The Stone Leopard (28 page)

Outside in the foyer Lucie took the chain from the detective without a word and left the building. The salon owner had been amused when she arrived with a leopard cub. 'How chic,' he had remarked to his
directrice
. 'We should have one of the models parading with that animal. . . .' Getting into her car, parking the leopard cub on the front seat beside her, Lucie drove back to the Place des Vosges. On the following day she returned the animal to the shop, which accepted it back at a much-reduced price.

So often a woman takes a decision on feminine instinct; so often she is right. Lucie Devaud was now certain Guy Florian was the Leopard. She had seen a certain expression in his eyes before he recovered, a sudden wariness and alarm as he stared back at her—as though when he saw the look in her own eyes he had understood. 'Who the hell are you? You have found me out. . . .' She knew there was no way she could be traced: she had paid for the leopard cub in cash and had applied for the salon ticket in a false name. It was while she was driving back to her apartment that she decided she would kill Guy Florian. The following morning the letter from Gaston Martin arrived.

Martin replied to her letter with an equally guarded communication. He said that he was interested in her theory and told her that he was returning soon by ship from Guiana. Could they meet when he arrived in Paris? Lucie Devaud wrote back immediately, suggesting that they met at a small Left Bank hotel called Cecile in the rue de Bac. Presumably she was not too keen on inviting an ex-convict to her luxurious apartment in the Place des Vosges—or possibly she was still displaying the secretiveness which was so much a part of her life.

On the night before Wednesday, 8 December, she wrote out a complete account of her activities and sealed the report in a package which also contained the two sketches of the Leopard produced more than thirty years before by her grandmother, Annette Devaud. Across the package she wrote in her own hand,
To be delivered to the police prefect of Path in the event of my death
. In the morning she delivered the package to her lawyer, Max Rosenthal, with strict instructions that it must remain unopened. Reading in the paper about Florian's nightly walk from the Elysee to the Place Beauvau she had decided not to wait for Gaston Martin—even though the Frenchman was on the eve of arriving back in France. On Wednesday evening, waiting outside the fur shop in the Faubourg St Honore, she produced her 9-mm Bayard pistol. But it was Marc Grelle who fired two shots.

The letter Lucie Devaud had written and deposited with her lawyer, Max Rosenthal, was not delivered to the police prefect of Paris. An extravagant man, who spent vast sums on gambling, Rosenthal was not prepared to gamble his career. When he heard of his client's attempt to kill the president he became frightened that delivery of the package might involve him. Lucie had always come to see him and given only verbal instructions; no written correspondence had passed between them; and she had paid his bills in cash—which he had not declared to the tax man. Confident that there was no discoverable link between them, he locked the package away inside a deed-box where it stayed until a year later when he died unexpectedly.

One of Lucie Devaud's more benevolent actions before she died as a would-be assassin was to persuade her blind grandmother to see an eye specialist. Perhaps medical technique had advanced in the intervening thirty years, or maybe the trauma which had induced the affliction had run its course. Annette Devaud was operated on during September—three months before Guy Florian was due to fly to Russia—and recovered her sight completely. She went straight back to Woodcutter's Farm from the hospital and started reading and drawing avidly, resuming her old solitary way of life but now blessed with the return of her sight. When she was told about the death of her grand-daughter by the man who brought her supplies she flatly refused to accept the circumstances surrounding Lucie's death. 'It's all a ghastly mistake,' she said firmly. 'They must have mistaken her for someone else.' This was the old woman the Soviet Commando was now on its way to kill.

CHAPTER TWO

IGNORING THE DOWNPOUR, Vanek drove at high speed along the deserted road from Strasbourg to Saverne. Beside him Lansky sat in silence as he chewed at the sandwiches they had bought at Strasbourg airport and drank from a bottle of red wine. Once he pointed out to Vanek that he was exceeding the speed limit. 'Get on with your lunch,' the Czech told him. `We have only one final visit to make before we start back for home. And there is a limit to how long time is on our side. With a bit of luck it will turn out that the Devaud woman died years ago,' he added.

