The Case of Naomi Clynes (17 page)

“Is that what you'd do with them? Why, in my country all the shrieking sisters would be out if we did that…”

“Yes,” interposed the irrepressible Jim Milsom, “and the Governor of the State would get the wind up and give them a respite, and they'd use it to do a bunk. Then they'd look around for a man with a bank-roll—my uncle for instance—and do another kidnapping racket.”

Mr. Hudson became immersed in thought as the air-liner crossed the Channel into France and droned over the dreary-looking country near the French coast. He was thinking over the problem of immigration into the United States, and what it meant to the oncoming generation: the flippancies of his nephew passed unheeded.

“It's these foreign dagos that make all the trouble,” he said at last. “Why, when they began recruiting for the army in the war, a bunch of men volunteered who couldn't speak a word of English among the lot. Why did they come to America? Why, because their own countries had got too hot to hold them. Among our gangsters you'll find Poles and Italians and Czechs and Russians and Irish, but you can count the born Americans on the fingers of one hand. And now we've let them in we can't get them out. I tell you we've turned God's own country into a cesspool for all the trash in Europe. How would you deal with that problem if you had it, Mr. Richardson?”

“I've never been in America, Mr. Hudson. I shouldn't like to say.”

“Yes, but I'm asking you. How would you first set about it if you had the same trouble in your country?”

“In England they don't let the trouble arise, because when an alien commits a crime he is deported to his own country as soon as he has served his sentence. And then justice is swift over here. A criminal is brought before a magistrate within twenty-four hours of his arrest, and if the evidence is incomplete, he is remanded for not longer than eight days: then he is committed for trial and has to appear before the Sessions or the Assizes, which are held within a month, and his case is then finally disposed of, either by sentence or acquittal.”

“So he can't hang things up by appealing from court to court as folks do in some of our states?”

“No, Mr. Hudson. He can appeal once to the Court of Criminal Appeal, but that's final, and it takes only two or three days.”

Mr. Hudson was plunged in thought. “I can't see,” he said at last, “how we could do that in our country. Who would you get to appoint the judges?”

“Couldn't the central government in Washington appoint them as it's done in England?”

Mr. Hudson turned his round eyes upon his companion in frank astonishment. “Shade of George Washington! Why, you'd find yourself up against the cry of ‘State Rights,' and at the next election you'd find yourself at the bottom of the count. What would our politicians do if they had no plums to give away to their friends? It wouldn't bear thinking of.”

“Well, then, couldn't the prisons be taken over by the Federal Government and all be run under the same rules?—never more than one man in a cell, and regular searching when the men come in from labour, and searching to the skin and cell-searching once a week. You would have no gangsters escaping by shooting their way out if that were properly done.”

“‘State Rights' again! You would have the Federal Government picking men for wardens who didn't belong to the State at all. No, sir, you'd be striking at the foundations of the American Constitution, and it would go mighty hard with you. You'll have to think up something better than that.”

They were nearing Le Bourget. Some of their fellow-passengers were on their feet, putting on their coats and hats, and stowing their passports in a handy pocket. Richardson noticed that most of them were Jews. Jim Milsom touched his arm from the seat behind.

“Do you know any of those guys by sight? They are spending the best part of their ill-spent lives in the air.”

“In the air?”

“Yes, and they clear sixteen thousand francs a day by doing it.”

“How?”

“Well, it's quite simple. You and I could do the same. The American Treasury is buying gold at thirty-five dollars an ounce, isn't it? Well, you fly over to Paris, go to the Bank of France and buy over the counter as much gold as you think you can carry, fly home with it and sell it to one of the shippers, and there you are! You've cleared sixteen thousand francs on the trip. Next day you repeat the trip. It's far more profitable than publishing thrillers. I could do very well with sixteen thousand francs a day, couldn't you?”

Richardson smiled. “I think that I prefer my own job. But what do these men do in ordinary times?”

