Parker Pyne Investigates by Agatha Christie
He was happy because, for the first time in his life, he was in a foreign country. Moreover, he was staying in the kind of hotel he would never stay in again, and not for one moment had he had to worry about money! He had a room with private bathroom, delicious meals and attentive service. All these things Mr Roberts had enjoyed very much indeed.
He was disappointed because so far nothing that could be described as adventure had come his way. No disguised Bolshevists or mysterious Russians had crossed his path. A pleasant chat on the train with a French commercial traveller who spoke excellent English was the only human intercourse that had come his way. He had secreted the papers in his sponge bag as he had been told to do and had delivered them according to instructions. There had been no dangers to overcome, no hair’s breadth escapes. Mr Roberts was disappointed.
It was at that moment that a tall, bearded man murmured ‘Pardon,’ and sat down on the other side of the little table. ‘You will excuse me,’ he said, ‘but I think you know a friend of mine. “P.P.” are the initials.’
Mr Roberts was pleasantly thrilled. Here, at last, was a mysterious Russian. ‘Qu-quite right.’
‘Then I think we understand each other,’ said the stranger.
Mr Roberts looked at him searchingly. This was far more like the real thing. The stranger was a man of about fifty, of distinguished though foreign appearance. He wore an eye-glass, and a small coloured ribbon in his button-hole.
‘You have accomplished your mission in the most satisfactory manner,’ said the stranger. ‘Are you prepared to undertake a further one?’
‘Certainly. Oh, yes.’
‘Good. You will book a sleeper on the Geneva-Paris train for tomorrow night. You will ask for Berth Number Nine.’
‘Supposing it is not free?’
‘It will be free. That will have been seen to.’
‘Berth Number Nine,’ repeated Roberts. ‘Yes, I’ve got that.’
‘During the course of your journey someone will say to you, “Pardon, Monsieur, but I think you were recently at Grasse?” To that you will reply “Yes, last month.” The person will then say, “Are you interested in scent?” And you will reply, “Yes, I am a manufacturer of synthetic Oil of Jasmine.” After that you will place yourself entirely at the disposal of the person who has spoken to you. By the way, are you armed?’
‘No,’ said Mr Roberts in a flutter. ‘No; I never thought–that is–’
‘That can soon be remedied,’ said the bearded man. He glanced around. No one was near them. Something hard and shining was pressed into Mr Roberts’ hand. ‘A small weapon but efficacious,’ said the stranger, smiling.
Mr Roberts, who had never fired a revolver in his life, slipped it gingerly into a pocket. He had an uneasy feeling that it might go off at any minute.
They went over the passwords again. Then Roberts’ new friend rose.
‘I wish you good luck,’ he said. ‘May you come through safely. You are a brave man, Mr Roberts.’
‘Am I?’ thought Roberts, when the other had departed. ‘I’m sure I don’t want to get killed. That would never do.’
A pleasant thrill shot down his spine, slightly adulterated by a thrill that was not quite so pleasant.
He went to his room and examined the weapon. He was still uncertain about its mechanism and hoped he would not be called upon to use it.
He went out to book his seat.
The train left Geneva at nine-thirty. Roberts got to the station in good time. The sleeping-car conductor took his ticket and his passport, and stood aside while an underling swung Roberts’ suitcase on to the rack. There was other luggage there: a pigskin case and a Gladstone bag.
‘Number Nine is the lower berth,’ said the conductor.
As Roberts turned to leave the carriage he ran into a big man who was entering. They drew apart with apologies–Roberts’ in English and the stranger’s in French. He was a big burly man, with a closely shaven head and thick eye-glasses through which his eyes seemed to peer suspiciously.
‘An ugly customer,’ said the little man to himself.
He sensed something vaguely sinister about his travelling companion. Was it to keep a watch on this man that he had been told to ask for Berth Number Nine? He fancied it might be.
He went out again into the corridor. There was still ten minutes before the train was due to start and he thought he would walk up and down the platform. Half-way along the passage he stood back to allow a lady to pass him. She was just entering the train and the conductor preceded her, ticket in hand. As she passed Roberts she dropped her handbag. The Englishman picked it up and handed it to her.
