'The English should confine their murders to their own country' is the view held by Parisians when Lady Dorothy Strathy, sister of the Earl of Tain, is discovered stabbed in her hotel room. This opinion is held by none more strongly than Courtrand, the head of the Sûreté, an outrageous snob who regards the case as closed when it is discovered that Lady Strathy's paid companion, Miss Newbolt, was the first on the scene. However, Inspector Gautier is not so easily swayed and comes up with a number of awkward clues which throw doubt on Courtrand's theory, facing in the process the shady underworld of male prostitution and back-street throat-cutting - alongside more personal troubles including the death of his ex-wife - in a case with a startling dénouement.
Release date:
December 14, 2015
Publisher:
Orion
Print pages:
193
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THE CONCIERGE IN his red frock coat and black trousers greeted Gautier with the same dignified courtesy that he would show to the Russian grand dukes,
English milords and Spanish grandees who often patronized the Hotel Cheltenham. He was resolutely, almost ostentatiously, unperturbed. In the faces and the manner of the other members of the hotel
staff—the pages, the lift boy and the chambermaids—one could see the suppressed excitement, the fearful fascination which a sudden and unexpected appearance of death always provokes.
The concierge, on the other hand, knew it was his responsibility to set an example and to show that the order and discipline of his hotel could not be disrupted, even by such a deplorable incident
as a murder.
‘I will take you up myself, Inspector,’ he said and Gautier recognized that a compliment was intended.
As they walked up the main staircase to the second floor, he was glad that they had not taken the elevator which moved ponderously up and down the centre of the hotel in its iron cage, for the
concierge would not wish to discuss the murder in front of any guests who might be riding in the elevator nor even in front of the lift boy. All Gautier knew were the facts which had been reported
to the Sûreté. An Englishwoman had been found murdered in her suite at the Hotel Cheltenham in Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré.
‘Is the dead woman known to you?’ he asked the concierge.
‘Lady Dorothy? Certainly, Monsieur l’Inspecteur. She has been a regular guest for six or seven years or more. Lady Dorothy always stayed with us whenever she visited
Paris.’
‘Was she travelling alone?’
‘No, with her companion, a Miss Mary Newbolt. It was Miss Newbolt who found Lady Dorothy dead in her suite this morning.’
‘Her husband was not with her?’
‘Lady Dorothy was not married,’ the concierge replied, slipping easily into the past tense, ‘but she was of noble birth. The late Earl of Tain was her brother.’
He went on to mention the names of some of Lady Dorothy’s other relatives, more distant than her brother but equally well born. The concierge was knowledgeable about genealogy, not only
because it was useful to him in his profession, and his favourite reading was the Almanach de Gotha, which listed Europe’s noble families and traced their ancestry.
‘Do you know what time the lady’s death was discovered?’ Gautier asked.
‘Not long after I came on duty. It must have been at about twenty minutes past seven. Miss Newbolt rang for one of the chambermaids and sent the girl to fetch me at once.’
A uniformed policeman who had been called in when the murder had been discovered, was standing outside the door to which the concierge led Gautier. Inside, in the drawing-room of the suite, a
doctor was kneeling over the body of a woman. He had just completed his examination and stood up, shutting his bag as he did so. A woman of about thirty stood watching him and a maid with her apron
held up to her face was sobbing quietly in a corner of the room. Gautier shook hands with the doctor, whom he had met before, and was about to offer his hand to the young woman but she merely
nodded when the doctor introduced him. He remembered then that the English were supposed to have all sorts of taboos and social protocol and that in any case they were less enthusiastic about
shaking hands than the French.
‘Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do for the lady, Inspector,’ the doctor said. ‘She was already dead when I arrived.’
Gautier looked at the body which lay not in an untidy sprawl as one might have expected but neatly, the limbs straight, almost as though in repose. Blood had gushed from a wound below the left
breast, staining the black silk dress, and a blood-stained knife lay on the floor beside the body. Lady Dorothy had been a tall, slim woman and the chief feature of her face was a long, curved nose
which made the mouth seem small and pinched. Her long grey hair lay loosely around her head and shoulders.
