Стюарт Стерлинг - Collection of Stories

The four from St. Moritz never separated long enough for the detective to get into conversation with one of them, alone.

Not until they had tramped back along the snow-packed trail to the club, did the investigator get his opening. Lagand brought up the rear. Vine dropped behind, waited for the florid ex-confidence man.

“Been in America long?” he inquired, casually.

“We leave Le Havre ten days ago. A very bad crossing.” Lagand was curt.

“Too bad. I haven’t been over the pond for five years,” Vine said. “I always used to prefer Cherbourg.”

Lagand plodded along for a dozen steps before he answered.

“I thought it. You are no photographer. Always you were too easily satisfied. Those others, they made us pose over many times. But yon...”

Vine made no admission. “You might drop around to my room, 201, say right after dinner. We could talk over old times in Cherbourg.”

“What can I do?” Lagand said. “I will come, naturally.”

He kept his word, knocked on Vine’s door, softly, shortly before eight.

“What is it you want, my friend with the long memory? If it is blackmail, I have not enough money to make it worth your while.”

The detective laughed harshly.

“I’m not going to put the bee on you. I don’t want your lousy money. I want information.”

Lagand blew a cloud of cigarette smoke so Vine couldn’t see the skater’s eyes.

“Information about—”

“Murder.”

If Vine had expected the foreigner to show surprise, he was disappointed. Instead, Lagand inhaled leisurely and let the smoke dribble insolently from his nostrils, before answering.

“I expect this. Actually, I do. It is concerning’ this customs man who was found dead, no?”

“Yes.”

“Ah!” Lagand’s hand turned palm up, as if he expected to catch some of the snowflakes that were swirling outside the windows. “If you are so familiar with my histoire, my friend, you will know that never did I break the laws. Never.”

“I know Cherbourg Charlie never got caught. But you were close to the edge, more than once.”

“But certainly. That is excitement, no? To be close to the edge and not go over? That is why I like this skating for stunt. Yes? The same thrill. Only now, I risk my own bones instead of my money. And all I take from those who enjoy watching me, is what your pal, Mike, he gives me.”

“Get to it, Cherbourg. What are you driving at?”

Lagand ground out his cigarette carefully. “This, only. I broke no laws then. I break none now. Especially not one that may one day bring me to kiss the Widow of Paris or, here, to sit in your electrical chairs. No? So I tell you the truth, I know not one thing about this man who died, unless” — he leaned forward, glanced slyly up from under quizzical eyebrows — “he was a tall man, big of nose and red as to hair? Yes?”

Vine yanked him savagely to his feet.

“Spit it out, Cherbourg, or I’ll knock it out of you. What do you know?”

“This man I have describe — if he is the one the paper here calls William Corinth — he talked with Wolf the last night. Off in a corner, this was. In secret, as you say.”

Vine released him.

“I’ll check on that. It better be on the up and up. I’m not kidding. And you stay here until I have a chat with this Rachau. I don’t want anybody getting tipped off. What’s his room number?”

“Two-naught-five.” Lagand smiled craftily. “It is not for nothing they call him the Neck-breaker. When he is aroused, he is a veritable madman.”

“Yeah?” Vine opened the door. “We’ll be even then. I’m pretty damned mad myself right now.”

He went to 205, but he didn’t knock on the door. It was partly open.

Vine called out, got no answer. He kicked the door wide open quickly and went in.

Wolf Rachau was kneeling beside the bed, as if praying. But his head was resting on the bed and the top of it was a gory mess.

His skin was still warm but he was thoroughly dead.

Beside the bowed-down corpse was a green-japanned, metal box about two feet long. The lid was open and on it, as well as on the floor, were scattered screwdrivers, a hacksaw, hammers, mallets and files.

Vine got down on his knees, looked under the bed. He took out his handkerchief, gingerly lifted off the carpet a short, razor-edged cold-chisel. The gleaming metal of the blade was stained crimson for half an inch above the beveled edge.

Wolf Rachau had obviously been down on the floor doing something with that tool kit. Vine cudgeled his brains, searched the room carefully, found nothing on which such an array of implements might be employed.

But on the bureau he found a leather letter-folder of continental make. He went through it. There were many letters of German script, postmarked from Berne and Zurich. And one newspaper clipping. It caught his eyes immediately.

He spread it out flat. Its fine type and light-faced heading spoke of Parisian journalism:

There was half a column of it under a Chamonix dateline.

Vine’s French was good enough to let him piece together most of it. When he had finished, his jaw set grimly. He searched Rachau’s pockets, found the key to 205. Then he went out and locked the door.

Down in the dining room an orchestra was playing: “The Man Who Comes Around.” From outside came the jingle of sleighbells fixed to tire chains, Vine stalked down to the lobby, went to the desk.

“Where can I get hold of the sheriff?”

“There’s a deputy right here in town, Larry Aker. It’s four-one-four, ring two. Want me to phone him?”

“Thanks, I’ll take care of it.” As he turned, Vine collided with a red-faced man in a tan polo coat, the shoulders of which were dusted with snow. It was Mike Prouty.

“Drove up, Mister Vine,” he explained, chuckling. “Couldn’t wait for that night train. After you’d gone, it struck me there was something I should’ve told you.”

“If it’s anything important,” Vine said, “come on over where nobody’s going to be listening to your broadcast.”

The detective wondered why Prouty hadn’t phoned if the message was so urgent, but he didn’t say so.

“Well, I don’t know...” Prouty shrugged out of his polo coat, slapped the snow off his hat. “It might be nothing at all. But when you were talking to me I guess I didn’t take in what you were saying about Corinth being a customs inspector.”

“One of the best,” Vine said shortly. “He wasn’t one of the dock watchers. They put him on the big jobs.”

One of Prouty’s eyebrows twitched nervously. He rubbed his hand alongside his forehead in irritation.

“Maybe I ought to have gone right down to the customs people, but you seemed to be pretty hot on this thing, so I took a chance. What I had to tell you was this — I went down to meet the troupe when they got off the boat a few days ago, and there was some trouble over the customs inspection.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“I don’t know exactly. Ilma came up to me practically in tears, said that the inspectors were throwing all her nice things all around.”

“Bunk!” said Vine. “The boys on the piers know how to handle women’s clothes better than women do. What happened?”

“They got it all straightened out, finally. It looked to me as if they were paying most attention to Jon Vezel’s baggage. Of course, he and Ilma had an extra trunk apiece because of their costumes. But as far as I could tell, they didn’t find anything that hadn’t been declared. It just occurred to me that possibly Corinth was still on the trail of something when he came to see the show at the Plaza.”

“He was on the trail of something all right.” Vine took out the clipping. “Read that.”