copper's cruise 4

 

Chapter 4 The two metre man

 

 

The Blue Train departed the Gard du Nord on time at twenty minutes to midnight.

“We have adjacent sleeping compartments,” said Alexander.  “I’m sharing with Campbell, and you two ladies have a truckle for Gladys, which will be cramped, but I thought you would prefer to all be together.”

“Indeed, yes, Mr. Armitage, I’d be nervous on my own, and we don’t want either of those young girls left alone,” agreed Alma Barrett.

Ida smiled. She considered herself quite capable alone, but it would be unfair to the amiable Alma, who had little French, and was nervous of foreigners.

The journey was smooth, and Alexander slept well, waking in good time to shave and dress in lighter weight garb, for the difference in temperature, as they came into Lyon.

He hustled the women to the dining car to get breakfast out of the way before those embarking came looking for food.

“When do we reach Marseilles?” asked Ida.

“About half two,” said Alexander. “You may want to enjoy the scenery as it passes, to sketch; it is very different to what we are used to.”

They were finishing a leisurely breakfast, which catered to English tastes as well as providing croissants and coffee for the French taste, and some of those who had embarked at Lyon were coming in search of refreshment. The train had started to pick up speed, but suddenly it slowed, and came to a halt.

“This is not good,” said Alexander.

The train was flooded with gendarmes, who went to each man in the dining car and made them stand up.

They got to Alex.

“Monsieur, I must ask you to stand,” said the gendarme.

“If you will assist me by giving me your arm,” said Alexander.

“I am not permitted to do that,” said the gendarme.

“Then you will be disappointed,” said Alexander, who could stand on his own, but since he was clearly in a wheelchair, did not see why he should.

“Then you must consider yourself under arrest, monsieur.”

“For being injured? I think that I have to plead guilty to that, but I had not heard that it was on the statute books of the Code Napoleon; and my embassy will hear about it,” said Alexander.

A more senior agent des police came over.

“What is the problem, Joubert?”

“This man refuses to rise, sir....”

“Not true,” said Alexander. “I agreed to rise if he would assist me. I am not supposed to stand without assistance on the orders of the doctor I last saw.”

“Assist him,” snapped the senior man. “Can you not see he is in a wheelchair?”

“It might be a cunning way to disguise his height,” said Joubert, stubbornly.

“Or I might have had infantile paralysis and be entirely unable to stand,” said Alexander. “You can’t go around threatening to arrest people who are crippled just because they cannot stand, my lad, it’s not reasonable. I can stand, with aid. But I might not have been able to do so.”

Joubert’s neck and ears were a dull red. Stiffly, he offered an arm, and Alexander took it.

“You’re supposed to do more than be a handle, you know,” said Alexander. “Oh, for goodness sake! Campbell! Get me up for this fool.”

Campbell came from his own seat, to assist.

“Now I am up are you going to tell me what this is all about?” asked Alexander, icily, addressing the more senior man. “I will be reporting Joubert, so perhaps you will let me have your name so I might say that your own attitude was exemplary.”

“Yes, sir. I am Henri Fouquet, and we are searching for a man some two meters tall, with an ugly mole on his face, and red hair, who is a jewel robber, who pistol-whipped a jeweller, who has now died.  He hit four jewellery stores and vanished.”

“An ugly business,” said Alexander. “It seems a very obvious type to be looking for; though, of course, a wig  might be worn, and a false mole applied.”

“Indeed, sir; but such height could not be disguised easily.”

“No, it could not, it is one thing the criminal has difficulty with,” said Alexander. “I’ve seen men  disguise their weight, but only using relative weight to disguise their height, as a fat man who is not abnormally tall is often written off as a little fat guy.”

“And what do you know of criminals, monsieur?” asked Fouquet, suddenly suspicious.

“Well, if you were looking at my papers at all, you would see that I am a detective, on sick leave,” said Alexander.

Fouquet glanced at his papers, flushing.

“I beg your pardon,” he said. “You are the gentleman M. Maigret suggested asking to keep your eye out. He is in charge of this case, and should be in Marseilles tomorrow.”

“I will look out for him,” said Alexander.  “Also, your outsize villain.  Anything on his build?”