When the doctor left the room, Gautier went with him and the concierge into the corridor outside. There he asked the doctor, ‘Are you able to say at what time the lady was
killed?’
‘Not too many hours ago. There are no signs of rigor mortis yet.’
‘Then since she was dressed in day clothes we might conclude that it was this morning.’
‘I would think so, yes. We will arrange for her body to be taken to the mortuary and properly examined. Then perhaps we may know more.’
Gautier turned towards the concierge. ‘Did you say that the lady’s companion found the body?’
‘So I understand.’
‘Was she sharing the suite with her employer?’
‘No. She has a bedroom on the fifth floor. And the girl you saw in the corner of the room is Lady Dorothy’s personal maid. She too was travelling with her and has a room in the
servants’ quarters.’
Gautier knew it was not unusual for wealthy people to take their servants with them when they travelled. A voyage to a country other than their own became an expedition with maids, valets,
innumerable trunks and hat boxes. As a spinster, though, Lady Dorothy would not have needed such an elaborate retinue.
‘Does the companion speak French?’
‘Yes, Inspector. Better French than poor Lady Dorothy did.’
After the doctor and the concierge had left, Gautier returned to the drawing-room of the suite. Miss Newbolt was still standing where she had been while the doctor was examining Lady
Dorothy’s body. She seemed calm and composed, unaffected as far as one could tell by the death of her employer, but then she would be accustomed, Gautier supposed, to being no more than a
passive onlooker, waiting in attendance until her services or her opinions were requested.
‘I wonder, Mademoiselle,’ he said to her, ‘if I might ask for your assistance.’
‘In what way?’
‘Would you be so kind as to tell me what you know of this most unfortunate affair?’
‘Of course, Inspector, but could I first prevail on your patience?’
‘Mademoiselle?’
‘I would like to return to my room to wash and change my clothes.’
She held out her hands, showing that the palms and fingers were smeared with dried blood and Gautier realized then why she had not offered to shake hands with him. The plain grey dress which she
wore was also stained with blood at the sleeves and on the skirt.
‘I am desolate, Mademoiselle, for not noticing your predicament earlier. You must go and change, that goes without saying. Go to your room and I will send a message telling you where to
meet me. It would be better if we were not to talk in this room.’
‘Why not?’
Gautier shrugged his shoulders. ‘Just police procedure. The room must be carefully examined for anything which might help us discover who killed Lady Dorothy. The management will find
another room in the hotel where we can talk.’
She left the room without making any further comment. When she had gone, Gautier looked at the body of the Englishwoman once again. It lay on a line between a writing bureau and the door leading
from the drawing-room into the corridor. On the bureau itself he found several sheets of notepaper, an inkwell and a pen. The top sheet of paper was half covered in a sprawling handwriting and
another sheet, completely covered in the same writing, had been pushed on one side. Recognizing that the words were English, a language he scarcely knew at all, he folded the two sheets of paper
and put them away in his pocket.
Two more doors led off the drawing-room, one into a large bedroom and the other into a surprising luxury, a bathroom. Few homes in Paris had bathrooms and most people took their baths in zinc
tubs which were taken to their bedrooms and filled with hot water from jugs by chambermaids. Gautier supposed that bathrooms must have been recently installed at the Hotel Cheltenham and then only
in the more expensive suites.
On the dressing-table in the bedroom he noticed two photographs in silver frames, one a faded wedding portrait of a young man in the uniform of a guards’ regiment, with a pretty but
anaemic girl on his arm, and the other of an extraordinarily beautiful young woman. None of the drawers in either the dressing-table or a chest of drawers were open and Gautier could see no signs
of the disorder one would have expected if robbery had been the motive for the Englishwoman’s murder.
Returning to the drawing-room he found that his principal assistant, Surat, had arrived from the Sûreté. Surat was a model police officer, loyal, courageous and dedicated to his
work, but he had been passed over for promotion and at his age was unlikely to be given it now.
