth when they are questioned by police officers, or for the matter of that, when they are telling a story to their friends. To most men the gift of speech was intended by Providence for concealing the truth. Ah! I forgot that you had had the privilege of hearing M. Bigot in one of his famous interrogations. First the sugar, then the butter, and then the mustard and vinegar. You must have observed his method, but even he, though he doesn't know it, fails to arrive at the truth.”

“What did you think about that story of the seconds of M. Quesnay challenging Everett to a duel?” asked Richardson.

“Reporters' guff, I should say.”

“Yet M. Bigot was told the same story by the young woman with whom Mr. Everett was consorting. She had heard it, she said, from Everett himself.”

Verneuil checked his walk to look quizzically at Richardson. “It may be true. The follies of politicians are past wondering at, and their feuds are past counting.”

“Is M. Quesnay an important person in the Chamber?” asked Richardson innocently.

“Have you ever heard of a French politician who is important?”

“But he was a Minister.”

Verneuil spat eloquently, but made no other reply.

They found the rue d'Ourches without difficulty, but the doctor was engaged, and four or five people of the humbler class were waiting to see him. It was a case for the use of the official card, and the poor patient—a woman who intended to have her money's worth with the aid of her tongue—was hustled out of the consulting-room to make room for the distinguished visitors. The doctor was a bearded man with ascetic features. His clothing showed that he was having a struggle to make both ends meet. On hearing that these three healthy-looking police officers were not patients, but had come to waste his time, he bristled.

“M. Pinet? Yes, he is one of my patients.” He pulled out a well-thumbed pocket-book. “Yes; he had an accident. He told me that he had fallen off his motor-bicycle and his arm had bled profusely. It could not have been a very serious affair, for I see that he had only superficial bruises and grazes to the skin. These I dressed on Wednesday last.”

“You paid him other professional visits, I think?”

“Other visits? Then I must have visited him in my sleep. This note-book tells me that I saw him once only, and that was last Wednesday.”

“You did not see him yesterday or the day before?”

“No, monsieur, but if he asserts that I did I shall be very glad to charge him for the visits.” A wan smile dawned in his face. He became confidential. “These gentlemen from Paris who take villas in Croissy and le Pecq to entertain their ladies and wish to enjoy short holidays are very apt to send for us to certify that they are ill and unfit to attend their offices. You need have no anxiety about M. Pinet. If I visit him again it will be to recommend a little gentle exercise in the streets of Paris after office hours.”

“That seems to be all that we can do this afternoon, M. Verneuil,” observed Richardson when the door had closed behind them.

“Yes, that is all. Pinet was lying, but that does not prove him to have been guilty of a crime. There was no motive as far as I can see, whereas with that attractive blonde lady in the house, he might well have had a motive for taking a few days' holiday. If we were to visit the house-agents probably we should find that he had taken the villa furnished for a month and had paid the rent in advance. That is a common practice with these young fellows.”

As they walked to the station Richardson said, “I suppose you will get Pinet's account of his accident verified by the constable who was on duty that night in the Place de la Concorde?”

Verneuil laughed sarcastically. “Oh, you English police—you're all alike. You take nothing for granted. Everything has to be cleared up to the smallest detail as you go. Assuredly I shall verify the accident by inquiring at the eighth
arrondissement
, and you'll see it will be a sheer waste of time. The man did have an accident, and made the most of it for reasons not unconnected with that platinum blonde of his. I suppose in London it takes you months to clear up the simplest case.”

Richardson laughed. “We never look on verifying work as waste of time, M. Verneuil.”

The rattle of the electric train and the crowded car made conversation impossible on the return journey. Verneuil composed himself to sleep with his mouth open, and snored so loudly that the woman beside him changed her seat at the next stop. At St. Lazare the Englishmen shook hands with their French colleague, promising to meet him on the morrow.

As the two C.I.D. officers walked back to their hotel, they discussed their afternoon's work.

“So far,” said Cooper, “we don't seem to have discovered anything material. I didn't like that fellow Pinet, but his story seemed to hang together. He lied, of course, about the gravity of his accident, but he may have had some other reason for that.”

“What I was looking for was the motive, and I'll be hanged if I can see one. The man who might have had a motive was that Deputy Quesnay, or one of those seconds of his. The crime had all the appearance of a fight, in which the man who was getting the worst of it used a knife. But there was one lie Pinet told us that could be disproved at once. You remember him saying that he drank a glass of whisky with Everett. No one drank whisky in the flat that night; whisky had been poured into the glass, it is true, but the other glass on the sideboard was clean, and I took the trouble to look round the two rooms for a dirty glass. There was no other, dirty or clean, and the glass with the whisky in it had not been touched. Anyhow, when we've had a bite of supper we'll go in and write up our report; it helps to clear one's mind.”

S
ITTING OVER
their breakfast next morning—a breakfast in which bacon and eggs played their part—the two detectives discussed their future plans.

“If we don't report progress to the Embassy,” said Richardson, “there'll be trouble, and as we seem to have nothing to do this morning, we'll take it easy till ten o'clock and then go down to Mr. Gregory. We ought to find out whether he knew of this challenge to a duel.”

“Yes,” said Cooper, “but it's Sunday.”

“Yes, I know, but when I last saw him, Mr. Gregory said that he would be at the Embassy at ten in the morning.”

When they reached the Embassy at that hour they were told that Mr. Gregory had arrived. “Twenty minutes before his usual time,” remarked Chubb, “and there's no Sunday for me, either.” He escorted them along the passage and announced them.

“Ah! You've turned up at last. Everyone has been running round in circles wondering what had become of you. Have you had any luck?”

“We've made some slight progress, sir, but nothing to write home about. We looked in not so much to report progress as to ask you a question. Did you know that a deputy named Quesnay had challenged Mr. Everett to a duel?”

“Good Lord! Has that page of ancient history been turned up? Everett told me all about it. Quesnay is a poor fish without the guts to do anything drastic. If Everett had accepted the challenge, Quesnay would have insisted on the condition that at the first scratch that produced blood the doctors were to step out and stop the proceedings. That's what duelling has come to in France, but Everett didn't know that to laugh was the direst insult that could be given, and Quesnay has never forgotten it.”

The two detectives exchanged glances.

“Oh! If you think you're getting warmer I must undeceive you. Quesnay wouldn't hurt a fly if it would damage his political future. He's a Minister of some kind, and he hopes to get his fingers into the till. A little murder would dish him politically, whereas a duel where he ran into no personal danger would be a good advertisement.”

“But mightn't one of his seconds have—”

Gregory laughed. “If French duelling seconds knew that they might be let in for committing a murder, they would all with one accord beg leave to be excused from carrying the challenge. Besides, it would be most damaging to our good Quesnay to see one of his seconds in the dock. No, I'm afraid you must put that duel out of your heads. Have you anything else to report?”