Death on the Riviera (13 page)

Meredith cut in with a sudden lifting of his previous ill-temper.

“By Jove—yes! That particular point hadn't occurred to me.” Adding with seeming irrelevance: “By the way, did you notice what had happened to the bottle we spotted on Saturday night? You must have passed the spot where the launch was moored on your walk this afternoon.”

Freddy nodded solemnly.

“I did, sir.
It was gone!
”

Meredith gave a long low whistle; then, with a sudden burst of optimism, declared:

“By heaven, Strang! I think we've got 'em. We've got 'em by the short hairs, m'lad.”

IV

Cap Martin; the Villa Valdeblore at Beaulieu; then over to Menton and the Villa Paloma—it was long past dinner time when Meredith and Strang arrived back at the Hotel Louis. But a word to the
maître d'hôtel
and the couple were soon sitting down in the deserted dining-room to an excellent if belated meal. They were in a jubilant mood; a mood that gained lustre from the bottle of Beaujolais that Meredith had ordered to celebrate the occasion. Their evening's investigations had brought in results that, in the light of Meredith's previous depression, seemed little short of miraculous. It was Freddy's hunch that had set the ball rolling, and their subsequent enquiries at the Villas Valdeblore and Paloma had increased its impetus. Suddenly, as if by magic, a series of uncorrelated clues had clicked together to form a clear and revealing pattern. Events which had previously baffled them could now be explained away with startling simplicity. It was always the case, thought Meredith—once one had discovered the solution to a problem it was hard to believe that a problem had ever existed.

But the Inspector was in no mood to waste time on an analysis of their good fortune. Although it was then past ten o'clock he was far too keyed-up to call a halt to the day's investigations. Hastily finishing his coffee, Meredith nodded to Strang and together they hurried out to the car.

A three-minute dash through the emptying streets brought them down to the harbour. The constable whom Gibaud had detailed to keep watch on the
Hirondelle
was standing back in the deep shadows formed by the high stone breakwater of the harbour-arm, only a few yards from where the launch was riding at her moorings.

“
Eh bien?
” demanded Meredith.

“
Pas de personne, M'sieur.
”

“
Bon!
” said Meredith curtly.

It wasn't exactly a loquacious exchange but one, thought Meredith, that was well within the scope of his linguistic abilities. At any rate it told him all he wanted to know. He turned to Strang.

“O.K. Sergeant—let's get aboard.”

To Meredith, of course, this exhaustive search was a repetition of his previous day's exploration aboard the
Hirondelle.
But now, convinced that he'd overlooked some vital clue, his investigations were even more prolonged and meticulous. Flicking on his torch and ordering the Sergeant to do the same, he unlocked the cabins and, together, they got down to work.

At the end of half-an-hour, puzzled and dejected, they'd arrived nowhere. Meredith glared at Strang and shook his head.

“Can't make it out, Sergeant. I could have sworn our theory was a winner. I'm damned if I can see where we've slipped up. After all, when I searched the launch yesterday I didn't know what I was looking for. Just any sort of clue, eh? But now we're looking for a specific object that,
ipso facto,
must occupy a specific amount of space. And that definitely limits the area of our search. It's got me hipped. Don't mind admitting it.”

“Going to call it a day, sir?”

“No, m'lad, I'm not,” retorted Meredith with a stubborn look. “We're going to start all over again. Come on, let's get for'ard and work our way back to the cockpit. We've all night before us.”

This wasn't the first time that Meredith's obstinacy and thoroughness had brought home the bacon. Some twenty minutes after they'd started their second examination they hit on the solution to the problem that had been puzzling them.

“Well, well, well!” chuckled Meredith, delightedly. “What do you know about that, Sergeant? Ingenious, eh? Must give the devil his due. You realize what this discovery means, of course?”

“That we've broken the racket wide open, sir.”

“Just that, I reckon. Blampignon's now in a position to draw up the necessary warrants of arrest. A useful and highly satisfactory day's work, m'lad. Except for one outstanding exception we've now got the gang more or less in the bag.”

“The exception being ‘Chalky' Cobbett, sir?”