‘Thank you, Monsieur.’ She spoke in English but her voice was foreign, a rich low voice very seductive in quality. As she was about to pass on, she hesitated and murmured: ‘Pardon, Monsieur, but I think you were recently at Grasse?’
Roberts’ heart leaped with excitement. He was to place himself at the disposal of this lovely creature–for she was lovely, of that there was no doubt. She wore a travelling coat of fur, a chic hat. There were pearls round her neck. She was dark and her lips were scarlet.
Roberts made the required answer. ‘Yes, last month.’
‘You are interested in scent?’
‘Yes, I am a manufacturer of synthetic Oil of Jasmine.’
She bent her head and passed on, leaving a mere whisper behind her. ‘In the corridor as soon as the train starts.’
The next ten minutes seemed an age to Roberts. At last the train started. He walked slowly along the corridor. The lady in the fur coat was struggling with a window. He hurried to her assistance.
‘Thank you, Monsieur. Just a little air before they insist on closing everything.’ And then in a soft, low, rapid voice: ‘After the frontier, when our fellow traveller is asleep–not before–go into the washing place and through it into the compartment on the other side. You understand?’
‘Yes.’ He let down the window and said in a louder voice: ‘Is that better, Madame?’
‘Thank you very much.’
He retired to his compartment. His travelling companion was already stretched out in the upper berth. His preparations for the night had obviously been simple. The removal of boots and a coat, in fact.
Roberts debated his own costume. Clearly, if he were going into a lady’s compartment he could not undress.
He found a pair of slippers, substituting them for his boots, and then lay down, switching out the light. A few minutes later, the man above began to snore.
Just after ten o’clock they reached the frontier. The door was thrown open; a perfunctory question was asked. Had Messieurs anything to declare? The door was closed again. Presently the train drew out of Bellegarde.
The man in the upper berth was snoring again. Roberts allowed twenty minutes to elapse, then he slipped to his feet and opened the door of the lavatory compartment. Once inside, he bolted the door behind him and eyed the door on the farther side. It was not bolted. He hesitated. Should he knock?
Perhaps it would be absurd to knock. But he didn’t quite like entering without knocking. He compromised, opened the door gently about an inch and waited. He even ventured on a small cough.
The response was prompt. The door was pulled open, he was seized by the arm, pulled through into the farther compartment, and the girl closed and bolted the door behind him.
Roberts caught his breath. Never had he imagined anything so lovely. She was wearing a long foamy garment of cream chiffon and lace. She leaned against the door into the corridor, panting. Roberts had often read of beautiful hunted creatures at bay. Now for the first time, he saw one–a thrilling sight.
‘Thank God!’ murmured the girl.
She was quite young, Roberts noted, and her loveliness was such that she seemed to him like a being from another world. Here was romance at last–and he was in it!
She spoke in a low, hurried voice. Her English was good but the inflection was wholly foreign. ‘I am so glad you have com
Roberts did not understand in the least what it meant, but he nodded.
‘I thought I had given them the slip. I might have known better. What are we to do? Vassilievitch is in the next carriage to me. Whatever happens, he must not get the jewels.’
‘He’s not going to murder you and he’s not going to get the jewels,’ said Robert with determination.
‘Then what am I to do with them?’
Roberts looked past her to the door. ‘The door’s bolted,’ he said.
The girl laughed. ‘What are locked doors to Vassilievitch?’
Roberts felt more and more as though he were in the middle of one of his favourite novels. ‘There’s only one thing to be done. Give them to me.’
She looked at him doubtfully. ‘They are worth a quarter of a million.’
Roberts flushed. ‘You can trust me.’
The girl hesitated a moment longer, then: ‘Yes, I will trust you,’ she said. She made a swift movement. The next minute she was holding out to him a rolled-up pair of stockings–stockings of cobweb silk. ‘Take them, my friend,’ she said to the astonished Roberts.
