Читать книгу The Basle Express - Cyril Henry Coles - Страница 5

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“At least,” said Hambledon, “we have arrived before the other party this time. That is, I suppose so?”

“Since the place is not wrecked,” agreed Cournand sourly, “but I will make sure.” He strode to the door, which the housekeeper had closed after her, and opened it quietly. Outside there was a wide straight passage floored with small coloured tiles in patterns; there were three doors upon either side and, at the opposite end, the front door; the large room they were in took up the whole width of the flat. The middle door on their left was open and a girl was standing there leaning against the doorpost. She was short and square with thick arms and legs, hair which was really the colour of gold and was wound round her head in thick plaits, pink cheeks and very blue eyes, and a wide mouth which was never quite shut. She did not notice that the sitting room door had opened; she was looking away from it towards the front door where Arnoux was standing, very stiff and upright, gazing earnestly at a framed model of a Dutch kitchen which hung on the wall in front of him. His round face was calm and composed but his ears were scarlet. They both held their poses unmoving; one would have said that they were figures in a picture. Cournand moved forward; the girl looked round and saw him and uttered a squeak like a mouse’s.

“Here,” said Cournand, “you, what’s your name? I forget.”

“Rosa, mein Herr, Rosa, if it please you.”

“Rosa, has any man called here earlier this morning? Or possibly two men?”

“Two men, mein Herr, please.”

“Strangers?”

“Oh no, mein Herr. One was the milkman and the other the postman.”

“I see. Nobody else?”

“Oh no, mein Herr. But the baker will be here presently.”

“Thank you,” said Cournand, and went back to the sitting room. Virolet, who had been looking along the passage, crooked his finger and Arnoux, as one released from a spell, came to life and shot past the kitchen door into the sitting room, closing the door firmly behind him.

“My boy,” said Virolet unkindly, “do your ears pain you?”

“No, monsieur, thank you,” said Arnoux woodenly.

“They look inflamed.”

“Tell me,” said Hambledon, “what did she say to you?”

“Nothing, monsieur. Not a word.”

“What? Just stood there and stared?”

“Precisely, monsieur.”

“Since no one else has searched this place,” said Cournand, “I think that we had better do so.”

“May we help you?” asked Virolet.

“Please. I will take the desk if you will look elsewhere. They will only be put away somewhere if they are here at all, or casually concealed. No need to wreck the place.”

Hambledon looked round the room. It was quite true that Bastien had taken to making ship models for, in spite of what he had said, there was one on the top shelf of a bookcase, another on the mantelpiece, and a third in course of construction on a table in the window. Virolet started on the bookcase, taking out each book, looking behind it, shaking it with the pages open downwards, and putting it back. He was incredibly quick. Arnoux began on the furniture; comfortable padded chairs in which an envelope might have been pushed down between seat and arm or slipped into a loose corner of the webbing covering the bottom. He unearthed a number of odd coins, a small pocket-knife and other trifles, but nothing for which anyone would endanger his life. He went on to the cupboards, of which there were several, a gramophone cabinet full of records——

Cournand at the desk seemed to be finding a great deal to interest him; muttered comments of surprise, annoyance, or satisfaction escaped him at intervals much as a terrier, digging in a bank, growls or squeaks as he labours.

Hambledon turned his attention to the finished models, but there was nowhere on them where a man could hide a sixpence. The unfinished one in the window was larger; perhaps this was one which poor Bastien might have intended to sail. The deck had not been secured. Hambledon lifted it off with careful fingers and found that the hull had been beautifully made with floor timbers and ribs, crossbeams and stringers, but it was quite empty. Bastien’s toolbox was represented by the tabledrawer, and here again there was nothing incongruous. Also on the table was an electric table lamp, in the form of a candlestick, standing on a small attaché case, and Hambledon’s interest awoke again as he noticed that the case had a flap on one side. He lifted off the heavy lamp and opened the case.

“Found something?” asked Virolet.

“A tape recorder,” said Hambledon.

The tape had been run out; he set it to wind back and stood watching it while the spools whined round. What use would a free-lance journalist have for a tape recorder? Presumably to record conversations; Bastien was not likely to record his articles and send them out to be typed. His typewriter was on the desk. Tape recorders will preserve whole conversations without the speakers’ knowledge if the microphone is concealed. The tape ran out and the end flicked tiresomely round the spool; Hambledon stopped it, threaded it back, and started it again.