Imperceptibly—because he decided that Lansky was right, Vanek reduced speed, but Lansky, who was watching the speedometer needle, observed what was happening and smiled to himself as he finished the sandwich. To some extent Brunner had acted as a buffer between the two egotists, and Lansky, who was intelligent, decided not to make any more provocative comments. They still had a job to do.

have to check on the address of Devaud as soon as we can,' Vanek remarked, overtaking a vegetable truck in a shower of spray. `So keep a lookout for a hotel or a bar. If she's still alive and living in the same place the locals are bound to know. In provincial France you can't pee behind a wall without the whole village watching. . .'

`This time,' Lansky suggested, 'we needn't be too fussy about arranging accidents. Just do the job and run, I say, now we haven't got that old woman, Brunner, round our necks any more. . .

`I'll decide that when the moment comes,' Vanek snapped.

Across the plain there had been no sign of habitation for miles. They were coming close to Saverne when Vanek, peering through the rain-soaked windscreen, saw the sign. Auberge des Vosges and petrol five hundred metres ahead. He reduced speed. `This place should have a phone book,' he said, 'and we're in the right area now.' Turning off the highway, he pulled in close to a battery of petrol pumps. 'Top her up,' he told the attendant, 'while we go inside and have a drink. . . Vanek believed that you never could tell what emergency might lie ahead of you, that it always paid to keep a full tank. As they got out of the Renault a mechanic inside the garage was wiping the windscreen of a Mercedes 350 he had been working on.

Lennox checked his watch and walked out of the bar of the Auberge des Vosges on his way to the wash-room. Two hours exactly. The mechanic had just informed him his car was ready and Lennox had paid the bill. Earlier he had checked Annette Devaud in Bottin and there had been no entry, but the barman had been more helpful.

`Funny old girl. Must be over seventy now if she's a day. She still lives at Woodcutter's Farm, all on her own. The locals don't see her from one year to another—except the chap who delivers her supplies. Remarkable woman, Annette Devaud. You know she was blind for getting on thirty years ?'

`I haven't met her yet,' Lennox said carefully.

`Remarkable woman,' the barman repeated. 'Happened just at the end of the war—she went blind, just like that. Some disease or other, I don't know what. Then a few months ago a specialist takes a look at her and says he can do something.' The barman gave a glass an extra polish. 'A miracle happens. He operates and she can see again. Think of that—blind for over thirty years and then you see the world all over again like new. Tragedy that—about her grand-daughter, Lucie. You know who she was ?'

`No.'

`Girl who tried to bump off Florian the other week. Must have been a nut—like that chap who shot Kennedy in Dallas.' The barman leaned forward confidentially. 'I live only two kilometres from the old girl and the few of us who knew who Lucie was kept our mouths shut. Even the police didn't catch on—the girl only came here a few times. I'm only telling you seeing as you're going to visit her—might give her a shock if you said the wrong thing. . .'

Lennox was thinking about it as he went into the wash-room and took his time about freshening up—the previous night in Freiburg he had enjoyed only two hours' sleep. It could only happen in a provincial French hamlet—a conspiracy of silence to protect a local and much-respected Frenchwoman. Over the basin a large mirror faced the door and he was drying himself off when the door opened. Lowering his towel he stared into the mirror and the man standing in the doorway stared back at him.

For a matter of seconds their eyes met, then the man in the mirror glanced round the wash-room as though looking for someone and went out again.

Drying himself quickly, Lennox put on his jacket and coat, then opened the door slowly. For a few seconds in the rue de l'Epine at the entrance to Leon Jouvel's building in Strasbourg he'd had a good look at the face of the man with the umbrella he had cannoned against, knocking his pebble glasses down on to the cobbles. He was still not absolutely sure—the man in Strasbourg had seemed older—but not with the light from the street lamp full on his face he reminded himself. The passage outside the wash-room was empty. He walked down it and glanced inside the bar.

