Читать книгу Death on the Riviera - Ernest Elmore - Страница 11
ОглавлениеI
That morning Inspector Meredith had driven over to police-headquarters at Nice for a pow-wow with his opposite number, Inspector Blampignon. They’d already met a couple of times since Meredith and Strang had settled in about a week earlier at their unpretentious hotel in Menton. Despite differences of language and temperament, the two men were already firm friends. Luckily Blampignon had a fair command of English and Meredith a smattering of schoolboy French. In consequence, after a certain initial embarrassment, they were soon able to chatter away pretty fluently.
Inspector Blampignon took life as it came, and accepted what did turn up with tremendous gusto. With his dark, humorous eyes, rotund figure, and easy rumbling laugh, he was a true Provençal. But behind that tolerant, comfortable personality was a quick intelligence and an astute practical mind. When the need arose Blampignon’s plump and rather loose-limbed body could jerk, with surprising agility, into swift and decisive action.
As Meredith greeted him that morning in the cool, half-shuttered office on the second storey of the massive building, he sensed at once that Blampignon was worried. In a few moments the cause of this worry bobbed to the surface of their conversation. During the last few days information had come in about the resurgence of a well-tried racket that Blampignon and his colleagues had thought to be conclusively scotched. For a time it had proved to be one of the most profitable rackets along the Riviera. The details, as the Inspector pointed out, were simple. American cigarettes, which could be bought in Algiers and other North African ports for as little as sixpence a packet, were smuggled in fast motor-launches across the Mediterranean to suitable lonely spots along the coast-line and then sold on the Cote d’Azur at four shillings a packet. The profits on a single trip could run as high as ten million francs—about ten thousand pounds!
“Hélas!” sighed Blampignon. “So far all we find out is that the contraband is being put ashore somewhere between here and the Italian frontier.”
“You mean these Yank cigarettes are being marketed only along this end of the coast?”
Blampignon nodded.
“It is like these counterfeit notes, mon vieux. They also are only making their appearance in the more easterly towns along the Midi. For that reason, of course, I settle you at Menton.”
“I suppose there’s no chance that the two rackets are being worked by the same gang?” asked Meredith.
“No—I think not. The currency racket demands a fixed headquarters on land—a place where they can set up their printing machine. But in this other game...” Blampignon threw wide his hands. “It is—how do you say?—fluid. And it does not do to join up something that is fluid with something that is fixed. You agree, M’sieur?” The inspector moved to his desk, opened a drawer and slapped a small wad of notes into Meredith’s hand. “You see, mon ami, we have added to our little collection. Most of these notes we pick up in Monte Carlo. We have warned the... the...” Blampignon clicked his fingers irritably. “Les boutiquiers to be on the watch for such thousand franc notes.”
“The shopkeepers, eh?” Meredith examined the notes minutely and nodded his admiration. “Beautiful work—we’ve got to admit it. Except for the two microscopic deviations spotted by your lab wallahs at Lyons, the darn things might be genuine.”
Blampignon chuckled and with a flamboyant gesture whipped a sheet of paper from his desk.
“Now here is the list of shopkeepers who hand over these notes to us. We question them one by one and in all cases it appears that they were passed over by English customers. But in two cases we have much luck. The shopkeeper sees in time the little errors we have warned him to watch out for. You follow, mon ami? He realize, immédiatement, that the note is fake. So he say to his customer ‘Please to let me have your name and address, for the police desire to find out how these fake notes come to you.’ Then I think to myself, this is a... a... une besogne for Meredith. He shall question these Englishmen, perhaps. That is why I ring you this morning and ask you to come over. It is possible you can do this?”
“My dear Blampignon,” laughed Meredith, “it’s what I’m here for. Let me have those addresses. I’ll get over to Monte at once.”