“Oh, they scratch up a living as hangers-on at the Stock Exchange—running errands for outside brokers and so on. This is their harvest-time. Look, we're coming down.”

It was true. The giant plane was circling over the dreary field at Le Bourget, where they came to rest on the muddy ground. The party let the Jews struggle with the Customs officers before them and take their seats in the crowded omnibus, while they followed to Mr. Hudson's roomy car, which carried them swiftly through the hideous suburb that lay between the air-station and Paris. Mr. Hudson, who liked his creature comforts, directed his chauffeur to drive to the Crillon, the hotel which catered for Americans, and Richardson found himself lapped in a luxury of which he had never dreamed, and at which his simple tastes almost revolted. At dinner that evening he broached the subject of their immediate plans.

“I suppose that we'll start to-morrow for the place of the accident,” he began tentatively.

Mr. Hudson looked at him with boiled eyes and continued to munch. With him the dinner-rite was too serious a business to be desecrated by idle talk. “You British detective folks seem always to be in a hurry. You've never had a look round old Paris yet.”

“There's no time to lose, Mr. Hudson,” said Richardson stoutly. “I feel that every day will cost us a piece of valuable evidence. The railway men who were on the spot at the time of the accident may have been moved away to another part of the line.”

“He's quite right, Uncle Jim. We don't want to go chasing witnesses all over Europe. We must back our luck. All the sight-seeing can well be left until we are on our way back.”

“Have it your own way, then. I told my man to have the automobile around between nine and ten and he can take us wherever you want to go.”

“I see he's a new man, Uncle Jim.”

“Yeah; the last man got to sparring with my English butler, Potts, and as one of them had to go I kept Potts because he knows my ways. This man, Adolphe, speaks French and English both.”

Richardson had been wondering whether he dared broach the subject of an interpreter. This conversation greatly relieved his mind. “I suppose that you speak French fluently, Mr. Hudson?”

“What's that? I speak French? Not a damn word of the lingo. I thought that you folks at Scotland Yard did your talking in all the languages on earth.”

“I wish I did, Mr. Hudson. I can make out the sense of an article in a French newspaper, but that's all: I can't trust myself to speak it.”

“Well, Jim here will have to do the talking. He's a Canadian and so, of course, he knows French.”

Jim Milsom drew himself up proudly. “Of course I speak French, but the trouble is that my French is the lingo they talked in the time of Louis the Fifteenth, and these people over here don't know their own language. When I talk French to them they just wrinkle their brows and shrug their shoulders. But don't let that worry you. Adolphe's English pronunciation may not quite be described as one of the marvels of the age, but it will do for all we want. I vote that to-morrow morning Mr. Richardson goes down to the car when it comes round and puts Adolphe through his paces. If he gets through with only half marks it will save us having to get an interpreter. What do you say, Inspector?”

“I was thinking of going round to police head-quarters and asking them to lend us one of their men who speaks English, sir.”

“One of those guys who wears a brassard on his arm with ‘speaks English' embroidered on it? Never on your life! It would fly round that we'd got a Paris Bobby with us and every self-respecting Frenchman would shut up like an oyster.”

They parted for the night with their plans settled. They were to motor out to Lagny station, the scene of the accident on Christmas Eve, and question all the railway servants who had been among the eye-witnesses. Jim Milsom was inclined to think that their quest was a waste of time, unless, of course, it should produce some new piece of evidence against the Bryants, but Richardson pointed out that if a police inquiry was to be complete it must cover every possible point.

Richardson was waiting on the steps of the hotel when Mr. Hudson's car drove up next morning. He noticed that the vehicle was spick and span, and that Adolphe wore the detached and self-satisfied look of the chauffeur who takes pride in his car and does not spare the chamois leather. He greeted him in English:

“Your car looks well this morning,” he said.

“You think so, sare?” The man's face beamed with pleasure. “I am very glad. She is a fine car.” He spoke carefully, but quite intelligibly.

“Where did you learn English? You speak it very well.”