“Exactly, Strang. The man we were sent over here to trace and apprehend. Disappointing, eh? I hate having a loose end lying around in a case.” Meredith turned aside to lock the door of the for'ard cabin. “Still, sufficient unto the day is the progress thereof. We mustn't expect miracles. Ready, Sergeant? Time we got back and caught up on our sleep. We're all lined up for a pretty exhaustive pow-wow tomorrow with our good friend Blampignon. I guess he's going to be tickled to death!”

Chapter XIV

Notes in Circulation

I

An early 'phone-call to Nice brought Inspector Blampignon hell-for-leather over to Menton. Gibaud had placed his office at their disposal and shortly after ten o'clock that Wednesday morning Meredith, Strang, Blampignon and Gibaud himself were seated in the small, business-like, first-floor room at the local Commissariat de Police.

Very naturally the atmosphere of the conference was one of suppressed excitement. For after weeks of indifferent progress the case had suddenly reached that conclusive phase where proven facts could be substituted for unproven, if plausible, speculation. Blampignon, his round, good-natured face wreathed in smiles, was like a cat on hot bricks. Racked with impatience, it was all he could do to tether himself to his chair. Barely had Gibaud closed the door and dropped into his seat behind the desk, when Blampignon burst out explosively:

“
Mon Dieu!
Is it necessary that we waste time like this? Do you wish me to die of suspense,
mes amis?
Tell me now, what exactly is it you have managed to find out?”

“Darn nearly everything!” grinned Meredith, who with an irritating lack of haste was setting a match to the bowl of his pipe. “But don't look to me to start the ball rolling. That's the Sergeant's pidgin. He's the fellow who first set the match to the fuse and with your permission, gentlemen, I'm going to ask him to open the proceedings. Agreed?” The two French Inspectors nodded. “O.K. Sergeant. Fire ahead—it's all yours.”

“But…but where exactly do you want me to begin?” stammered Freddy, somewhat overwhelmed by the responsibility that had suddenly been thrust upon him.

“Begin at the beginning, m'lad,” suggested Meredith drily. “It's always a sound idea.”

“You mean with what I happened to see that morning in the garage-yard at the Villa Paloma?” Meredith nodded. “O.K. sir. Well, early last Sunday morning I…”

And without more ado Freddy described in detail all that he'd witnessed through his peep-hole in the lattice gate—Shenton's arrival in the Vedette; the strange “catch” that he appeared to have brought back from his early-morning fishing expedition; his hasty concealment of the tar-spotted boulder when the maid had come out into the yard. Every now and then, at Blampignon's request, he had to break off so that Gibaud could translate some phrase that his colleague was unable to grasp. Freddy then turned to the walk he'd taken with Dilys Westmacott the previous afternoon. After describing the route they'd followed out to Cap Martin, he went on:

“We clambered out over the rocks to a point only a few yards from the sea. Miss Westmacott sat for a moment and we started chatting. Well, to cut a long story short, I happened to notice an empty wine-bottle stuck up on a rock a few yards ahead of us.” Freddy grinned. “Naturally I couldn't resist the invitation, and I began chucking pebbles at the thing. At the third shot I hit it fair and square. And then, just close to it, I spotted the boulder.”

“The boulder?” enquired Blampignon. “What is?” Gibaud explained. “Ah! The piece of rock. And what is the significance of your discovery,
mon ami?
”

“Well, sir, I noticed that it had tar-stains on it like the one Shenton had taken from his creel.
And the arrangement of the stains—five dots like a lopsided domino-five—was identical!
”

“
Mon Dieu!
” breathed Blampignon gustily. “Go on! Go on!”

“I realized at once that these five dots couldn't have got there by chance—I mean exactly the same number and arrangement in both cases. It seemed pretty obvious that they'd been
painted
on. And then it struck me that the up-ended bottle might have some connection with the boulder—that it might have been set up there as a kind of marker. Without Miss Westmacott realizing I managed to decipher the label on one of the broken pieces. Nuits St. George, sir.”

“Nuits St. George!” echoed Blampignon excitedly as he turned to Meredith. “But that was the label on the empty bottle you saw on the rocks after we surprise the launch on Saturday night!”

