Inspector French's Greatest Case (8 page)

Colonel FitzGeorge was a tall, white-haired man, with an erect carriage and excessively courteous manners. He bowed as French entered, and indicated a deep leather-lined arm-chair drawn up opposite his own before the blazing fire of pine logs.

“A chilly evening, Inspector,” he said pleasantly. “Won't you sit down?”

French thanked him, and after apologising for the hour of his call, went on:

“My visit, sir, is in connection with certain bank notes which I am trying to trace. Some time ago there was a robbery in the City in which a number of Bank of England notes were stolen. The owner fortunately was able to find out their numbers from his bank. When the matter was reported to us, we naturally asked the banks generally to keep a lookout for them. Nothing was heard of them until to-day, but this afternoon, just before closing time, two of them were paid into the Reading Branch of the City of London Bank. The teller, though not certain, believed that you had paid them in. You can see, therefore, the object of my call. It is to ask you if you can possibly help me to trace the thief by telling me where you received the notes. There were two, both for ten pounds, and the numbers were A/V 173258 W and N/L 386427 P.”

Colonel FitzGeorge looked interested.

“I certainly called at the bank this afternoon and lodged some money,” he answered. “It was mostly in the form of dividend warrants, but there were a few notes. Now where did I get those? I should be able to tell you off-hand, but I'm not at all sure that I can. Let me think, please.”

For some moments silence reigned in the luxuriously-furnished room. French, always suspicious, surreptitiously watched his new acquaintance, but he had to admit that he could discern none of the customary signs of guilt. But he reminded himself that you never knew, and determined that unless he was completely satisfied by the coming reply, he would make an investigation into Colonel FitzGeorge's movements on the night of the murder.

“I
believe
,” said the Colonel suddenly, “I know where I got those notes. I am not by any means certain, but I think I can tell you. Unless I am very much mistaken, it was from the manager of the Hotel Beau-Sejour in Chamonix.”

“Chamonix?” French repeated in surprise. This was by no means what he had expected to hear.

“Yes. I have been for the last six weeks in Switzerland and Savoy, and two days ago, on last Tuesday afternoon, to be exact, I left Chamonix. I caught the night train from Geneva, was in Paris next morning, and reached Charing Cross yesterday, Wednesday, afternoon. To-day I went through my correspondence, and after lunch took in my dividends and some spare cash to lodge in the bank.”

“And the two ten-pound notes, sir?”

“The two ten-pound notes, as I say, I believe I received at the Chamonix hotel. I found I had to return home sooner than I had intended, and as I was leaving the country I wanted to change back all but a small amount of my foreign money. It was convenient to do it at the hotel, and besides, you can't always be sure of getting enough change at Calais or on the boat. I asked the manager of the Beau-Sejour to give me English money for my francs, and he did so at once.”

“Why do you think these particular notes were handed over by him?”

“He paid me in ten-pound notes only. He gave me five of them—I changed fifty pounds' worth of francs altogether. It is true that I had some other English notes, and there were some at home here, but so far as I can remember, there were no tens among them—only fives and Treasury notes.”

With this, French had to be content. Though he asked many other questions he could learn nothing further to help him. But on the pretext that the notes might have been received at some other place, he obtained a note of the Colonel's itinerary while abroad. According to this, it appeared that on the night of Charles Gething's murder, the traveller had slept in the Bellevue Hotel at Kandersteg, prior to walking over the Gemmi Pass on the following day. This French noted as a point capable of being checked, should checking become desirable.

He had kept his taxi, and after a little trouble he found the address of the teller of the City of London Bank, and paid him a late call. But from him he learnt nothing new, except that the man seemed much more certain that Colonel FitzGeorge had really handed in the notes than the letter of his manager had led French to believe. He admitted that he was relying on memory alone, but said he had checked over his money just before the Colonel's visit, and he was positive the stolen notes were not then there.