He took them and at once he understood. Instead of being light as air, the stockings were unexpectedly heavy.
‘Take them to your compartment,’ she said. ‘You can give them to me in the morning–if–if I am still here.’
Roberts coughed. ‘Look here,’ he said. ‘About you.’ He paused. ‘I–I must keep guard over you.’ Then he flushed in an agony of propriety. ‘Not in here, I mean. I’ll stay in there.’ He nodded towards the lavatory compartment.
‘If you like to stay here–’ She glanced at the upper unoccupied berth.
Roberts flushed to the roots of his hair. ‘No, no,’ he protested. ‘I shall be all right in there. If you need me, call out.’
‘Thank you, my friend,’ said the girl softly.
She slipped into the lower berth, drew up the covers and smiled at him gratefully. He retreated into the washroom.
Suddenly–it must have been a couple of hours later–he thought he heard something. He listened–nothing. Perhaps he had been mistaken. And yet it certainly seemed to him that he had heard a faint sound from the next carriage. Supposing–just supposing…
He opened the door softly. The compartment was as he had left it, with the tiny blue light in the ceiling. He stood there with his eyes straining through the dimness till they got accustomed to it. The girl was not there!
He switched the light full on. The compartment was empty. Suddenly he sniffed. Just a whiff but he recognized it–the sweet, sickly odour of chloroform!
He stepped from the compartment (unlocked now, he noted) out into the corridor and looked up and down it. Empty! His eyes fastened on the door next to the girl’s. She had said that Vassilievitch was in the next compartment. Gingerly Roberts tried the handle. The door was bolted on the inside.
What should he do? Demand admittance? But the man would refuse–and after all, the girl might not be there! And if she were, would she thank him for making a public business of the matter? He had gathered that secrecy was essential in the game they were playing.
A perturbed little man wandered slowly along the corridor. He paused at the end compartment. The door was open, and the conductor lay there sleeping. And above him, on a hook, hung his brown uniform coat and peaked cap.
V
In a flash Roberts had decided on his course of action. In another minute he had donned the coat and cap, and was hurrying back along the corridor. He stopped at the door next to that of the girl, summoned all his resolution and knocked peremptorily.
When the summons was not answered, he knocked again.
‘Monsieur,’ he said in his best accent.
The door opened a little way and a head peered out–the head of a foreigner, clean-shaven except for a black moustache. It was an angry, malevolent face.
‘Qu’est-ce-qu’il y a?’ he snapped.
‘Votre passeport, monsieur.’ Roberts stepped back and beckoned.
The other hesitated, then stepped out into the corridor. Roberts had counted on his doing that. If he had the girl inside, he naturally would not want the conductor to come in. Like a flash, Roberts acted. With all his force he shoved the foreigner aside–the man was unprepared and the swaying of the train helped–bolted into the carriage himself, shut the door and locked it.
Lying across the end of the berth was the girl, a gag across her mouth and her wrists tied together. He freed her quickly and she fell against him with a sigh.
‘I feel so weak and ill,’ she murmured. ‘It was chloroform, I think. Did he–did he get them?’
‘No.’ Roberts tapped his pocket. ‘What are we going to do now?’ he asked.
The girl sat up. Her wits were returning. She took in his costume.
‘How clever of you. Fancy thinking of that! He said that he would kill me if I did not tell him where the jewels were. I have been so afraid–and then you came.’ Suddenly she laughed. ‘But we have outwitted him! He will not dare to do anything. He cannot even try to get back into his own compartment.
‘We must stay here till morning. Probably he will leave the train at Dijon; we are due to stop there in about half an hour. He will telegraph to Paris and they will pick up our trail there. In the meantime, you had better throw that coat and cap out of the window. They might get you into trouble.’
Roberts obeyed.
‘We must not sleep,’ the girl decided. ‘We must stay on guard till morning.’
It was a strange, exciting vigil. At six o’clock in the morning, Roberts opened the door carefully and looked out. No one was about. The girl slipped quickly into her own compartment. Roberts followed her in. The place had clearly been ransacked. He regained his own carriage through the washroom. His fellow-traveller was still snoring.