“Exactly,” nodded Meredith. “And it was there for the same reason—to pin-point the spot where one of these specially marked and specially designed boulders had been set ashore off the launch. Yesterday, when Strang passed the spot, he noticed that the bottle had gone. Presumably the boulder had been collected in the interim and the bottle thrown into the sea or hidden in the undergrowth.”

“But why…what…?” floundered Blampignon with a blank, almost imbecile, expression on his swarthy features.

Meredith laughed.

“Let me tidy it up for you, my dear fellow. Mind if I take over now, Sergeant? Right! Then let's get down to the fundamental facts of the mystery. The launch we surprised on Saturday night
was
the
Hirondelle
—no mistake about that. Latour was aboard her with A. N. Other—this enigmatic figure in cloak and wide-brimmed hat whom my good friend Gibaud here claims to be a woman. Latour was there for one reason and one reason only—to land one of these curiously marked boulders and to mark its position with an empty bottle of Nuits St. George. Aboard the launch, by the way, I found a crate half-full of these empty bottles.”

“
Mon Dieu!
” cried Blampignon, clapping his hands despairingly to his head. “Do not let us worry about these bottles. It is the pieces of rock I do not understand.”

“Neither did we at first,” admitted Meredith. “Until we laid our hands on one and succeeded in opening it.”

“Opening it?” demanded Gibaud, bewildered. “What the devil do you mean?”

“Fixed under the centre dot of the domino-five was a perfectly concealed spring-catch. By luck I pressed the right spot and the top of the contraption hinged back. Inside, of course, it was hollow. A thick lead plate was let into the base of the rock to counteract the loss of weight due to this hollow. Neat, eh? To all appearances the lump of rock both looked and felt genuine.”

“And the hollow,” asked Blampignon, “for what was it made?”

“To conceal a nice thick wad of counterfeit notes all fresh and crackling from the press, my dear fellow.”

Blampignon jumped to his feet.

“So that is how they work it! The press was on board
L'Hirondelle
—is that how you mean?”

“Ingenious, eh?” chuckled Meredith. “What better place to set it up? All Latour had to do was to cruise around off-shore at night, print off a prearranged consignment of dud notes, slap 'em into one of these boulder affairs and dump the stuff at some lonely spot along the nearby coastline.”

“But why these elaborate precautions?” asked Gibaud. “Why not walk off the launch with the notes in his pocket?”

“Because there was always a chance that the police might grow suspicious of his nocturnal trips in the
Hirondelle.
If the launch was searched or Latour frisked as he came ashore…well, he'd have as much chance of getting away with it as an icicle in hell! That money was hot, and Latour wasn't going to risk handling it. Sensible, you'll admit. With their particular
modus operandi
there was absolutely nothing to connect the Hedderwick launch with any sort of racket.”

“Nothing? Nothing?” cried Blampignon, who was now striding about the room in a perfect dither of excitement. “How do you mean…nothing? What about the printing-press? Are we so stupid, we police, that if we see a printing-press on a boat we ask no questions?
Merdre!
I do not believe that one,
mon vieux.
”

“Hang on! Not so fast,” chuckled Meredith. “You Frenchmen always pride yourselves on your logicality. Well, let's look at this from a logical point of view.”

“
Eh bien,
that is just what I do!” protested Blampignon.

“Not entirely,” corrected Meredith. “Now be honest, old man. You wouldn't start searching the launch for an illicit printing-press unless you had definite proof that Latour was a member of a gang. And if neither he nor any member of his crew were caught with the notes on their person—I mean as they came ashore—would you honestly suspect that the counterfeiting was being worked from the
Hirondelle?
Owned, remember, by the highly respectable Mrs. Hedderwick.”

“No,” admitted Blampignon with a hangdog look. “That is true. Without we catch him coming off the boat with the notes on him, how should we suspect?”

“Precisely. Don't forget that when we
did
catch up with Latour it was via Guillevin, the tobacconist, and Jacques Dufil, the hunchback. It was sheer crazy carelessness on Latour's part to bribe Dufil with forged notes. And even then we shouldn't have associated the racket with the
Hirondelle
if we hadn't had that chance encounter with the launch off Cap Martin on Saturday night. Agreed?”

“
Mais oui,
” said Blampignon sheepishly. “That is good sense.”

