Death Before Breakfast (6 page)

Without doubt, the photograph was that of the body of Etienne Jourin, a very gentlemanly and accomplished thief, who had suddenly disappeared from circulation more than
a year before, and the Paris police had thought he'd either met a sticky end or retired.

Jourin had once been known as
Le Roi d'Argent
, the Silver King, on account of his preference for valuable silver in his hauls. During his heyday, any house within a radius of fifty miles from Paris with a good collection hadn't been safe. Then he'd suddenly changed his tastes and gone for expensive jewellery.

Jourin wasn't just a burglar, taking pot luck about where he operated and what he got. His work was always carefully planned and covered houses where he knew he could get at a good haul. The homes of women who boasted of and paraded their diamonds, pearls and expensive gold ornaments, were particularly attractive to him. Two nights before his body had been found in the Grand Junction Canal, the du Pan necklace, composed of some of the finest diamonds in the world, had been stolen from the neck of the Marquise Malleville du Pan at a reception in her house at Melun. The lights had failed during dancing, the diamonds had gone in the mere two minutes of darkness, and with them the violinist who had been hired with the band.

Following a recent craze, the band had been dressed-up as students, and the leader wore a beatnik beard. …

It was a coup of the Jourin type, but he hadn't been heard of for over a year, so there were doubts.

Now, the photograph, the ticket and the key made it quite certain who had taken the du Pan necklace. Dizy was the name of a safe-maker and the key fitted a fair-sized safe in the Châtelet Safe Deposit, which the police had hastily visited. There they had found the odds and ends of quite a number of robberies committed over the past three years, but none of the big stuff which went with them. The Broaze pendant, the St. Marc emeralds, the Dufy coronet, and lastly the du Pan diamonds, were not there.
There were also in the safe, three false passports, with photographs of Jourin. In one, he had a beard and spectacles; in another a heavy moustache and sun-glasses; and in the third his hair and small moustache were grey and he looked ten years older.

Etienne Jourin, the Silver King, had obviously hidden the diamonds elsewhere and then fetched-up dead in July Street, Willesden.

So, it looked as if Mrs. Jump had not only been right about her body, but had touched-off an explosive international crime investigation.

The case couldn't be described as very promising. July Street was a most unprofitable area for an enquiry. During the early evening Cromwell, assisted by the Willesden police, had canvassed the remaining houses in the street. Thirty-two of them, all told, in four blocks of eight each. They were occupied by a motley crowd, none of whom seemed in the least likely to be connected with the dead man, a high-class, almost aristocratic French jewel-thief.

In some cases, the occupiers were definitely antagonistic to the police and occasionally threatened violence. Others were indignant at the intrusion. In the first two blocks, terraces facing each other at the end of the street nearest the main road, four of the tenants were old couples, eking out their remaining days on old-age pensions. The rest were a mixture of honest, modest workpeople, prostitutes, and shabby illiterates who could hardly understand what all the bother was about. For the time being, the police wrote off the two blocks as fruitless.

The remaining two, which included the empty house, the doctor's, and that of Mr. Peeples, with his afflicted children, proved equally useless. Nobody there except Mr. Peeples had seen the body. Nobody was likely to have associated with the Silver King. No. 32 was occupied by a multitude of blacks from Jamaica. It seemed to be a clearing-house
for immigrants who lodged there until they got properly settled in jobs and more commodious premises. Two houses opposite, Nos. 29 and 31, were in the hands of nuns, sisters of an order of charity, who did good work in the neighbourhood. They cordially received Mann, who was of their religion, but could tell him nothing helpful.

The enquiries went on until late, when Littlejohn arrived at July Street. Cromwell looked fagged-out and Littlejohn sent him back to The Yard to make his report.

‘And then have a good meal and go home and rest, old chap. Well call it a day.'

Mann and his men were glad to go, too. They'd had enough. The whole atmosphere of the street and its occupants was depressing. And almost a full day's work had brought no results. Mann was baffled by the whole affair. Had he not had the information from Paris that the victim was known to them and was a first-class jewel-thief, he'd have thought the whole story was another of Mrs. Jump's tall tales.

