Page 26

THIRTEEN

‘ Y es. I do remember the gentleman of whom you speak. He was an elderly man who wore a panama hat and sunglasses. I never saw him without them, even when he was inside the building. He booked a room for two nights: Thursday and Friday, the second and third of this month. There is not very much more I can tell you about him. He arrived with a small suitcase, which he insisted on carrying himself, and paid in advance with cash. He was a man of few words. He used a walking stick.’

The speaker was an anxious-looking man with hollow cheeks and a moustache. He had introduced himself as Louis Baptiste and he was the owner of the H?tel Lafayette as well as its manager, receptionist, barman and occasional chef. His wife and daughter were partners in the enterprise and they had another three employees who helped with the cleaning, the kitchen, security and general maintenance.

Pünd, Voltaire and Fraser were standing in the hotel’s reception area, which consisted of a curved marble-topped counter with, behind it, fourteen wooden pigeonholes. To one side, the smallest lift Fraser had ever seen stood waiting, although if a family of four with luggage had decided to check in, the only way they would have been able to go up might have been one at a time.

‘Did you ask him for his identity card?’ Voltaire asked.

‘He had already paid,’ Baptiste replied. ‘There was no need.’

‘Did he enter his name into your visitors’ book?’

‘We ask every guest to register with us. I have it here.’

There was a black ledger in front of him and the hotel manager opened it at the correct page. Pünd and Voltaire leaned forward and immediately saw the name – JOHN FORD – written in capital letters and in the same turquoise ink they recognised from the pharmacy. There was a phone number but no address.

‘John Ford …’ Voltaire muttered.

‘That’s the name of an American film director,’ Fraser said. ‘He made Rio Grande with John Wayne. I thought it was rather good.’

‘It is also the shortest possible name he could choose,’ Voltaire added. ‘He’s written in capitals to disguise his handwriting, but we might still be able to compare it with some of the work written by Monsieur Waysmith. You see the way the crossbar in the letter H slopes down …’

‘And what of the phone number?’

‘It’s a local number and I’ll have it checked. But it is certain to be false.’

They seemed to have come to another impasse, but Pünd was not dispirited. Between them, the book of matches and the turquoise ink proved that someone from the Chateau Belmar had been here, even if they could not be completely sure that it was Elmer Waysmith. He turned to Louis Baptiste. ‘How often did you see Mr Ford?’ he asked.

‘Only when he checked in on the Thursday evening. And once again on Friday.’

‘When was that?’

‘It was midmorning, sometime after twelve o’clock. Perhaps five past? I did not notice the exact time. The gentleman went directly to his room.’

‘Which room was he in?’

Baptiste glanced at the register. ‘Number thirteen. On the third floor.’

‘Did he take the lift or the stairs?’

‘He took the stairs, monsieur. He came in through those doors and proceeded straight upstairs.’

‘Strange behaviour for a man with a walking stick,’ Voltaire observed.

‘I would agree, monsieur. Evidently, he was in a hurry. He did not acknowledge me.’

‘He did not stop to ask for his key?’

‘He must have taken it with him when he went out.’

Pünd glanced at Voltaire, who nodded. Fraser couldn’t help noticing that a strange chemistry had arisen between them since they had driven into Nice. Each seemed to know what the other was thinking.

‘We would like to see his room,’ Voltaire said.

‘Certainly, monsieur. It has, of course, been cleaned since Monsieur Ford departed, but it is empty now. My daughter will take you up.’

Baptiste reached out and slammed his palm down on a service bell that chimed out through the hotel. A few moments later, a door opened and a young girl appeared, holding a dustpan and brush. ‘Yes, Papa?’

‘Can you please take these gentlemen up to room thirteen, Marie. They are not guests. They are investigating a crime.’

‘A crime at the hotel?’ The girl’s eyes widened.

‘No, no, no. It has nothing to do with us.’

The girl put down the cleaning implements and removed a key from its pigeonhole, then started up the stairs. Pünd, Voltaire and Fraser followed in single file, their shoulders almost brushing against the walls on each side, the chintz wallpaper making the way seem even more narrow than it already was.

Room 13 was at the very top of the hotel, at the end of a corridor. Marie unlocked the door to allow them into a very basic, square room with a small window and a view only of the building next door. There was very little furniture: a bed, a bedside table, a half-sized armchair, a wardrobe, and a sink in the corner.

‘The toilet and shower are down the corridor,’ Marie said.

‘Did you see the gentleman who occupied this room on the second and third of June?’ Voltaire asked her, looking around him without much enthusiasm.

‘I saw him very briefly on the Friday morning, monsieur. I think it was about half past eleven. He came out of the room while I was vacuuming the carpet.’

‘Did you see his face?’

‘He had a hat …’

‘And sunglasses?’

‘Yes, monsieur. I think, also, he had white hair. He seemed to be in a hurry. He walked past me, but he did not say a word.’

Pünd took over the questioning. ‘He would surely have been observed each time he entered and left the hotel, mademoiselle. There must have been someone at the reception.’

