copper's cruise 12

 

 

Chapter 12 six foot by three in Carthage part 3

 

The journey out to the ruins did not take long, and Ida was excited to be taking photographs and making notes, in the hopes of using the experience as an assignment when she began her degree.  Alexander sat on a large block of stone which looked to be the base of some door frame, and watched her enjoying herself. Major-General Mainwaring had spoken to him after breakfast, and told him that the wheelchair had been discovered and would be with him by the time they returned.   Alexander was relieved. He could walk but it made him very tired still.

There was a yell of horror from one of the Arab workers, who fled.

Alexander knew it was none of his business, but he moved towards the excitement anyway.

Tony stood there, looking rather white.

“What is it, old man?” asked Alexander.

“It’s Madam Zeleika,” said Tony. “She’s dead and she’s been buried in the ancient cemetery.  One of my lazier men decided his digging spot would be on softer-looking soil, not where he was told.”

“Well, that proves a Bolshevist plot,” said Alexander.

“Eh?” said Tony.

“A plot six foot by four in Carthage,” said Alexander.

“I don’t know how you can be so flippant about it,” said Tony. “Were all you chaps who were in the war hardened or something?”

“Or something,” said Alexander. “You learn to be flippant so as not to fall apart. It helps in the force as well. Two months ago I was digging up a man who had been composted after having been tortured by as nasty a pair of delinquents as I have ever met.  That’s why I’m wounded; they were torturing me. And thanks to my men, I lived to tell the tale. You surely come across situations which are less than pleasant, albeit with the cushion of time?”

“It’s easier when they are skeletons,” said Tony. “What can we do?”

“The police will want to examine the body in situ,” he said. “Get an awning up over it, and if you have a field telephone, get on it to call the police.”

“Can’t you….”

“It’s not my baggage, you know,” said Alexander. “But I’ll have a look.”

 

It was not a pretty sight.

Zeleika had been strangled with one of her own scarves; the ligatures had bitten deep into the neck, and the face was blackened, tongue protruding.

“I’d say that there was little doubt but that she died of asphyxiation caused by ligature strangulation,” said Alexander.

 

The French policeman who arrived was faintly familiar.

“Ah! It is M. Armitage, who is a friend of M. Maigret!” cried the policeman, swooping on Alexander and kissing him on each cheek.  “What fortune for me to work with you again; my advance is assured!  Now, tell me, I beg, what you know, and I shall sit at the feet of the master, and take notes.”

“Why, it is Guillaume Hebert, is it not?” asked Alexander, who could not for the life of him recall the name of the junior policeman who had been one of those with Maigret, but who could read the man’s name on his notebook.”

“Oh, Monsieur! To think that you remember me!” said Hebert. “I am overwhelmed!”

“I could see you were an assiduous fellow, who would go far,” said Alexander, mendaciously.

“Alas, so far, I have been sent to the colonies for annoying a tourist of the importance sufficient to have me shifted. I questioned his credentials.”

“If you saw something wrong, my lad, you were correct to do so,” said Alexander.

“Monsieur, I still think there was something fishy about him,” said Hebert. “He was buying much perfume from Algiers, and he was too perfect in his permits and so on; Monsieur knows what I mean?”

“I know exactly what you mean, Hebert,” said Alexander. “And I suspect he was buying perfume which is but a drop on top of oil of opium. I sent word to M. Maigret, and that the préfet de police there was in on it.”

“Mon Dieu! That is a bad business. I hope someone will remember that I said he was too perfect.”

“I will most certainly write to Maigret about it!”  said Alexander. “And I am sure you will distinguish yourself here, also.”

“I will do my best,” averred Hebert. “What can you tell me? Do we know who she was?  It seems plain that death was by strangulation by the scarf still in the neck, which has cut it, and it has bled into the silk and turned it hard.”

“You have good eyes,” said Alexander. “I confess to having been a trifle less than objective; I knew her, slightly. Which is to say, I had met her once, and in some ways I am responsible for her death.”

“Now, then, sir, that isn’t an admission to make,” said Hebert.

“Oh, it is very incidental, and though I feel some guilt, I cannot find myself too weighed down; our murderer did not have to kill her. But I exposed her as a fraud, and as one who gained intelligence from the English bright young things of the Embassy staff and other Tunisian expatriots, which I bawled them out over, for being naïve children who were mesmerised by her exotic so-called gifts, into speaking of more than they should about their parental whereabouts, disposition of siblings in the armed services, and so on. And I have to say that I have a suspect.”

“Indeed? And who is that?”

“One Alexei Fedorovitch Smirnov, who is supposedly a tsarist sympathiser living in exile. He was there when my fiancée and I uncovered the woman’s blatant falseness, and surprised her speaking Russian, which is a language I know, at least a form of it spoken in the Ukraine.”

“And it could not be anyone else?”

“Discounting the passengers from the cruise I am on, whose involvement would be wildly coincidental, as well as unlikely, I have only the bright young things invited by Mr. Anthony Mainwaring who might be considered,” said Alexander. “Now, I grant you, that one of them might have been seized with Bolshevik fervour; I believe that there are theoretical Bolshevik leanings at Oxford university, but I do not know them well enough to say whether there is any likelihood of it. Tony was, I am certain, shaken by the discovery of her perfidy. Of course, he could be shaken by her making such a fool of herself, but he went straight to his father to confess what a fool he had been, and I know Major-General Mainwaring used to be in Intelligence, and I cannot see him not recognising treachery in his own son.”