‘Are you coming, too, sir?'

Cromwell didn't look disposed to give-in until the chief was ready to go, too.

‘No. I'll just make another call or two. I want to see Dr. Macready, for one thing. Take the car. I'll make my way home by 'bus. It isn't far.'

Cromwell went off reluctantly and on his departure, gloom seemed to fall upon July Street again. With the night came the thin melancholy November drizzle. The main road at the end of the street was still busy with traffic making its way home to the suburbs from London, and heavy traffic bound for the city. The headlights of the passing cars looked dim and yellow from where he stood and the street lamps were again surrounded by haloes of thin rain. He turned up his collar and made for No. 19.

Nothing moved in the street. Everyone was at home
eating the evening meal. In some of the lighted houses the blinds had not been drawn and he could see families gathered at tables in the front rooms. He was almost at the gate of No. 19, when he heard footsteps approaching. A small fat man wobbled along the footpath, his hands in the pockets of a reefer jacket. He had a cloth cap on his head and a short pipe in his mouth. He approached Littlejohn as though he'd known him all his life.

‘Superintendent Littlejohn?'

He was without a coat and the rain sparkled on his thick jacket. He wore a collar without a tie and a brass stud shone in his neckband.

‘Yes.'

‘You in charge of the case of the chap who was killed here early Wednesday morning?'

‘Yes.'

Littlejohn wondered if the man was going to give him some vital information. Instead, he gave a brief snort.

‘I'm Sam Barnes, owner of the garage just across the main road there.'

He looked like an ex-sailor gone to seed. He was enormously fat with short thick legs, a clean-shaven heavy face and close clipped hair. Hardly the sort you see in the motor-trade. More like an old salt. He was full of self-assurance.

‘I live just round the corner, a bit beyond the church.'

‘By the recreation ground?'

‘Yes. You seem to know the geography of the neighbourhood already. But it's no use you askin' me questions. I was fast asleep in bed when the woman said she saw the murdered man. Seven o'clock, wasn't it?'

‘That's right.'

‘What do you think of the affair? I see from the evenin' paper that they've identified the body. A Frenchman. A cat-burglar, was it?'

‘A jewel thief.'

‘Don't tell me he was after jewellery in July Street. That's a good one, that is. Jewellery in July Street. …'

He roared with laughter and shook like a jelly.

‘Can't be that he tried 'is hand at one of the houses and met his match, can it?'

‘I couldn't say, Mr. Barnes. We're only just starting on the case.'

‘Looks as if it's goin' to be a teaser, too.'

‘How long have you been in these parts?'

‘I was born here, but travelled a bit before I came back to settle down. Was in the buildin' trade in the war and after it all ended, I decided to take it easier. Bought this garage here, put a manager in, and worked a bit less. …'

He knocked his pipe out on his heel.

‘You've chosen a bad night to come on duty. What about a drink with me at the
Admiral Rodney
just round the corner there?'

‘I'm sorry. I think I'd better get on with the job and be on my way home out of this drizzle. Thanks. Perhaps another time, Mr. Barnes.'

‘Any time. So long, then. …'

He toddled away with short firm steps and vanished into the mist.

Littlejohn rang the bell at No. 19. There was a long silence and then the door opened. It was Miss Macready. She peered at Littlejohn, recognised him, and laughed nervously.

‘I wondered whoever was calling at this time of night. We don't usually have visitors after dark.'

‘Is your brother at home, please?'

She hesitated.

‘He's fast asleep in his room. As I think he told you – he tells everyone – he's no slave of time or routine. He works when he wishes and sleeps when he feels like it. He's been
up working several nights and went to bed as soon as tea was over. …'

‘Could I have a word with you, then, Miss Macready?'

‘Do you wish to question me?'

‘If I may.'