There was silence for a moment or two and then, quite suddenly, the clatter and babble of a restaurant in the background and, more immediately, the small noises of chairs being moved and rustling sounds. Then a deferential voice saying: “Here is the menu. What will the herren be pleased to take?”

There followed a short discussion about food. Soup, yes? Potage paysanne, bouillabaisse, soupe aux choux? They made their different choices and the waiter repeated the orders.

“And to follow? Fish? The trout is very good. Or meat? There is veal or mutton——”

“What about your speciality? Tripe sausage from Angoulème——”

“Certainly, mein Herr. Three——”

“No,” said another voice, “not for me. Far too rich. I should suffer——”

“What is all this?” asked Cournand. “A record of a dinner party?”

“Heaven knows,” said Hambledon. “I am wondering why he took the trouble to record it.”

“Somebody will make a speech,” suggested Virolet.

“At the beginning of a dinner?” objected Cournand.

“Or sing a song,” said Virolet. “Or play a vio——”

“Listen,” said Hambledon urgently. The ordering had been completed and presumably the waiter had gone away because a confidential voice began to speak, very low but so close that every murmur was plainly audible; one could almost see the speaker leaning across the table.

“Tell us about the scheme now, Eugene, before he comes b-back. Then we can all think it over and if there are any questions to ask, there will be time to ask them.”

Another voice answered just as quietly, a crisp voice, much more incisive.

“Very well. Today is Wednesday. On Friday night a Frenchman is coming from Paris to meet that Russian, Medeski, who is staying at the Drei Adlern.” Cournand sat up abruptly. “The Frenchman is bringing the details of the latest American guided missile—flying bombs to you, Erich——”

“No, no,” said Erich in a ponderous voice. “A rocket, of course, a guided rocket controllable either from the ground or from a piloted——”

“For heaven’s sake!” broke in the incisive voice, presumably Eugene’s. “Not a lecture just now, please. The Frenchman brings the papers, the Russian brings the money, and we are to get both.”

“B-both,” said the first speaker, who stuttered on certain consonants.

“Certainly. Both. Money is always useful and as for the dope about the rocket, the boss will sell it to the Russians again. The boss knows exactly what has been arranged. They will meet on Friday night.”

“At the Drei Adlern?” That was Erich again, one who intended to see his way plainly, step by step.

“No, heavens no. Would that Frenchman go openly to a good hotel like that? He might be recognized. No. They are meeting in a room at the back of a café in Bergsteiger Strasse, a little place where the railway men go. There’s an alley goes down beside the café, and the room has a side door to the alley.”

“I know the p-place,” said the stutterer. “It is where the b-blasted Reds m-meet. The café is called Der Schwartzhund.”

“That’s right. It isn’t far from the station, so the Frenchman can catch the night train to Paris at half past twenty-two hours. The meeting—here comes our soup.”

The waiter could be heard delivering different kinds of soup to the right recipients, and Cournand took the opportunity to remark that he knew that café. The Angoulème sausages were their trade-mark, as one might say; they were always——

“What time is the m-meeting?” asked the stutterer.

“At twenty-two hours. There will be Medeski and the Frenchman and Medeski’s bodyguard, that is all. Now listen.”

“We had b-better have our soup, or the waiter will notice.”

“Short interval for soup,” said Virolet.

“Evidently,” said Hambledon, listening.

Eugene began again. “The bodyguard will be outside the door. Erich and I will silence him. Then I go in and get the stuff. There may be shooting. When I come out I shall be running hard towards the station; if I am stopped I am running to catch a train, the one for Olten at thirty-seven minutes past twenty-two. I already have the return half of a ticket to Olten. All clear so far? Good. Now go back to the alley down the side of the café. Paulus knows it; it is only a footpath between buildings and it runs through to the Karolinenstrasse. You know, Paulus? Good. There is a doorway halfway along on the left as you come from the café, a nice deep doorway.”

“It is not used now,” said Paulus; “it is fastened up. The m-maids used to slip out.”

“All the better. Let us finish our soup and have the next course.”

Spoons and plates clattered together; that would be the waiter clearing the first course. He brought the meat course and there was some desultory conversation at the table while it was being served.

“Do you know any of these men, Herr Cournand?” asked Hambledon. “It sounds as though the stuttering Paulus is a local man; he knows that district very well.”

“I do know something,” said Cournand; “I’ll tell you when this is done. Eugene conveys nothing particularly sinister and there are hundreds of Erichs. I’ll tell you this much right away; Paulus waited in that doorway they are talking about!”