“No, indeed,” Hebert agreed. “But the application of the theory of what they call ‘Communism’ is something which might attract an idealistic young person, and draw them in before they realise its pitfalls. You will have a better chance of finding out if any of them have gone astray, whilst I have this Smirnov watched.”

“You are right, and I believe I know how to do it,” said Alexander.

 

 

Alexander was relieved to have his wheelchair back, when they arrived at the Mainwaring residence.

“Thank you!” he said. “I appreciate it.”

“Can’t have these damned Frogs going around stealing wheelchairs,” said Mainwaring. “You look sober.”

“The fortune teller was murdered,” said Alexander. “One is inclined to suspect Alexei Smirnov, for being less Tsarist than he gives out, but equally, it’s impossible to rule out one of the young people being taken by Bolshevism at university, where, unfortunately, it is seen, academically, as something fine.”

“Something wrong with the faculty, then,” grunted Mainwaring.

“Yes; an excess of academe and an insufficiency of knowledge of the real world,” said Alexander. “‘To each, according to his need, from each, according to his ability’ sounds very fine in theory, until such time as you apply it to human beings, many of whom are lazy, feckless, greedy, and acquisitive.  I believe some academics back in the early 1800s tried the idea in which everyone did two hours community service every day, and devote the rest to higher thought. It didn’t work then, either.”

“I don’t want some French policeman irritating all the Ambassadorial staff,” said Mainwaring.

“The French police have left it in my hands, and we are going to do it like this,” said Alexander, and explained. “But first, I need Tony to be frank about his friends.”

 

Tony sat back, and sighed.

“Stanley and Betty aren’t cut out to be academics, and have no idea of politics,” he said.  “Vilma has no higher thought than fashion.” He considered. “Are you seriously considering any of the women?”

“A woman could strangle using a ligature; if it were manual strangulation, I’d pretty much rule them out, but it takes very little strength to strangle with a scarf.”

“I was thinking of the fortitude… I suppose it depends on the woman.”

“It does,” said Alexander.

Tony sighed.

“Mabel.  If she had a cause she believed in, I think she has the strength of mind to see it through. She’s very fond of animals, and I saw her lose her rag over an Arab beating a donkey, and she grabbed his stick and beat him until he ran away. She adopted the donkey. Nasty creature it is too; it bites,” he added.

“Probably dislikes men,” said Alexander. “Donkeys are not stupid.”

“Well, I wouldn’t discount that,” said Tony. “Mabel has a host of rescued animals. Daphne? She’d balk at anything ugly. Edna flaps. Aphrodite… no, honestly, can you see Aphrodite putting herself out?”

“From what I saw of her? No,” said Alexander. “Though, like Vilma’s stupidity, it could be feigned.”

“It isn’t; I’ve known them all for years,” said Tony.  “Stanley, a stolid sort. I think he sees Bolshevism as a kind of disease. I said it wouldn’t be him. Edgar? No, his father was badly hurt in that car crash, and Eddy idolises his father. He’s more likely to have strangled her for being a Bolshevik agent and fooling us…,” he tailed off. “Oh. Well, that, I suppose has to be considered. I don’t want it to be Eddy.”

“Better to consider who it might be, and the reasons.  Killing a Bolshevik agent in rage for revenge is something that can be covered up inside the diplomatic immunity. I… she was not a harmless woman, but one who could cause great harm. He has motive. But at least a better one than silencing an agent who made a mistake.”

“Right. Eddy does have a temper. We were at school together,” said Tony.  “Next; Ambrose. A clever man, Ambrose; he’s a little older than some of us, he’s an equerry.  Not high level clearance, but I suppose he might feel she was jeopardising his position.  Billy? Out of the question. Billy faints at the sight of blood, and can’t handle anything gruesome. Blumfontein?  Military family. Named for a battle. A chip off the old block, and the old block is solid granite especially between the ears, need I say more?”

“Again, could be to kill an enemy,” said Alexander.

Tony shook his head.

“He’d report it; he wouldn’t take it onto himself to act, not without orders.”

Alexander nodded.

“I know the type.”

“So, that just leaves Percy; Percy is off to Oxford in the autumn. He’s been taking some tutoring with Ambrose, because Ambrose is a top rate classics scholar. He wrote a prize-winning essay on Plato’s ‘Republic.’”

“That’s interesting,” said Alexander. “In defence of Plato, or in opposition?”

“For,” said Tony. “Oh.”

“I’ll keep digging,” said Alexander.

“What is Plato’s ‘Republic’ about, Alex?” asked Ida.

“It’s almost an antithesis of the Greek ideal of individuality,” said Alexander. “It’s an exposition of a near ant-like devotion of the subjects to the common weal, where everyone has his place and works to the greater good of the whole. It’s communism run to extremes.”

“I see,” said Ida. “I missed all the… excitement.”

“I didn’t think you needed any further upset,” said Alexander. “It wasn’t pretty. You came here to see Carthage, and you have seen Carthage. There was nothing you could have done for her.”

“She was an evil woman, worming her way into people’s good graces and using their weaknesses; a lot like Gloria. Or so I thought, last night. I am not going to weep for her, and yes, I am glad not to have seen her dead. Why was she taken out to Carthage?”

“I suppose whoever killed her hoped she would rot down quickly and be assumed to be some random Carthaginian body,” said Alexander. “Of course, if she had been divested of the extra veils and dropped near the port, she’d have been logged as one more prostitute killed in a dispute over money, probably by some sailor, unsolvable, filed in the round file. Or, at least, placed in a file not expected to be solved.”