Alan Hynd - Authentic Cases From the Files of Alan Hynd

Once in a while, with a sad shake of his head, he invited the commissioner into the living quarters of the big stone house and broke open a bottle of Cognac. In time the two men apparently became friends.

Things might have gone on this way indefinitely if, one certain fatal night, the doctor hadn’t gone to Marseilles to enjoy a little of his usual entertainment. Decked out in his corduroy pants and turtleneck sweater, he had hardly settled down in the front row of a bare-bottomed show house when his eyes hit a girl who had just joined the chorus line.

He never even saw the others.

Hustling backstage after the show, the doctor snagged her as she was coming out of the dressing room. Her name was Andrea Audibert and she was a real looker. A brunette at least half a head taller than Bougrat, she was sinewy and lithe, and her wide gray eyes looked out over high cheekbones to promise a time that was a time. Bougrat trotted right along with her to her room near the theater.

Practically every night thereafter, Bougrat, who was obviously a man of considerable stamina, drove down to Marseilles and picked up Andrea. One night the doctor had a startling thought.

“Andrea,” he said, “I have fallen in love with you.” Andrea thought that statement over carefully. Then she told the doctor that she was in love with him, too.

Bougrat, having wearied of the wear and tear of the nightly round-trip between Aix and Marseilles, suggested to Andrea that she come and live in his big stone house. “You can pretend you are my housekeeper,” he said.

Andrea said that the suggestion, attractive as it was, wouldn’t be practical. Bougrat wanted to know why. Because, Andrea replied, she was in the employ of a pimp named Marius.

“I’ll see Marius,” the doctor said, “and have a talk with him.”

“I’m afraid it won’t do much good,” replied Andrea. “He’s a bad man.”

Marius was a real Apache, with a mean, chalky face leering above his black turtleneck sweater. He had quarters near the theater where Andrea worked. The doctor found him there and got right to the point.

“I want Andrea,” the doctor said.

“You already have her.”

“But I don’t want anybody else to have her.”

Marius looked slit-eyed at the doctor and let out a chilling laugh. That apparently ended the negotiations.

There seemed nothing else to do, so Bougrat and Andrea continued their liaison, unmindful of the gathering storm, until a new complication developed. Andrea had become so enamored of the doctor that she no longer put her heart in her work with other clients. The result was that the customers complained to Marius.

Fiery mad, the pimp accosted the doctor one night under a street light. Marius opened the meeting by slowly running his right forefinger across his throat. Then he started to snarl. The doctor, he said, had spoiled a good piece of merchandise, and he demanded reimbursement for the loss.

Bougrat, cheerfully admitting the facts, asked Marius how much he wanted for Andrea. Marius wanted 9,000 francs, equivalent to maybe $5000 at the time or $100,000 today. That was a sizeable sum, far more than Bougrat had. He tried to beat down the price. But the pimp stood firm.

“All right,” said Bougrat, “I’ll raise the money somehow.”

In the late afternoon of the next day, a Friday, Doctor Bougrat was sitting in his office wondering how he would meet the Apache’s terms, when Luck walked in. It planted itself before his desk in the form of a self-effacing little man with a pinched face, buck teeth and a glazed black suit. His name was Jacques Rumèbe, and he was the paymaster of the St. Henri steel pipe mills in Aix. He was also an old patient of Bougrat. The men had been great friends and companions in the army.

The relationship between the doctor and the paymaster had begun years before on the battlefields of Bulgaria, when Bougrat, a medical officer, had treated Private Rumèbe for syphilis. The affliction did not heal, and after the war it began to sap Rumèbe’s strength. The little paymaster feared that if he revealed the seriousness of his condition to his employers that they might replace him. So Rumèbe followed the habit of sneaking into the doctor’s office every Friday afternoon after work to get an injection that would keep him on his feet for another week. Not even Rumèbe’s wife knew he was receiving the treatments. And Bougrat had promised never to mention it to anyone.

Bougrat had come to take the visits of the paymaster for granted until this particular Friday, when Rumèbe had suddenly assumed a new importance. After giving the patient his injection, Bougrat invited him to sit down for a chat.

“Your employers must have great trust in you,” the doctor said, letting you carry all that money from the bank every Saturday.”

“Oh, yes,” said Rumèbe, “they have perfect faith in me.”

“How much money do you really handle? Is it so great an amount?” Bougrat asked.

“Sometimes more than 100,000 francs.”

The doctor gulped.

The following Friday afternoon, when the pipe mills were releasing their workmen for the day, Doctor Bougrat just happened to be passing the main gate in his little blue car. When he saw the paymaster coming out he hailed him.

“I’m glad I ran into you, Rumèbe,” said the doctor. “I won’t be able to take care of you today. But I can see you tomorrow.” Rumèbe, badly in need of the shot, asked eagerly what time. Since the doctor’s office was midway between the bank where Rumèbe picked up the payroll and the factory, Bougrat casually suggested that he drop in on his way back from the bank. The little paymaster couldn’t have been less suspicious.

That evening, according to testimony that was later heard in court, the doctor sat down and, disguising his handwriting, composed a letter to the St. Henri mills. The letter stated that the company’s paymaster was carrying on a secret love affair with a prostitute in Marseilles and should no longer be trusted with money. When the letter was written, the doctor stuck it in his pocket. He was not quite ready to mail it.

A little after 10 the next morning Rumèbe appeared at Bougrat’s office. “How are you feeling?” the doctor asked solicitously. “I need the treatment bad,” the paymaster said. “I don’t know what I’d do if you didn’t give me an injection every week.”

Bougrat smiled understandingly and glanced at the satchel the man was carrying. He prepared a hypodermic needle and told Rumèbe to roll up his sleeve.

“This will take care of you,” the doctor said gently, and rammed the needle in.

When, by noon, Rumèbe had not turned up at the St. Henri mills, the police were summoned. Within an hour the whole town knew the paymaster had disappeared with the payroll.

Doctor Bougrat did not budge from his house until nearly dusk, when he took the short walk to the post office. He had just reached the outside mail slot when the local gendarme came by on his beat. They exchanged greetings and the doctor asked what was new. The cop was surprised that the doctor hadn’t heard, Rumèbe the paymaster had disappeared with more than 100,000 francs of his employer’s money.

“Parbleu!” the doctor swore. “What a terrible thing to do.”

“Is he a patient of yours, Doctor?”

“No, I don’t recall ever having seen the man.”

“No matter,” the policeman said. “He will not get far. The Sûreté has an alert out, and every train, every bus, even every car around here is being watched.” The cop looked thoughtful. “One could almost wish he had a chance: it is a lot of money. Au revoir, monsieur.”

The gendarme walked away, and Doctor Bougrat looked after him pensively. He dropped the letter to the mill in the slot and returned home.