She was standing with her back to the light, silhouetted against the glow of the narrow hall. Tall and slim, with a good figure. She had changed from the house-coat of the morning into a pale blue jumper and a tweed skirt. She hesitated again and then inclined her head.

‘Come in, then.'

He followed her past the door of her brother's room to the second on the left, which she opened. Ahead was a small kitchen, the door of which she pulled to, not before Littlejohn had caught a glimpse of disorder and a confusion of unwashed pots and pans.

The light in the hall was covered in a red silk shade through which a warm glow penetrated on the few odds and ends of good mahogany furniture; a hatstand, a heavy chair, and a small table with a telephone on it. It was difficult to thread one's way through it all.

Littlejohn wondered why the doctor and his sister had chosen such an unsavoury quarter, quite out of keeping with their standing.

Miss Macready switched on the light in the room at the back.

‘This is my room. I use it as a sitting-room and whenever any visitors come, which is very rarely, I entertain them here.'

She was still theatrical, her speech precise, punctuated by a sweeping gesture now and then.

The room was illuminated by a standard lamp. A red carpet on the floor and the furnishing contemporary in yellows and reds. Modern armchairs and a couch like a wooden bench with a long red hassock on it. A grand
piano in one corner. It looked to be a good one. On the walls, a number of incomprehensible pictures in modern style. The heavy yellow curtains were drawn, shutting out the sordid view of shabby tumbledown property in June Street behind. The backyards of houses even more dilapidated than those of July Street. There was a faint scent on the air, not of personal perfume, but as though someone had not long ago been burning incense there; a heavy sensual odour which seemed to suit the woman who occupied the room.

Over all, the faint noises of the road. The almost perpetual hum and rush of passing traffic.

‘You wish to ask me some questions, Superintendent? Please sit down.'

He sat on one of the contemporary chairs with a cushion upholstered in red leather which hissed like a punctured tyre as it took his weight.

‘Cigarette?'

As he expected, they were black Russians. He declined with thanks.

‘Smoke your pipe, if you wish. I've seen you passing by with it in your mouth.'

He slowly packed and lit it, although it seemed almost like brawling in church to fill this exotic place with pipe smoke.

He felt that he himself might be taking part in a play. The furnishings, the sumptuous carpet, the luxurious curtains, the woman with her heavy scent and her precise speech and poses. … All in July Street, of all places. Like a set on a stage.

‘How long have you lived here, Miss Macready?'

‘Almost seven years.'

‘And before that?'

‘About two miles away along the main road. My brother was a general practitioner and this house was a surgery he
opened here because it seemed a profitable thing to do. He owned the property and when he decided to retire, we moved in here and his partner took over the other house.'

‘You didn't want to get away in the country then, after so long in a quarter like this?'

‘Why? Neither of us likes the country. This is a well-built house and we have made it comfortable for our purpose. It is a handy
pied-à-terre
for visits to London. Most of the neighbours were patients of my brother. They respect us and are our friends. What more could we wish?'

There was a pause, as though one of them had forgotten a cue and was waiting for the prompter.

‘Your brother told me that he was awake and working at seven o'clock, or a minute or two before, on Wednesday morning, but, looking through the window at that time, he saw nothing extraordinary. …'

‘What could go on unusual in July Street at such an early hour?'

‘The body of a murdered man was lying on the pavement opposite.'

‘Indeed. And my brother didn't notice it. I'm not surprised. He is so immersed in his studies sometimes that he doesn't know what is going on around him.'

‘Have you and your brother ever been to Paris, Miss Macready?'

She looked him straight in the eyes; a hard, reproachful look.

‘I really don't see how our private life and what we do with it concerns the police, Superintendent. Surely, you aren't connecting us with the dead body.'

‘No. This is a purely routine visit, such as we're making at most of the houses in the street.'

‘We have been to Paris. We were there last year. I said this was a
pied à terre
, a jumping-off place for travel, visits
to the theatre and concerts. We are both fond of Paris. Now, may I ask why?'

‘The dead man was, it seems, a Parisian. His name was Etienne Jourin. Have you ever heard of him or met him?'