“Well, that's my first point. Now for the second. Even when my investigations
did
lead me to the
Hirondelle,
I found absolutely nothing suspicious about her. Admittedly, when I searched the boat on Monday I wasn't specifically looking for a printing-press, because I'd no idea then how the trick was being worked. You follow?”

“
Oui, oui—parfaitement,
” nodded Blampignon.

“But last night, when Strang and I searched the launch again, we boarded her
expecting
to unearth the press. But even then, if it hadn't been for a fortunate mishap I guess we'd have chucked our theory overboard and kidded ourselves that the press
wasn't
aboard the
Hirondelle.
”

“And when you did find it?” asked Gibaud eagerly. “Where exactly—?”

Meredith cut in with a malicious twinkle:

“Oh, no—I'm not going to spoon-feed you fellows. When we're through with this pow-wow we're driving down to the harbour and I'm going to give you and Blampignon a chance to discover the darn thing for yourselves! But before we do that let's return to the receiving-end of the set-up—the collecting and disposal of the notes once they'd come off the press. As far as the Sergeant and I have been able to ascertain there are only three men working the racket—four, if we include the elusive ‘Chalky'.”

“And those?” enquired Gibaud.

“Latour, Shenton and Bourmin. Latour, printing; Shenton, collecting; Bourmin, disposing. And of these three, I've a very strong suspicion that the Englishman's the one behind the organization. Now for the details. You recall the Sergeant's evidence concerning Shenton's early-morning fishing expeditions?” The two Inspectors nodded. “Well, that was the alibi he employed when picking up the notes. Simple, eh? A bit of fishing, say, off Cap Martin or wherever they'd agreed to put ashore the notes. A quick look around for the empty wine-bottle. Another casual glance around in the vicinity of the marker for a medium-sized boulder bearing five tar stains. Even if there were other anglers out on the rocks it would be perfectly easy for Shenton to slip the boulder unnoticed into his creel.”

Gibaud protested:

“I still think it sounds damnably over-complicated.”

“Not a bit of it. The notes had to be set ashore in some sort of container. And that container had to merge into the surrounding landscape like a chameleon. What better than one more lump of rock amid a million others? Actually there's more to it than that, but I'll deal with this in due course. Anyway, we've now got irrefutable evidence that this was the way Shenton worked it. Yesterday evening when we drove over to Cap Martin we took with us an empty bottle of Nuits St. George. This we set up on the rock where the Sergeant had spotted the original marker—the one he smashed with that pebble! To allay all suspicion we picked up every piece of broken glass. Later, at the Villa Paloma, I had a private word with Miss Westmacott. I asked her to keep watch from her window to see if Shenton set out early this morning on one of his little angling jaunts. If so, she was to ring me at my hotel.”

“And she did?” asked Blampignon.

“Yes—he left about six-thirty. And if that isn't conclusive proof, then I'll grow a beard and like it!” chuckled Meredith. “So much for that. Once the Sergeant had stumbled on the boulder clue the remaining links in our chain of evidence snapped very neatly into place. We drove over to Malloy's villa at Beaulieu and found just what we were looking for—a five-spot, perfectly natural-looking lump of rock that was used to prop open one of the garage doors.”

“But how did it get there?” demanded Blampignon instantly. “This Bourmin disposes of the notes. He does not collect them. At least that is what you tell us just now.”

“Quite, my dear chap. We asked ourselves the same question. How did Bourmin pick up the notes from Shenton over at Menton? Did Shenton deliver them in person? If so, when and where? It struck us that it wouldn't be easy for Shenton and Bourmin to arrange a rendezvous. Bourmin never knew when exactly he'd be on duty. The Colonel made that point clear. The chauffeur was often called out at a moment's notice. Besides it wouldn't be easy for Shenton, with a pretty full private life, to nip away from the villa just when he pleased.” Meredith turned to Strang. “And then we hit on the explanation, eh, Sergeant?”

“A winner all the way, sir!” exclaimed Strang.

“You see,” went on Meredith, “we found out that every Friday night Bourmin drove the Malloys over to the Villa Paloma for an evening's bridge. And it struck us at once that this was the link we were looking for. Here was a chance for Bourmin to collect the specie without rousing the slightest suspicion. Nobody, in fact, even suggested that Bourmin knew either Latour or Shenton.”