Marie blinked. She had large eyes that amplified her every emotion. ‘I’m afraid that is not always the case, monsieur. There is so much work in the hotel and in the morning and the night there are only the three of us – Mother, Father and myself. There is a bell if guests need us, but it is possible my father was in the kitchen …’ She paused, trying to think of anything she could say that might help. Suddenly she remembered. ‘I am not sure that the gentleman slept in the room on either night,’ she said.

‘Why do you say that, mademoiselle?’ Voltaire asked.

‘I cleaned the room that same Friday afternoon. Two o’clock is the time when guests are asked to check out. The covers were thrown back and the sheets were crumpled, but it felt … strange. The shower had been used, but when I stripped the bed, I had no sense that it had been occupied during the night.’

‘Did you examine the wardrobe or the drawers?’

‘No, monsieur.’ Marie sounded offended, as if she had been accused of prying.

‘But you cleaned the sink.’

‘There was no need. The sink had not been touched.’

‘So for what purpose do you think he had taken the room?’

‘I cannot say, monsieur. Perhaps he had business meetings nearby and needed somewhere to rest?’

Neither Pünd nor Voltaire appeared to accept this explanation and, in truth, Marie did not sound convinced herself.

Pünd had noticed a waste-paper basket beside the bed. ‘Did you also clear the rubbish from the room?’ he asked. ‘Perhaps the gentleman had letters or documents that he left behind? Or was there anything else he threw away?’

‘There was a newspaper in the waste-paper basket,’ Marie recalled. ‘Oh, yes! And an empty bottle of shoe polish. I can even remember the manufacturer.’ She screwed her eyes shut, concentrating. ‘It was Esquire!’ she exclaimed. ‘I only recall the name because it has a similarity to the Rue Esquirol, where I once lived.’

‘That’s an American brand, isn’t it?’ Fraser muttered.

‘I believe you are right,’ said Pünd.

‘There was another bottle also. The gentleman drank some Orangina. But he did not throw it away when it was empty. He left it on the table.’

Marie came to a breathless halt, pleased with herself.

‘Thank you, mademoiselle.’ Voltaire smiled at her. ‘You have been most helpful.’

*

But had she?

Walking back out into the Rue Lafayette, Fraser tried to piece things together, but none of it seemed to make sense to him. ‘If it was Elmer Waysmith who went into the pharmacie , why did he feel the need to take a room in the H?tel Lafayette for two nights?’ he said. ‘He was carrying a small suitcase. We know that he didn’t sleep in the bed …’

‘It would seem, then, that his intention was to use the room only to change his appearance.’ Voltaire took over. ‘He was wearing an ill-fitting linen suit when he purchased the aconitine and, along with the hat and the sunglasses, that could have been part of his disguise. If he was Elmer Waysmith, he could not have worn it when he met with his son, Robert, just fifteen minutes later. So he leaves the pharmacy, he goes into the hotel – we know from the testimony of the owner that he was in a hurry – and he enters room thirteen, where he has the clothes that he will wear for lunch with his son. He gets rid of the walking stick, the hat, the suit and maybe also the suitcase. Then he continues to the Place Masséna.’

‘Everything you suggest makes sense,’ Pünd agreed. ‘But how, I wonder, does he dispose of the suitcase and the rest of it?’

Even as he spoke, he was looking around him and his eyes settled on a row of oversized dustbins resting against the wall on the other side of the street. There were three of them: metal boxes on castors with lids that slid open, designed for commercial rather than public use. Fraser crossed the road without waiting to be asked. He opened the first one and, after rolling up his shirtsleeves, rummaged around in the container, trying to avoid coming into contact with anything too unpleasant. The search revealed nothing and after a few minutes he moved across to the next one. This time, he was more successful. ‘There’s something here!’ he exclaimed and drew out a length of wood, which he showed to Pünd and Voltaire.

Fraser was holding an ebony walking stick. Now he used it to stir the contents of the bin and managed to hook a second object, a suitcase, which he lifted to the surface. He laid it down in the road and opened it, revealing a straw hat and, beneath it, a very creased, pale blue linen suit. Voltaire and Pünd had both crossed the road. They knew they were looking at the entire disguise of the man who had booked into the H?tel Lafayette and who had also purchased the aconitine at the nearby chemist.

‘You should not touch anything else, Monsieur Fraser,’ Voltaire remarked, addressing him by name for the first time. ‘I will take all this for forensic examination. The case is old. It may have been purchased at a local flea market. The walking stick also. Even so, the clothes have been worn by the man we are seeking and who knows what they may reveal?’

‘It is curious,’ Pünd said. ‘Why did our friend discard all this in a container so close to the hotel? Would it not have been wiser to carry it with him – at least some distance?’

‘He was in a hurry,’ Fraser reminded him.

‘That is true.’ Pünd sighed. ‘But even so, he has been most careless. First, the lid that he forgets to replace on the teapot containing the poison. Then the aconitine, which he purchases even though there are many dangerous plants that grow in the garden of the Chateau Belmar. The choice of the drug too. Why aconitine? The question of the timing. And now this!’

‘There are many clever men who make clumsy murderers,’ Voltaire remarked.

‘Yes. But what we have here is a clever murderer who seems to have been almost deliberately clumsy.’

The two men stood silently for a moment. Neither of them needed to ask where they were going next. Voltaire took the case from Fraser and the three of them set off.