“No, sir, though one witness said he was a bit like a daddy-long-legs,  but it transpired that she had read a novel of that name where a central character is not met in person but casts a shadow which gives the impression of long legs to be so addressed.”

“The American epistolary novel, by Jean Webster,” said Alexander. “I read it in the trenches; it was an uplifting sort of piece of nonsense.  But if it called the novel to mind, that does not mean it should be dismissed out of hand, something made your witness think of it.”

“Well, I will put it in my report, then,” said Fouquet.

“Good man. Every little bit of knowledge helps,” said Alexander.

 

They resumed their journey without any arrest being made, though a few people looked on their party askance for having spent longer than most speaking with the police.

“You wait; the French police may not have enough on you to arrest you right now, but they’ll get you,” said one English traveller, a big, full-moustached man with small eyes.

Alexander laughed.

“Sore because they checked out your height?” he asked. “I’d put you at six-foot-four, slightly below the nearly eighty inches they are looking for.”

“What? Is that why they measured me?  What do you know about it? You’re a crook, you must be, or they wouldn’t have spent so much time talking to you.”

“Oh? How amusing of you,” said Alexander, who did not believe in wasting his time convincing those of his countrymen who were uninterested in facts having already made up their minds.

 

Marseilles was hot and bright, and Ida reached for the hat she had bought for the purpose, and had, laughingly, said she could not imagine using.

Alexander studied the posters whilst they awaited a taxicab, noting posters advertising their own cruise to Egypt, and up the Nile, and one for an expected Cirque du Monde, due in today, on a train which left Lyons just after the Blue Train, and was a dedicated circus train.  He boarded the taxi, thinking hard, and when they reached their hotel asked to put through a call to Paris.

“What number are you trying to reach?” asked the operator.

“Capitaine de Police, Jules Maigret, Quai d’Orsay,” said Alexander. “It is his English colleague.”

It took a few minutes to be connected.

“Ah, my friend, as well that you identified yourself, I was going to deny all calls,” said Maigret.

“Your colleague, Fouquet, said you were coming,” said Alexander. “I was planning to visit the circus.  Because of stilts.”

“Nom d’un nom!” said Maigret. “It is an idea of the greatest brilliance; we can meet when my train gets in, and you shall tell me what you have seen.”

“Assuredly,” said Alexander.

 

 

“We’re going to see the circus,” said Alexander. “At least, I am; anyone else who wants to come is welcome.”

“I’ll come,” said Ida.

“I’d as soon stay in, if you young folks don’t mine; I’m no lover of the circus,” said Alma.

“No, me neither, but I’m looking for a clown,” said Alexander.

“What, a two meter clown, whose face nobody ever sees?” asked Ida.

“I was thinking more of a three meter clown, whose face is heavily made up, and who is obviously on stilts,” said Alexander.

“Oooh, I see,” said Ida. “Are you allowed to arrest him?”

“No, but I thought if we went to watch them setting up, because the lady artist wants to sketch the circus folk, we might have something for Maigret when he gets in tomorrow. I believe he’s coming on the early mail train. No soft berths for him, poor fellow!”

“Poor M. Maigret. I will do what I can to capture his thief, who sounds nasty,” said Ida.

She collected her sketch books, pastels, and watercolours.

 

 

The setting up of the circus was an exciting business, and Ida was truly entranced with sketching. She took some photographs, but was keen to get down colours, using pastels for speed. 

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” a clown in facepaint lowered over Ida.

“Back off, neighbour,” said Alexander. “The lady is interested in drawing the circus.”

“My face is my fortune, it’s registered, I’m not letting anyone steal it,” growled the clown, pulling a knife.

Campbell took a step closer and put him down. His French was as good as anyone’s and he knew body language even better.

“Nobody wants to steal your dishcloth of a face; go cook an egg!” he said, in what was actually a better class accent than his English ever managed. Alexander winced, the two expressions were offensive.

But then, Campbell had the clown at a disadvantage.

“I would write your stage name on to your face if you wished, so that it was more famous,” said Ida, mildly, having followed only some of the contretemps.

“So? I am Beppo,” scowled the clown.

“It goes to prove that they really are surly in real life,” said Ida, in English, to Alexander.  They wandered the fairground setting up for the circus performance, and, seeing the clown, Beppo, still keeping an eye on them, Alexander paid for the use of the rifle at the duck-shoot stall, and downed ten ducks to win Ida a big teddy bear.