“What——” began Virolet, but Hambledon shot out a hand and stopped him.

“This doorway,” prompted Erich.

“If I am running for my train and should by chance be stopped, I can’t afford to have anything on me. Paulus, you will stand in the doorway. When you hear me come running, flap a white handkerchief and I shall know it’s you. I will hand you the goods as I go by, and then you can stroll off all calm and casual. Erich will have gone the other way, back into Bergsteiger Strasse and we’ll all meet at Anna’s. All clear?”

“Let me recapitulate,” said the thick voice of Erich. “You and I go to the side door and lay out the bodyguard while Paulus waits in the doorway further on. Then you go in and get the stuff and come out again. You will have money and papers. You give me the money and I go back the way we came and round to Anna’s. You go the other way past Paulus, give him the papers, and go straight on. Paulus also goes to Anna’s and so do you if you are not pursued. That is correct, is it not?”

There was a short silence filled only with restaurant noise, and Erich repeated his question with a perceptibly harder tone in his voice. “That is correct, is it not?”

“Yes, of course,” said Eugene’s clearer voice. “I am sorry, I was thinking about weapons. I must have a gun when I enter that room though I don’t like the noise. A silencer makes a gun so bulky.”

“For the bodyguard,” said Erich, “a knife.”

“Certainly. Of course. But it would not do inside. Two of them and probably the other side of a table——”

“If the p-proprietor of the café would turn on his wireless it would dr——”

The tape ran off the first spool and the end spun round the second one with an audible flick every time it passed the end of the sound head; Hambledon put out his hand and stopped the mechanism.

“It becomes clear,” said Virolet. “Bastien got those papers by a trick and the trick——”

“Consisted,” interrupted Cournand, “in Bastien’s walking up to a policeman on his beat in the Karolinenstrasse and saying: ‘I believe the Lucerne police have been asking for Paulus Caron, haven’t they? Armed robbery, I believe? He is down the Bergsteiger Gässlein over there, standing in a doorway. Go and look.’ So my man went and looked. It is very dark in that alley, so he shone his torch on the doorway, and Paulus kicked it out of his hand and ran for it.”

“Which way?” asked Hambledon and Virolet with one voice.

“Towards the Karolinenstrasse, away from his friends. My man ran after him, naturally, and they both passed Bastien waiting at the end of the alley for what should come.”

“Then, no doubt, Bastien took Paulus’s place in the doorway,” said Virolet, “until he heard another set of running feet coming up from the café end——”

“Whereupon he gracefully flourished his white handkerchief, and Eugene kindly handed over the papers as he whizzed past,” said Hambledon. “After which, Bastien walked quietly to the station and caught the next train to Calais for England. I wonder——”

“Tell me, Cournand,” said Virolet, “what happened in that room at the back of the café?”

“I only know what we found,” said Cournand, “we of the police, I mean. One dead man who had been knifed outside the door and his body dragged inside, and one dead Frenchman with a bullet in his brain.”

“Who was the Frenchman?” asked Virolet and Cournand hesitated.

“I am sorry,” he said at last, “I must not tell you. I have been commanded to secrecy. I will never utter that name.”

“But,” persisted Virolet, “somebody must be missing or have died suddenly——” his voice tailed off.

“He certainly died suddenly,” agreed Cournand.

“Of a shooting accident—it cannot be he!—on a country estate near Rheims yesterday—oh, no. Not that man. They were shooting rooks with a rifle and——”

“And there will be a beautiful State funeral,” said Cournand sarcastically. “That will be enough about him. We, of course, have only one corpse to deal with, and as nobody knows who he is, that will not give us much trouble. As for Comrade Medeski at the Drei Adlern, we know all about him. He is on the staff of the Russian Embassy at Berne.”

“Has he gone back there,” asked Virolet, “or is he still here?”

“I don’t know but of course it is only to ask. He must be seriously annoyed, eh?”

“I’ll tell you of some other people who will be seriously annoyed also,” said Hambledon. “If Medeski has not returned, complete with papers, to the fold at Berne, his countrymen will be after him, won’t they?”

“While Medeski is after Eugene and his friends——” said Cournand.

“Who in their turn ran vigorously after Monsieur Bastien,” said Virolet. “So vigorously that they caught up with him last night in the Calais-Basle express. I wonder who they are running after now?”