“I have been three years in England, sare. I was chauffeur to Mr. Singer. I suppose that I learn English from the other chauffeur. A very nice young feller. 'E give me lessons in the evenings.”

“We are going to Lagny this morning. I suppose you know the road?”

“Lagny. Ah, you mean Lagny.” He pulled from a little cupboard on the dashboard a plan of Paris and its suburbs and studied it. “Yes, sare; I find my way. Lagny is about twenty kilometres from the Gare de l'Est.”

“We shall want you to drive first to Lagny station.”

“Very good, sare.”

“We have to ask them some questions at the station, and we don't want to take an interpreter with us from Paris. Do you think that you could act as our interpreter?”

“Yes, sare, I think that I could.” It was clear from his demeanour that the proposal appealed to him.

“Well, then, the sooner we start the better. I will go in and call Mr. Hudson.”

Once clear of the traffic in the Paris streets the big Delage ate up the kilometres and came to a stop outside Lagny station. Jim Milsom led the way into the booking-office as if the place belonged to him and, finding his way on to the platform barred by an official who demanded his ticket, he turned to Richardson and asked him to call Adolphe.

Richardson found the car neatly parked a little beyond the entrance to the station; he beckoned and Adolphe jumped down. To him it was explained that they were held up by a ticket-collector, who would not let them pass to the station-master's office. Adolphe went swiftly to the barrier. They could not understand what he was saying, but the result of his intervention was startling. The Cerberus bared his head, threw open both halves of the door and directed them to the third door to the left. Adolphe had taken liberties with the truth in representing that the foreigners had come from their respective embassies to inquire about the sufferers from the accident and that a complaint of obstruction conveyed to the Minister of Transport in Paris might cost him his job. What Adolphe said in a low voice to the station-master—a stout little pink-faced official—was un-heard by the English-speaking party, but it was assumed to be flattering, if untruthful, since they were invited to sit down. A list of the victims of the accident? Yes, he had a copy of it. He himself had not witnessed the accident, but he had assumed control of the rescue work. Ah, it was terrible! He pulled out a list of many pages from a drawer.

“These gentlemen must understand that this list is not complete because it was impossible to identify some of the bodies.”

Adolphe interpreted. “Tell him,” said Richardson, “that we are interested in tracing what became of the foreign victims of the accident.”

“That should be easy, messieurs. There were but few foreigners on either of the trains.” He turned over the pages. “Ah! Here are two—a Monsieur Bryant and his wife—not seriously injured—removed to a clinic in the town.”

Jim Milsom became excited. “Ask him whether any of his men saw them after the accident and what clinic they went to.”

The station-master flicked over the pages with his thick fingers.” Here it is, messieurs! They were seen by the signalman, Jean Herbette, who took them to the only clinic in the town—that of Dr. Jules Colin in the rue de la République. Herbette is no longer on my staff.”

Richardson noted down the address of the clinic.

“Tell him,” he said to Adolphe, “that those are the people we are interested in.”

“Ah!” replied the station-master, “Dr. Colin could tell you more about them than I can. If it had been that other Englishman I could have told you much.”

“What other Englishman?”

“The English names are difficult for me to say, but I have the name here.” He ran his finger down the column and held up the book.

“Maze,” exclaimed Richardson; “ah, yes, he lost his nephew in the accident.”

“Quite right, monsieur, and the nephew was buried here. You would like me to tell you all I know about him no doubt, messieurs. He was left lying among the wreckage on the ballast for some time. When he came to himself he got up and spoke to one of my goods' porters, asking him where he could find the children. He said that he had lost his little nephew. I will send for the man if you would like to see him.”

“Please do so.”

The station-master used his desk telephone. “He will be here in a minute. You shall hear what he has to say from his own lips, and then I will tell you how the body of the nephew was identified.” They heard the tread of heavy boots approaching along the platform: knuckles rapped on the door.

“Ah, it is you, Albert,” grunted his chief. “These gentlemen have some questions to ask you about that foreigner you found on the line after the accident.”