Inspector French was in a distinctly pessimistic frame of mind as he sat in the corner of a smoking compartment of the last train from Reading to town, and next morning as he put the facts he had learnt before his chief, he was but slightly more sanguine. Two of the stolen notes had been discovered; that was really all that could be stated with certainty. That Colonel FitzGeorge had paid them into the bank was by no means sure, still less that he really had received them from a hotel manager in Chamonix. But even assuming the Colonel's recollection was accurate, it did not greatly help. It was unlikely that the manager could state from whom he in his turn had received those particular notes. Indeed, even were he able to do so, and by some miracle were French able to trace the giver, in all probability the latter also would turn out to be innocent, and the goal would be no nearer. The whole episode seemed to French, as he expressed it to his chief, a wash-out.

But the great man took a different view. He replied in the same words which French himself had used in another connection.

“You never know,” he declared. “You miss this chance and you're down and out, so far as I can see. But if you go over and see the manager you don't know what you mayn't light on. If the thief stayed in that hotel, he must have registered. You might get something from that. Mind you, I agree that it's a thin chance, but a thin chance is better than none.”

“Then you think, sir, I ought to go to Chamonix?”

“Yes. It won't cost a great deal, and you may get something. Have you ever been there?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, you'll enjoy it. I'd give a good deal to take your place.”

“Oh, I shall enjoy it right enough, sir. But I'm not hopeful of the result.”

The chief gave a dry but kindly smile.

“French, you're not usually such a confounded pessimist. Get along, and hope for the best.”

French had looked up the positions of Chamonix and Kandersteg on the previous evening, and he had seen that by taking a comparatively slight detour it would be possible for him to visit the latter place on his way to the former. He decided, therefore, that he might as well set his mind at rest on the question of Colonel FitzGeorge's whereabouts on the night of the murder. He did not suspect the man, but it would be better to be sure.

But to do this, some further information was necessary. He must, if possible, obtain a photograph of the Colonel and a sample of his signature. It was not yet ten o'clock, and he thought it would be possible to get these and catch the afternoon train for the Continent.

By half-past eleven he was back in Reading. There he handed a taxi-man a note which he had written during the journey, telling him to take it to Colonel FitzGeorge's, and to bring the answer back to him at the station. The note, he admitted to himself, was clumsy, but it was the best he could think of at the moment. In it he regretted troubling his new acquaintance so soon again, but he had most stupidly lost the memorandum he had taken of the name of the hotel in Chamonix at which the stolen notes were obtained, and would Colonel FitzGeorge be so kind as to let him have it again.

The note despatched, he turned to the second portion of his business. With his usual detailed observation, he had seen on the chimneypiece of the Colonel's library a photograph of the gentleman himself, and noted that it was the work of Messrs. Gale & Hardwood, of Reading. An inquiry from the taxi-driver had given him the address of the studio, and he now set off there in the hope of obtaining a copy.

In this he was unexpectedly successful. Messrs. Gale & Hardwood had a print in one of their showcases, which in five minutes was transferred to the Inspector's pocket, and he was back at the station before his taxi-man turned up with the reply to his note.

In this also his luck was in. The man had found Colonel FitzGeorge just about to start for Reading. He handed French back his own note, across which was written in a firm, masculine hand: “Beau-Sejour. B. L. FitzGeorge.”

Stowing the photograph and the note away in his pocket-book, French returned to town, and the same afternoon at 2.00 he left Victoria on his second trip to the Continent. He had been to France and Germany on a previous occasion, but never to Switzerland, and he was looking forward to getting a glimpse of some of the wonderful mountain scenery of that country.

He disembarked at Calais, passed through the customs, and took his seat in the Lötschberg-Simplon express with true British disapproval of all that he saw. But later the excellent dinner served while the train ran through the pleasant country between Abbeville and Amiens brought him to a more acquiescent mood, and over a good cigar and a cup of such coffee as he had seldom before tasted, he complacently watched day fade into night. About half-past six o'clock next morning he followed the example of his countless British predecessors, and climbed down on the long platform at Bale to drink his morning coffee. Then again on through scenery of growing interest, past Bern to Spiez, where he found the Lake of Thun really had the incredible colouring he had so often scoffed at, but secretly admired, in the Swiss posters he had seen in London. Finally, after crawling round the loops on the side of the Frütigen valley, the train stopped at Kandersteg, and bag in hand he descended to the platform. A porter with the name “Bellevue” on his cap caught his eye, and a short drive brought him to the hotel.