Gautier explained to him as concisely as he could the circumstances of Lady Dorothy’s murder. Then he asked, ‘Did you bring any men with you?’
‘Yes, patron, two. They are in the corridor outside.’
‘Good. Then the three of you please search all the rooms of this suite as meticulously as you can. See if you can find anything, anything at all, which will explain why this woman came to
be stabbed. When you have finished, seal the doors in the usual way and put a notice up forbidding anyone to enter.’
‘Anything more?’
‘Yes. Afterwards make enquiries among the hotel staff; the chambermaids, the waiters, everyone. Find out if any strangers were seen about the hotel this morning. If the Englishwoman was
killed by an intruder someone may have noticed him in the corridors or on the stairs. Speak to everyone, but do it discreetly. We do not want to disturb or alarm the other guests.’
Leaving Surat to start searching the room, Gautier went downstairs to see the hotel manager. He told him of the arrangements which were being made to take the murdered woman’s body to the
mortuary and agreed to his request that this should be done through a side door of the hotel, used by the staff and out of sight of other guests. In return, the manager put another room on the
second floor at Gautier’s disposal, where he could interview Miss Newbolt and also any members of the hotel staff who might come forward with information. Then he went back to Lady
Dorothy’s suite to see how the search was progressing.
‘Have you found anything to suggest why the Englishwoman was murdered?’ he asked Surat.
‘Not yet. There are no signs whatsoever of a robber having been in here. If anything was stolen then whoever it was must have come knowing exactly what he wanted and where it was hidden.
Nothing, no papers or any of her clothes have been disturbed. The place is almost too tidy.’
‘Lady Dorothy had a maid travelling with her.’
‘We found one thing which it seemed rather strange that a spinster should be taking with her on her travels. A man’s cigarette case. It was in a drawer of the
dressing-table.’
The cigarette case was in a chamois leather pouch and Surat showed it to Gautier. It was a silver case but in no way unusual and in all probability, Gautier decided, not expensive. The outside
of the case was plain but on the inside he found an inscription.
A Mon Bien Aimé
Immediately below the inscription was an engraving of a single rosebud.
When Miss Newbolt came into the drawing-room of another suite on the second floor where Gautier was waiting, she was wearing a grey dress identical as far as one could tell to
the one she had been wearing earlier, except for the blood stains. The dress was simply cut and without embellishment of any kind, a style in keeping with the way she had drawn her light brown hair
back and tied it in a bun behind her neck. Her face, if one looked at the features singly, was not unattractive, but one might have believed that she had taken some pains to disguise the fact.
Guessing that she would not have taken breakfast that morning, Gautier had ordered coffee and fresh bread to be brought to the room and when she arrived he offered it to her. Miss Newbolt seemed
surprised.
‘That’s most considerate of you, Inspector. Thank you, I’ll take a cup of coffee, nothing more.’
He poured the coffee and handed it to her. She glanced at him over the cup as she raised it to her lips; a wary look, as though she suspected the motives behind his considerate gesture.
‘I understand that it was you who found Lady Dorothy’s body.’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘May I ask how that came about?’
‘I came down to the suite and when I saw that the door to the corridor was open I realized something must be wrong. She was lying on the floor just where you saw her later. I pulled the
knife out but it was too late. She was already dead.’
‘She seems to have been writing a letter when she was disturbed.’
‘Lady Dorothy was always an early riser. She would get up at seven and read or write letters till her maid came down at seven forty-five to do her hair. I would join her for breakfast at
eight every morning.’
‘But you came down earlier today?’
‘Yes. Soon after seven.’
‘Why was that?’
‘Do you know, I’m not sure.’ Miss Newbolt’s reply was immediate and Gautier wondered if she had rehearsed an answer to a question she had been expecting. ‘I woke
suddenly and began to wonder whether Lady Dorothy was all right. So I came down to see. It sounds ridiculous, I know, but I had a kind of premonition that she might be in danger.’