They reached Paris at seven o’clock. The conductor was declaiming at the loss of his coat and cap. He had not yet discovered the loss of a passenger.
Then began a most entertaining chase. The girl and Roberts took taxi after taxi across Paris. They entered hotels and restaurants by one door and left them by another. At last the girl gave a sign.
‘I feel sure we are not followed now,’ she said. ‘We have shaken them off.’
They breakfasted and drove to Le Bourget. Three hours later they were at Croydon. Roberts had never flown before.
At Croydon a tall gentleman with a far-off resemblance to Mr Roberts’ mentor at Geneva was waiting for them. He greeted the girl with especial respect.
‘The car is here, madam,’ he said.
‘This gentleman will accompany us, Paul,’ said the girl. And to Roberts: ‘Count Paul Stepanyi.’
The car was a vast limousine. They drove for about an hour, then they entered the grounds of a country house and pulled up at the door of an imposing mansion. Mr Roberts was taken to a room furnished as a study. There he handed over the precious pair of stockings. He was left alone for a while. Presently Count Stepanyi returned.
‘Mr Roberts,’ he said, ‘our thanks and gratitude are due to you. You have proved yourself a brave and resourceful man.’ He held out a red morocco case. ‘Permit me to confer upon you the Order of St Stanislaus–tenth class with laurels.’
As in a dream Roberts opened the case and looked at the jewelled order. The old gentleman was still speaking.
‘The Grand Duchess Olga would like to thank you herself before you depart.’
He was led to a big drawing-room. There, very beautiful in a flowing robe, stood his travelling companion.
She made an imperious gesture of the hand, and the other man left them.
‘I owe you my life, Mr Roberts,’ said the grand duchess.
She held out her hand. Roberts kissed it. She leaned suddenly towards him.
‘You are a brave man,’ she said.
His lips met hers; a waft of r
For a moment he held that slender, beautiful form in his arms…
He was still in a dream when somebody said to him: ‘The car will take you anywhere you wish.’
An hour later, the car came back for the Grand Duchess Olga. She got into it and so did the white-haired man. He had removed his beard for coolness. The car set down the Grand Duchess Olga at a house in Streatham. She entered it and an elderly woman looked up from a tea table.
‘Ah, Maggie, dear, so there you are.’
In the Geneva-Paris express this girl was the Grand Duchess Olga; in Mr Parker Pyne’s office she was Madeleine de Sara, and in the house at Streatham she was Maggie Sayers, fourth daughter of an honest, hard-working family.
How are the mighty fallen!
VI
Mr Parker Pyne was lunching with his friend. ‘Congratulations,’ said the latter, ‘your man carried the thing through without a hitch. The Tormali gang must be wild to think the plans of that gun have gone to the League. Did you tell your man what he was carrying?’
‘No. I thought it better to–er–embroider.’
‘Very discreet of you.’
‘It wasn’t exactly discretion. I wanted him to enjoy himself. I fancied he might find a gun a little tame. I wanted him to have some adventures.’
‘Tame?’ said Mr Bonnington, staring at him. ‘Why, that lot would murder him as soon as look at him.’
‘Yes,’ said Mr Parker Pyne mildly. ‘But I didn’t want him to be murdered.’
‘Do you make a lot of money in your business, Parker?’ asked Mr Bonnington.
‘Sometimes I lose it,’ said Mr Parker Pyne. ‘That is, if it is a deserving case.’
VII
Three angry gentlemen were abusing one another in Paris.
‘That confounded Hooper!’ said one. ‘He let us down.’
‘The plans were not taken by anyone from the office,’ said the second. ‘But they went Wednesday, I am assured of that. And so I say you bungled it.’
‘I didn’t,’ said the third sulkily; ‘there was no Englishman on the train except a little clerk. He’d never heard of Peterfield or of the gun. I know. I tested him. Peterfield and the gun meant nothing to him.’ He laughed. ‘He had a Bolshevist complex of some kind.’