Colin Forbes - The Stone leopard

As the train pulled in to Colmar, Lennox folded up his newspaper and forgot about the scare story. After all, it had nothing to do with the job he was working on, and by now his whole attention was fixed on his coming interview with Robert Philip.

By eight o'clock on Saturday night, 18 December, every defence minister in western Europe and north America had received a copy of the Soviet signal, including Alain Blanc, who paid it rather more attention than Alan Lennox. Within only five days the president was due to fly to Soviet Russia and Blanc was not at all happy about the signal. On Sunday morning he had a brief interview with Guy Florian, who took a quite different view.

`Certainly they would never dream of precipitating a world crisis on the eve of my departure for Moscow,' he told Blanc. `They are much too anxious to cement relations with us as the major west European power…'

Alain Blanc left the Elysee unconvinced and even more disturbed than before he had arrived.

Why had Florian suddenly become so complacent about the intentions of Soviet Russia?

Arriving at Colmar, Lennox purchased a street-guide at the station kiosk and found that the Avenue Raymond Poincare was only a few metres away from where he stood. When he started walking down the avenue he received an unpleasant shock: two patrol-cars -with uniformed policemen standing beside them were parked outside a square-looking two-storey villa. He felt quite sure this would be No. 8 even before he drew level with the villa on the opposite side of the street and continued walking. Yes, it was No. 8. It was a repeat of the same scene he had witnessed outside No. 49 rue de l'Epine only the day before.

Fifteen minutes later-having walked in a circle to avoid re-passing the police stationed outside the villa-he walked into the bar of the Hotel Bristol opposite the station.

`What are all those police cars doing in the Avenue Raymond Poincare?' he asked casually as he sipped his cognac.

The barman was only too eager to pass on information; in a small town like Colmar the grapevine is reliable and swift. A local bigwig, Robert Philip, had died in his bath the previous evening, he confided. The tragedy had been discovered when his cleaning woman had arrived to find the front door still bolted and chained. 'She had a key,' the barman explained, `so Philip always undid the bolts and chain first thing and then she could let herself in. The police found him floating in his bath. He won't be running after skirt any more, that one…'

Lennox ordered another drink but the barman had little more information. Except that the police had been to the hotel asking a lot of questions about two men who had stayed there for two nights.

`They had a Citroen,' the barman went on, 'according to the night porter. I didn't see them myself-I don't think they ever came in here. Personally, I can't see the connection…'

As Lennox walked out of the bar two uniformed policemen came in, which decided him to leave Colmar as rapidly as possible; there was a fifty-fifty chance the talkative barman might relay to them his recent conversation with the stranger who had just left. Crossing the place to the station, he bought a one-way ticket to Lyon and then boarded a train for Strasbourg which had just come in. When the ticket collector came through the train he used the return to Strasbourg he already had in his possession. Of the three wartime survivors who were once familiar with the Leopard there was now only one left: Dieter Wohl of Freiburg.

Unlike Inspector Rochat of Strasbourg, Inspector Dorre of Colmar was only forty and he took nothing for granted. Saturnine-faced, impatient, a fast-talking man, he phoned Boisseau two hours after the death of Robert Philip had been discovered, explaining that there had been no surveillance on Philip after the Frenchman had returned home apart from observation by a routine patrol-car. 'We are very short of men,' he went on, 'so I was unable to obtain personnel for a proper surveillance, which is regrettable…'

At the other end of the line Boisseau guessed that someone higher up had been unhelpful-because they had resented Paris's intrusion into their backyard. This time he had neither the necessity nor even the opportunity to ask probing questions: Dorre went on talking like a machine gun.

`According to the medical examiner and my own observation there is no doubt at all that Robert Philip died by accident when he slipped and caught the back of his skull on the edge of his bath. He was alone in the house at the time and there are no signs of forcible entry or anything which would indicate foul play-although there had been a woman in the house, but probably only for a few hours. Philip was like that…'

There was a brief pause, then the voice started up again. `Pardon, but I have a cold and had to blow my nose. So, technically, it is an accidental death. For myself; I do not believe it for a moment. I have heard that another man you also requested to be put under surveillance-a Leon Jouvel hanged himself in Strasbourg less than forty-eight hours ago. I have also heard-I was in Strasbourg yesterday-that my colleagues are satisfied that Jouvel committed suicide. For me, it is too much. M. Boisseau-two men you ask to have put under surveillance both die in their homes by suicide, by accident in less than two days. I tell you, there has to be something wrong.. .'

`Is there anything specific..' Boisseau began, but he got no further.

`Pardon, Mr Director-General, but I have not finished. A woman who knows-knew-Robert Philip well, drove past his villa yesterday morning and saw a blue Citroen parked opposite his villa. Two men were trying to repair the car, but she thought they were watching Philip's villa. She reported it to me when she saw the patrol-cars outside this morning, assuming there had been yet another burglary…

`Any registration number?' Boisseau managed to interject.

`Unfortunately, no, but I have not finished,' Dorre continued. 'It occurred to me to check with all the local hotels and we find that two men arrived at the hotel nearest the station at 9.30 on Saturday night. The hotel, incidentally, is no more than a few metres away from the villa of the late Robert Philip. They arrived in a blue Citroen and we have the registration number. It is being circulated at this moment. Also, the descriptions of the two men. There may be no connection but I do not like this death at all, despite its technical perfection…'

`If it were not an accident then,' Boisseau hazarded, 'it would have to be the work of highly-skilled professionals?'

`They would have to be trained assassins,' Dorre said bluntly, `because if I am right-and I do not say I am-then presumably Leon Jouvel's death was also arranged, and again there was technical perfection. You must not think I am a romantic,' he insisted, 'trying to turn every event into a crime, but I repeat, two men under surveillance dying so quickly does not smell of roses to me, sir. And,' he went on, once again preventing Boisseau from speaking, 'the geography is interesting, is it not?'

`The geography?'

`It is not so very far to drive from Strasbourg to Colmar. I will let you know as soon as we get information on the car registration of the Citroen…'

Vanek, driving at speed, but always keeping just inside the legal limit, reached the Boulevard de Nancy in Strasbourg by nine in the morning, one hour before Inspector Dorre had circulated the car registration number. Handing back the Citroen to the Hertz agent, he walked out again and went into the restaurant where he had dropped Brunner and Lansky while he got rid of the vehicle.

`We've used that car quite long enough,' he told the two men, 'and two visits is more than enough by the same mode of transport.'

Refusing to allow them to finish their drinks, he took them outside where they again separated. With Brunner he took a cab to Strasbourg station, leaving Lansky to follow in a second vehicle. They joined forces again at the station but they each bought their tickets separately. Boarding the train by himself while the other two men went into a different coach, Lansky put his bag on the rack and lit a cigarette. Within fifteen minutes the train had crossed the Rhine bridge and was stopping in Kehl.