After déjeuner he sought the manager, a suave functionary whose English accent was a trifle suggestive of New York. No, it was not the matter of his room. French regretted that on that occasion he could not remain overnight in the hotel—he hoped he would soon be free to return and to do so—but for the moment he was on business. He would take the manager into his confidence. He was a detective … in short, could the manager help him? That was the gentleman's photograph.

“But, of course! Yes,” the manager answered promptly on glancing at the portrait. “It is the Colonel FitzGeorge, the English gentleman from London. He was here, let me see, two—three weeks ago. I will look up the register.”

Further inquiries elicited the information that the Colonel had stayed for three nights at the hotel, and had left early on the day after the murder with the intention of walking to Leukerbad over the Gemmi Pass.

His business at Kandersteg completed, French conscientiously looked up the next train to Chamonix. But he found he could not get through that day, and being tired from his journey, he decided to remain where he was until the next morning. He spent the afternoon lost in admiration of the charming valley, and that night slept to the murmur of a mountain stream which flowed beneath his window.

Next morning he took the southbound train, and having passed through the nine miles of the Lötschberg tunnel, he gazed with veritable awe into the dreary waste of the Loetschenthal and the great gulf of the Rhone Valley, marvelling as the train raced along the side of the stupendous cliff. He changed at Brigue, passed down the Rhone Valley, and changing again at Martigny, spent another four hours on what a fellow traveller with a nasal drawl described as “the most elegant ride he'd struck,” through Vallorcine and Argentiere to Chamonix. On crossing the divide, the panorama which suddenly burst on his view of the vast mass of the Mont Blanc massif hanging in the sky above the valley, literally took away his breath, and he swore that his next holidays would certainly be spent in the overwhelming scenery of these tremendous mountains.

At Chamonix history tended to repeat itself. He reached his hotel, dined excellently, and then sought the manager. M. Marcel, like his
confrère
in Kandersteg, was courtesy personified, and listened carefully to French's statement. But when he realised the nature of the problem he was called upon to solve, he could but shake his head and shrug his shoulders.

“Alas, monsieur,” he wailed, “but with the best will in the world, how can I? I change so many English notes. … I recall giving those ten-pound notes to a gentleman from England, because it is comparatively seldom that I am asked to change French money into English, but I am constantly receiving English notes. No, I am sorry, but I could not tell you where those came from.”

Though French had scarcely hoped for any other reply, he was nevertheless disappointed. He showed Colonel FitzGeorge's photograph to the manager, who instantly recognised it as that of the Englishman for whom he had exchanged the notes. But he could give no further help.

This clue having petered out, French determined to call for the register and make a search therein in the hope of recognising the handwriting of some entry. But before he did so he asked about Vanderkemp. Had any one of that name been a recent visitor?

The manager could not recall the name, but he had a thorough search made of the records. This also drew blank. French then handed him the photograph of Vanderkemp which he had obtained in Amsterdam, asking if he had ever seen the original.

With that the luck turned. M. Marcel beamed. “But yes, monsieur,” he exclaimed, with a succession of nods, “your friend was here for several days. He left about a fortnight ago. M. Harrison from one of your great Midland towns, is it not? He told me which, but I have forgotten.”

“That's the man,” cried French heartily, delighted beyond words at this new development. “I have been following him round. Might I see his entry in the register?”

Again the records were brought into requisition, and as he looked French felt wholly triumphant. On comparing the “J. Harrison, Huddersfield, England,” to which the manager pointed, with the samples of Vanderkemp's handwriting which he had obtained from Mr. Schoofs, he saw that unquestionably they were written by the same hand. So Vanderkemp was his man! After this there could be no further doubt of his guilt.