“He was going to England,” said Hambledon. “He told his housekeeper so and it seems to be true, since he was certainly at Calais. I wonder why he turned back.

“I expect they turned him back,” said Cournand. “Or he saw them waiting for him near the gangway and thought he had given them the slip by coming straight back.”

“ ‘They’?” said Hambledon.

“Oh, not Eugene in person,” said Cournand. “You see, it would take time, would it not, to realize what had happened? Paulus ran for it and my man after him——”

“Did he catch him?” asked Hambledon.

“Unfortunately, no. My man rang up the station and reported it. Soon after that the proprietor of Der Schwartzhund rang us up to say that there were two dead men in his little back room and would we come and clear away. When we found out who and what they were, of course we were more interested than ever in the running Paulus though, at the time, it might just possibly have been coincidence. Well, after a while Paulus makes his way back to Anna’s and they compare notes. Erich has got the money all right, and Paulus assumes that Eugene has still got the papers. ‘I wasn’t there,’ he says, ‘I had to run for it. Who did you give the p-papers to?’ Eugene says somebody flapped a handkerchief as arranged and he naturally assumed it was Paulus. ‘Who put the cop on to you?’ asks Eugene. ‘Wasn’t there anyone about?’ ‘There was that newshawk B-Bastien,’ says Paulus. ‘I’ve seen him b-before.’ So then they contact the boss. I wish I knew who he is, and I only hope he was nice about it. Don’t you? By this time it was probably the small hours and Bastien in the Calais train passing through Strasbourg——”

“How did they know that?” asked Hambledon.

“Oh, somebody saw him and reported it when asked if anyone had seen Bastien. He was very well known.”

“And they’d have somebody hanging round the station that night,” said Virolet, “in case Eugene wanted help or to check on the Frenchman. That traitor,” snarled Virolet, “may he rot in hell!”

“Calm yourself,” said Cournand soberly. “I should say that he is already there. From death to hell is a short road for traitors, in my belief. Well, then the boss rings up a friend in Calais and says Bastien is not to reach England with his papers; they are to be taken off him. You, Herr Hambledon, saw that friend.”

“Yes,” said Hambledon, “yes. Dear Pierre. Perhaps your police, Monsieur Virolet, have gathered him in by now. By the way, didn’t you admire the firm way in which Erich arranged to receive the money. So obviously sensible too; even Eugene didn’t argue the point.”

“One wonders,” said Virolet, “what would have become of the money if either Paulus or Eugene had kept it.”

“We don’t know,” pointed out Cournand, “that Erich didn’t go off with it. I should not think so, myself; he knows his friends too well. But it would be a good sum, would it not?”

“It would not be—how do you say? Food for the fowls?” said Virolet.

“One last point,” said Hambledon. “Anna.”

“I shall not neglect Anna,” said Cournand. “If it’s a sort of pet name for a club or an inn, my police may know it. Of course, she may be merely an aunt.”

“Some aunt,” said Hambledon.

“Bastien,” said Virolet, “would have been better advised to travel to London by air. I wonder he did not.”

“It is possible that he could not get a seat,” said Cournand; “they are heavily booked in the holiday season. Well, I think we have done all we can here. The next step is to go to the Café Angoulème. Herr Hambledon, do you accompany us?”

“Thank you,” said Hambledon. “I should like very much to come with you, if I may. For one thing, I want to know how Bastien managed to conceal or disguise a microphone so that none of the three noticed it. It sounded as though it must have been on the table; when they leaned forward and spoke quietly they seemed to be whispering into it. Damn it, one could hear them breathing.”

They went out together and found the girl Rosa again standing by the kitchen door, and her eyes fell upon Arnoux who retired behind Hambledon.

“Rosa,” said Cournand, “has anyone else called?”

“Only the man from the telephone company, mein Herr, to inspect the telephone.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That the police were here, mein Herr. He said that in that case he would call back later.”

“Excuse me one moment,” said Cournand, and went back to the telephone on Bastien’s desk. They heard him talking to the telephone company and a moment later he returned.

“No?” said Hambledon.

“No, of course not. I shall put a man in here, but I don’t think he will come back. He will know that if there was anything to find we should have found it.”

“The tape recorder?” asked Hambledon.

“I have it, monsieur,” said Arnoux. “Monsieur Cournand wants to have it at his office, so I brought it away.”

“Unless,” said Virolet, “you would rather stay here on guard? Let me take it from you.”

“No thank you, monsieur,” said Arnoux emphatically.