In Gautier’s experience people often claimed to have had premonitions of disaster after disaster had struck, but if they had they seldom acted on them. He decided not to press the matter
and instead he changed the line of questioning. ‘Can you think of any reason why Lady Dorothy should have been murdered?’
‘Robbery, I suppose.’
‘Did she keep anything of any special value in her room? Jewellery?’
‘She had brought very little with her; only a gold ring with the family coat of arms and a gold and sapphire locket in which she carried a miniature portrait of her brother as a
boy.’
‘Where would she have kept those?’
‘She probably just put them on the dressing-table when she took them off. Lady Dorothy was very careless. But she also had a sum of money with her.’
‘Did she always carry a large sum of cash?’
‘No, but yesterday afternoon she called at a bank and drew on a letter of credit. I don’t know what amount she drew but I believe it was substantial.’
‘Have you any idea why she needed the money?’ Gautier asked. ‘For travelling expenses?’
‘I wouldn’t think so. When we travelled abroad Lady Dorothy brought letters of credit with her and drew just enough money to pay the bills immediately before we left each place that
we visited.’
‘She was a regular traveller then?’
‘Yes. She always came to the Continent every year.’
‘Tell me about these voyages.’
Lady Dorothy’s travels in Europe, Miss Newbolt told Gautier, always followed the same pattern and generally an identical itinerary. From London she would come by train and steamer to Paris
where she would usually spend a week. This gave her time not only to visit the art galleries and museums and churches but to have fittings with Paquin and Worth. From Paris she and Miss Newbolt
would go overland first to Florence and then, for a very brief stay, to Venice. Much though she loved the beauty of Venice, Lady Dorothy would never spend more than a couple of days there,
distrusting the smells from the canals and believing they might infect her with diphtheria. After Venice came Vienna and then two weeks taking the waters in Baden-Baden. Finally they would return
to Paris, spending just enough time there to pick up the dresses that had been made for Lady Dorothy before heading for the welcoming cliffs of Dover.
‘Lady Dorothy has been making the same tour for several years,’ Miss Newbolt concluded. ‘And for the last five I’ve been her travelling companion.’
Although she had described Lady Dorothy’s travels in some detail, Gautier thought he detected a reticence in her manner, as though she had something more to tell but which she felt she
should not volunteer. He asked her, ‘So this was no different from any of your other voyages with your employer?’
‘It differed in two respects,’ Miss Newbolt admitted with a show of reluctance. ‘Lady Dorothy’s travels on the Continent were always planned meticulously. New hats and
gloves were bought for the voyage, reservations made well in advance at her usual hotels, letters of instructions sent to travel agents and couriers. Nothing was ever left to chance. But this time
it was different. I was only told we were coming just over a week ago.’
‘And can you think of any reason for that?’
‘None.’
‘You said this voyage was different from the others in two respects. What was the second difference?’
Miss Newbolt smiled; a tiny smile without pleasure or humour. ‘It was different, Inspector, because we both knew it was to be the last voyage I would make with her.’
‘Why was that?’
‘I was to leave her employment in one month’s time.’
‘Of your own volition?’
Miss Newbolt hesitated before she answered the question but only for an instant. ‘Yes.’ She looked at Gautier defiantly before she went on: ‘I’m sure you have been
wondering, Inspector, why Lady Dorothy’s death has left me unmoved. You have seen no tears, no distress.’
‘English people are recognized to be less emotional than we French. They are adept at keeping—how do you call it—the stiff upper lip.’
‘No doubt,’ Miss Newbolt said drily. ‘But I have good reason for my lack of emotion. I am not distressed nor even sorry that Lady Dorothy is dead. You see I hated the
woman.’
‘THIS IS REALLY most regrettable, Gautier, most regrettable!’
Courtrand, Director-General of the Sûreté, was walking up and down his office, an unmistakable sign of his indignation. In the normal way he preferred to remain seated when any of
his subordinates reported to him, so that his short stature and corpulence were concealed by his vast desk.
‘What will the British think?’ he continued. ‘That we cannot protect our distinguished visitors? This unfortunat. . .
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