The man who had come into the wash-room had his back turned, but his face was visible in the bar mirror. He was talking to another man, tall, dark-haired and clean-shaven, a man of about thirty. The tall man, who was idly turning an empty glass in his hand, looked over his companion's shoulder and stared straight at Lennox and then away. Lennox was even more sure now. There had been three men in the Soviet Commando's car at Freiburg. The man called Bonnard was dead, which left two of them. And at the back of the war diary they had taken off Dieter Wohl had been the address of Annette Devaud.

At this moment Lennox cursed himself for accepting Peter Lanz's theory that by now the remnants of the Commando would, be fleeing back to Russia. It had been a reasonable theory at the time—because the third witness on Lasalle's list had just been killed, so why should the Commando linger? Lennox walked back into the hotel out of sight of the bar as though leaving by the front entrance, then he ran up a wide staircase which turned twice before reaching the upper landing. He waited at the top where he could see through a window to the road beyond.

The barman had disappeared behind a curtain when Lansky returned to the bar where Vanek was leaning against the counter. Picking up his drink, Lansky swallowed it as Vanek played with the glass in his hand. 'That Frenchman I saw coming out of No. 49—Jouvel's place—the chap I bumped into, is in the wash-room here,' he said in a quiet voice. 'That's no coincidence. . .'

`Are you sure ? Describe him,' Vanek said casually.

Lansky described Lennox in a few words. 'I'm quite sure,' he said. `I'm trained to remember things like that—in case you've forgotten. We looked at each other in the mirror for a few seconds and we both knew each other. I could have dealt with him—the place was empty—but that would have sparked off the police and we don't want that at the moment, do we?'

`No, we don't. Incidentally, he's looking in at the bar now, so don't turn round. . . .' The situation didn't surprise Vanek; sooner or later something was bound to go wrong—it had in Freiburg—up to a point. It was just a question of deciding how to handle it. 'He's gone now,' Vanek said. 'I think we'll get away from here, too.'

As they walked out of the front door a Peugeot 504 with a single man behind the wheel was moving off to Saverne after filling up with petrol. The rain obscured the silhouette of the driver. 'That's probably him,' Vanek said. From the first-floor window Lennox watched them drive off in the direction of Saverne. Going downstairs he went back into the bar where the barman was polishing more glasses. Ordering another cognac, Lennox made the remark as casually as he could.

`Those two men who came in here after me—I thought I recognized one of them. Or are they locals ?'

`Never seen them before—and don't want to see them a second time. I gathered from the tall one they're something to do with market research. They pick names of people and go ask them damned silly questions. I think they're on their way to see Annette Devaud. . .'

`Really ?'

`Something to do with a campaign to increase pensions,' the barman explained. 'Was her husband alive they wanted to know. How could they find Woodcutter's Farm? I just told them—I didn't draw them a map like I did for you.' The barman grinned sourly. 'And I didn't tell them Annette will chase them off her property with a shotgun as good as spit. . .'

Lennox finished his drink quickly and went out to where the Mercedes was waiting for him. If anything, it was raining even more heavily, and as he drove away from the hotel he saw in the distance thick rain-mist enveloping the Vosges mountains. There had been mist at Freiburg when the Commando killed Dieter Wohl and now there was mist over the Vosges. The association of ideas worried him as he pressed his foot down and drove well beyond the limit in his attempt to overtake the Renault.

Carel Vanek was a fast driver but Alan Lennox was a more ruthless driver. Risking patrol-cars—and the appalling weather —moving at over a hundred and ten kilometres an hour, the Englishman came up behind the Czech just beyond Saverne where the highway climbs into the mountains. For a moment there was a brief spell of shafted sunlight breaking through the clouds, illuminating the peaks of the Vosges, the shiny road ahead, and less than three hundred metres away Lennox saw the Renault arcing round a bend, sending up spurts of water from under its fast-moving wheels. Then it began to rain again, slanting rain which slashed down like a water curtain.