Copper's Cruise 2

 

Chapter 2 A little freelance forgery

 

“Excuse me, one moment, Monsieur, you appear to have quite a large number of ten franc notes,” said the customs officer.

“It’s a convenient size of currency; easy enough for most establishments to break but not as fiddly as small amounts,” said Alexander.

“You will have to excuse me whilst I call someone to have it examined,” said the customs officer. “Perhaps you will come and wait in my office.”

“Are you actually accusing Child’s bank, the oldest bank in England, of uttering false currency?” asked Alexander, disbelievingly. “And accusing a member of Scotland Yard of distributing it?”

“I have my orders,” said the customs officer. “Please order your servant to bring you with me.”

“I’m his fiancée,” said Ida, haughtily. “I hope your office can accommodate us all.”

It was not really suitable. Ida disposed herself on the desk to permit Alma the chair belonging to the customs officer, Gladys hitched herself up onto a filing cabinet, with a boost from Campbell, who took possession of the small, hard chair for those being interviewed, but sat backwards, and astride on it. Alexander wheeled himself behind the desk and started going through the drawers whilst they were left kicking their heels.

A more senior customs officer came into the room to find himself confronted as if for an interview, and was well aware that he was not about to browbeat some disabled Englishman who had been held on suspicion, but was in the presence of Major Alexander Armitage, DSO with bar, MC, mentioned in dispatches, Inspector of Police, Scotland Yard, and not to be messed about.  And his staff.

“Tell me,” said Alexander, in flawless French, “How long you have believed yourself to be Napoleon to cause trouble to innocent travellers, whose spending money is still wrapped in pristine and unsealed wrappers of a most respectable bank?”

“My apologies for my over-zealous underling, Major Armitage,” said the official. “I, Hébert Duschamps, apologise without reservation, my underling does not understand what is meant by ‘Scotland Yard,’ and he also wishes for me to express his apologies. You must understand that we have been troubled by forgeries and there is reason to suppose that the forgeries have also been wrapped in the bands apparently of another most respectable bank. They, too, are forgeries. A swift telephone call to Child’s bank has, of course, cleared up any misunderstanding, and I trust you will be able to be on your way without further ado. Please! I beg you, take your leave.”

“It just won’t do, you know,” said Alexander. “We have missed our connection on le tren bleu. I am travelling to convalesce, after being wounded in the line of duty, with my fiancée, who is delicate, and my immediate superior’s wife as her companion, who has been unwell. And yet, your underling, who seems to keep more pornography in his desk than paperwork, has seen fit to subject two delicate women to the rigors of bureaucratic bumblings, mewing us up in this poky office stinking of Gauloises cigarette smoke and garlic to the detriment of the health of all of us, and you tell us we may go after we have missed our connection. What do you expect us to do? Kick our heels in the station all night? Take an inferior train to the Club Train to Paris? Go looking for a hotel when we are already exhausted by the fumblings of your inferior which are akin to those of a fifteen year old boy watching the coquette next door through a peep hole?”

Alexander knew the trick of bullying French bureaucracy, having learned this during the war, and it was a matter of some fifteen minutes before his party was installed, on the French Government, in the Hôtel Meurice, with an ensuite for every room and an air of age-old gentility.  Since it dated back to the eighteenth century, purely to cater to English tourists, this was hardly surprising.

Their bookings on the Blue Train had been moved seamlessly to the morrow, and the sister-establishment to the Hôtel Meurice, Calais, the Hôtel Meurice, Paris, apprised of their delay in arrival.

“I wonder if I should have offered to help?” said Alexander.

“No,” said Ida. “You’re on leave. It’s their problem.”

Alexander would have let it go at that, had not he decided to go to the hotel bar for a small nightcap.

“You must be new to this,” said a dark, floridly handsome young man. “I see they let you go, though. How did you pull off that one?”

“A packet of genuine notes,” said Alexander.

