Abigail Browining - Murder Most Merry

“I know there are thousands of little bars in Paris. But if we chose the more likely districts and put plenty of men on the job—”

Not only were all the men there roped in, but Saillard got through to the Police Judiciaire, where there were six men on duty, and set every one of them to work on six different telephone lines.

“Hallo! Is that the Bar des Amis? In the course of the day have you seen a middle-aged man accompanied by a boy of ten? The man’s wearing a black overcoat and a—”

Again Lecœur made little crosses, not in his notebook this time, but in the telephone directory. There were ten pages of bars, some of them with the weirdest names.

A plan of Paris was spread out on a table all ready and it was in a little alley of ill-repute behind the Place Clichy that the Inspector was able to make the first mark in red chalk.

“Yes, there was a man of that description here about twelve o’clock. He drank three glasses of Calvados and ordered a glass of white wine for the boy. The boy didn’t want to drink at first, but he did in the end and he wolfed a couple of eggs.”

By the way Olivier Lecœur’s face lit up, you might have thought he heard his boy’s voice.

“You don’t know which way they went?”

“Towards the Boulevard des Batignolles, I think. The man looked as though he’d already had one or two before he came in.”

“Hallo! Zanzi-Bar? Have you at any time seen a—”

It became a refrain. As soon as one man had finished, the same words, or practically the same, were repeated by his neighbor.

Rue Damrémont. Montmartre again, only farther out this time. One-thirty. Loubet had broken a glass, his movements by this time being somewhat clumsy. The boy got up and made off in the direction of the lavatory, but when the man followed, he thought better of it and went back to his seat.

“Yes. The boy did look a bit frightened. As for the man, he was laughing and smirking as though he was enjoying a huge joke.”

“Do you hear that, Olivier? Bib was still there at one-forty.”

Andre Lecœur dared not say what was in his mind. The struggle was nearing its climax. Now that Loubet had really started drinking if was just a question of time. The only thing was: would the boy wait long enough?

It was all very well for Madame Loubet to say the gun wasn’t loaded. The butt of an automatic was quite hard enough to crack a boy’s skull.

His eyes wandered to his brother, and he had a vision of what Olivier might well have come to if his asthma hadn’t prevented him drinking.

“Hallo! Yes. Where? Boulevard Ney?”

They had reached the outskirts of Paris. The ex-Sergeant seemed still to have his wits about him. Little by little, in easy stages, he was leading the boy to one of those outlying districts where there were still empty building sites and desolate spaces.

Three police cars were promptly switched to that neighborhood, as well as every available agent cycliste within reach. Even Janvier dashed off, taking the Inspector’s little car, and it was all they could do to prevent Olivier from running after him.

“I tell you, you’d much better stay here. He may easily go off on a false trail, and then you won’t know anything.”

Nobody had time for making coffee. The men of the second day shift had not thoroughly warmed to the case. Everyone was strung up.

“Hallo! Yes. Orient Bar. What is it?”

It was Andre Lecœur who took the call. With the receiver to his ear, he rose to his feet, making queer signs that brought the whole room to a hush.

“What? Don’t speak so close to the mouthpiece.”

In the silence, the others could hear a high-pitched voice.

“It’s for the police! Tell the police I’ve got him! The killer! Hallo? What? Is that Uncle Andre?”

The voice was lowered a tone to say shakily: “I tell you, I’ll shoot, Uncle Andre.”

Lecœur hardly knew to whom he handed the receiver. He dashed out of the room and up the stairs, almost breaking down the door of the room.

“Quick, all cars to the Orient Bar, Porte Clignancourt.”

And without waiting to hear the message go out, he dashed back as fast as he’d come. At the door he stopped dead, struck by the calm that had suddenly descended on the room.

It was Saillard who held the receiver into which, in the thickest of Parisian dialects, a voice was saying:

“It’s all right. Don’t worry. I gave the chap a crack on the head with a bottle. Laid him out properly. God knows what he wanted to do to the kid. What’s that? You want to speak to him? Here, little one, come here. And give me your popgun. I don’t like those toys. Why, it isn’t loaded.”

Another voice. “Is that Uncle Andre?”

The Inspector looked round, and it was not to Andre but to Olivier that he handed the receiver.

“Uncle Andre. I got him.”

“Bib! It’s me.”

“What are you doing there, Dad?”

“Nothing. Waiting to hear from you. It’s been—”

“You can’t think how bucked I am. Wait a moment, here’s the police. They’re just arriving.”

Confused sounds. Voices, the shuffling of feet, the clink of glasses. Olivier Lecœur listened, standing there awkwardly, gazing at the wall-map which he did not see, his thoughts far away at the northern extremity of Paris, in a windswept boulevard.

“They’re taking me with them.”

Another voice. “Is that you, Chief? Janvier here.”

One might have thought it was Olivier Lecœur who had been knocked on the head with a bottle by the way he held the receiver out, staring blankly in front of him.

“He’s out, right out, Chief. They’re lugging him away now. When the boy heard the telephone ringing, he decided it was his chance. He grabbed Loubet’s gun from his pocket and made a dash for the phone. The proprietor here’s a pretty tough nut. If it hadn’t been for—”

A little lamp lit up in the plan of Paris.

“Hallo! Your car’s gone out?”

“Someone’s smashed the glass of the pillar telephone in the Place Clignancourt. Says there’s a row going on in a bar. I’ll ring up again when we know what’s going on.”

It wouldn’t be necessary.

Nor was it necessary for Andre Lecœur to put a cross in his notebook under Miscellaneous.

—translated by Geoffrey Sainsbury

MURDER UNDER THE MISTLETOE – Margery Allingham

Murder under the mistletoe—and the man who must have done it couldn’t have done it. That’s my Christmas and I don’t feel merry thank you very much all the same.” Superintendent Stanislaus Oates favored his old friend Mr. Albert Campion with a pained smile and sat down in the chair indicated.

It was the afternoon of Christmas Day and Mr. Campion, only a trifle more owlish than usual behind his horn rims, had been fetched down from the children’s party which he was attending at his brother-in-law’s house in Knightsbridge to meet the Superintendent, who had moved heaven and earth to find him.

“What do you want?” Mr. Campion inquired facetiously. “A little armchair miracle?”

“I don’t care if you do it swinging from a trapeze. I just want a reasonable explanation.” Oates was rattled. His dyspeptic face with the perpetually sad expression was slightly flushed and not with festivity. He plunged into his story.

“About eleven last night a crook called Sampson was found shot dead in the back of a car in a garage under a small drinking club in Alcatraz Mews—the club is named The Humdinger. A large bunch of mistletoe which had been lying on the front seat ready to be driven home had been placed on top of the body partially hiding it—which was why it hadn’t been found before. The gun, fitted with a silencer, but wiped of prints, was found under the front seat. The dead man was recognized at once by the owner of the car who is also the owner of the club. He was the owner’s current boyfriend. She is quite a well-known West End character called ‘Girlski.‘ What did you say?”