Ida squealed in delight.

It was time to go into the big top, and Alexander provided them all with ice creams, as it was hot and stuffy.

He hated seeing big cats subjected by the whip of the lion-tamer; but the horse riding was delightful, and the horses seemed happy enough. He was impressed by the high wire, and trapeze acts, and then Beppo was trying to walk the high wire on stilts when it had been partly lowered, making it a slack wire. He wobbled all the way along, and descended to much applause. Then he danced on the ground on stilts, and clowned generally.  Alexander murmured to Campbell, who made a sharp exit.

“Where has he gone?” asked Ida.

“A quick search of Beppo’s  tent,” said Alexander into her ear.

One could not rule out Beppo being able to lip-read, and on him keeping an eye on them in suspicion.

Beppo was popular, and his act continued whilst the elephants were brought in. Campbell slid back into his seat as the clown left.

“Short stilt-boots, an’ a bunch o’ sparklers, boss,” he said, quietly. “An’ a red wig, an’ several prepared moles.”

“Good work,” said Alexander. “You were careful?”

“Like I was squirin’ the vicar’s teen-aged daughter,” said Campbell. “If ’e knows I’ve been in ’is stuff, I’ll eat ’is blue clown wig.”

 

     oOoOo

 

Alma was a light sleeper, and woke up when the hotel window opened. She screamed.

Ida shot up into a sitting position, and hurled the glass of water at her side at the figure who occluded the window.

It shattered and there was a yelp of pain.

And then a louder howl of pain since the faithful Gladys, sleeping on a low truckle bed, had seized Ida’s parasol and thrust it into a tender portion of the intruder’s anatomy.

He fled.

Ida put the bedside lamp on.

“Gladys! Alma! Has he hurt either of you?”

“No, my dear, I was just frightened,” said Alma.

“And I was angry,” said Gladys. “And I am glad I stabbed him in the wherewithal, as he has dropped a knife.”

“Don’t touch it,” said Ida, absently. “We need to wrap it in a clean hanky and put it in a bag for M. Maigret... Oh, Campbell, please tell Alex that our intruder ran away but left a knife.”

“That’s the self-same knife he had at the fairground,” said Campbell, in gloomy satisfaction. “Gladys, my girl, are you all right?”

“I am, but he ain’t,” said Gladys.

“That’s my girl,” said Campbell.

 

oOoOo

 

It was Fouquet who turned up for Ida to swear out a complaint; there were complaints about the screams in the night, and Alexander felt he had to explain what had happened. The Hotel manager called in the police over an intruder, and Alexander sighed, but was glad at least that it had been Fouquet who, recognising his name, had come to see what was going on.

“We were going to hand over the evidence to Maigret, as it was your jewel thief who broke in,” said Alexander.

“How do you know? You should not withhold evidence,” said Fouquet.

“Don’t spoil your good sense up to now by deciding to rush in without waiting for Maigret,” said Alexander. “He asked us to check out the circus to see if there was a clown act on stilts. And I might have asked my man to have a bit of a look about the tent of the stilt-walking clown; but we’re just eyes for Maigret, and nothing to do with the case. If you work with him, you’ll get the lustre of a job well done. If you barge in using the breaking and entering as an excuse, you are trying to chase two rabbits, and we know what happens when you chase two rabbits.”

“You lose both,” said Fouquet, crestfallen.

“If Campbell had not recognised the fellow’s knife, you would have no link,” said Alexander. “I think he broke in opportunistically to check what Ida was drawing, and if we had any papers, but he would have found nothing. However, he frightened our family friend, and I have no doubt he would have used that knife if the women had not frightened him off. It is immaterial next to the jewel thefts, however.  But if you want to make sure he does not pull out and leave town, have a discreet watch put on Beppo the clown to see he does not run out on the circus.”

“Thank you, I will do so.” 

 

 

Maigret’s train rolled in about midday, a stiff and sore police captain in it, and met with both Fouquet and Alexander; and he listened.

The arrest was effected after the evening performance, which Ida and Alexander did not attend, and prepared to leave on the cruiser. It was Maigret’s affair, and Alexander wanted to keep well out of   it! 

 

a three-parter up next!