“Well, maybe you aren’t as green as you’re cabbage looking,” said the florid one. “Sid’s my name. The forged bank wrapper thing is all blown open, and the buggers are on the lookout for it.”

“I see,” said Alexander. “How do you get over it?”

“I’m a salesman travelling in ladies’ corsets; rolled up tight in place of the boning,” said Sid. “Minnie carries patchwork, and it’s inside of the patches, and George, well, looking lugubrious suits him bein’ a vicar, and a hole in the middle of his Bible, as well as a few in his dog-collar. Nice idea, the wheelchair, a new twist. I heard one of us managed a few times with a false plaster-cast, but there’s only so many times you can pull that one.  I must say, Nobby’s good at picking couriers. Though why he sent you at the same time as sending me, I don’t know; it’ll be harder to shift the loot.”

“I’m heading for Marseille,” said Alexander.

“Oh, that will explain it,” said Sid.

Alexander managed to lose Sid, by the expedient of plying him with brandy above Sid’s usual grade of tipple, and left the courier of forged currency propped up on the bar, singing tunelessly to himself.

Alexander demanded the use of the manager’s telephone, and put in a call to Barrett at home.

“What is it?” Barrett was concerned.

“I fell in with some utterers of forged currency,” said Alexander.

Barrett groaned.

“Of course you did,” he said. “Well, what have you to tell me?”

“Someone called Nobby is the boss, and three of his employees who distribute the stuff are Sid, who is one Sidney Albright, according to the register, who is here at this moment, Minnie, who does very expensive patchwork, a reverend gentleman named George, with a hollowed-out Bible and space in his dog-collar. There are others.”

“Well, I’m damned,” said Barrett.

“Not unless you assault the wrong clergyman,” said Alexander. “Apparently he looks like an undertaker who has lost a body and found a patch of mould.”

“Oh! Prating George,” said Barrett. “George Wilder. I can pull him in. Minnie Brett is his sweetheart. They hang out with the Dorsett brothers... Monty and Mike. Well, well, moved into forgery; I wonder who his artist is.”

“Not a difficult note to forge, but they still need someone capable,” agreed Alexander. “Well, I’ll get onto my friendly customs officer this end, and see if this can’t be quietly wound up.”

A few enquiries found Alexander able to reach the senior customs man who had arranged all this.

“Well, M. Duschamps, this is Alexander Armitage,” he said. “How clever of you to arrange to place me near to a suspect, knowing that I would be unable to keep my nose out of your forgery problem. You’re right, Sid Albright has a heap of currency rolled small in the pockets for boning in the ladies’ corsetry he is carrying, and my superior is about to raid the forgers in London. It worked brilliantly, making him think I was another courier, he spilled everything to me. You’ll send an agent de police to effect an arrest... no, no, mon vieux, don’t bother to mention my part, I really am on holiday for my health... bon chance!”

Alexander went to bed, hoping that the matter would not come to the ears of Ida.

He was to be foiled in that desire when Hébert Duschamps kissed him heartily on both cheeks when seeing them off at the station.

“Ah, my cabbage!  You have cracked open this terrible case,” cried Duschamps. “I owe you a debt of gratitude! And to cover my blushes also by saying that I sent you to that hôtel to contact the crook... it is your generosity, which Hébert Duschamps will not forget! I have the wire from your Superintendant Barrett that they have picked up all those involved! Superbe!”

Alexander endured the effusive thanks, and managed to escape.

“Alexander Simon Caleb Frederick Armitage!” scolded Ida.

“Anyone would think I encouraged chummy to assume I was part of his gang,” said Alexander, plaintively. “I couldn’t ignore it now, could I?”

“You, sir, have the bad habit of being found by trouble,” said Ida, sternly.

“And it has exhausted me,” said Alexander, in a fading voice.

“Oh, my poor dear,” said Ida, who was ninety percent certain he was faking, but was unable to resist her lover’s apparent need for love, not vituperation.

Alexander permitted her to fuss around him.

A bit of good will in Calais never hurt either, with characters like Harry Shearer on the horizon.