The Pit-Prop Syndicate - Freeman Wills Crofts (red queen ebook .TXT) 📗

a nothing.” M. Max shrugged his shoulders. “There are five firms to which the lorries go, and of the five, four⁠—” His gesture indicated a despair too deep for words. “To serve them, it is but a blind; so my men think. But the fifth firm, it is that of Raymond Fils, one of the biggest distilleries of Bordeaux. That Raymond Fils are sending out the brandy suggests itself to my men. At last the affair marches.”

M. Max paused, and Willis bowed to signify his appreciation of the point.

“My men visit Raymond Fils. They search into everything. They find the law is not broken. All is in order. They are satisfied.”

“But, sir, if these people are smuggling brandy into England⁠—” Willis was beginning when the other interrupted him.

“But yes, monsieur, I grasp your point. I speak of French law; it is different from yours. Here duty is not charged on just so much spirit as is distilled. We grant the distiller a license, and it allows him to distill any quantity up to the figure the license bears. But, monsieur, Raymond Fils are⁠—how do you say it?⁠—well within their limit? Yes? They do not break the French law.”

“Therefore, sir, you mean you cannot help further?”

“My dear monsieur, what would you? I have done my best for you. I make inquiries. The matter is not for me. With the most excellent wish to assist, what more can I?”

Willis, realizing he could get no more, rose.

“Nothing, sir, except to accept on my own part and that of my department our hearty thanks for what you have done. I can assure you, sir, I quite understand your position, and I greatly appreciate your kindness.”

M. Max also had risen. He politely repeated his regrets, and with mutual compliments the two men parted.

Willis had once spent a holiday in Paris, and he was slightly acquainted with the city. He strolled on through the busy streets, brilliant in the pale autumn sunlight, until he reached the Grands Boulevards. There entering a café, he sat down, called for a bock, and settled himself to consider his next step.

The position created by M. Max’s action was disconcerting. Willis felt himself stranded, literally a stranger in a strange land, sent to carry out an investigation among a people whose language he could not even speak! He saw at once that his task was impossible. He must have local help or he could proceed no further.

He thought of his own department. The Excise had failed him. What about the Sûreté?

But a very little thought convinced him that he was even less likely to obtain help from this quarter. He could only base an appeal on the possibility of a future charge of conspiracy to murder, and he realised that the evidence for that was too slight to put forward seriously.

What was to be done? So far as he could see, but one thing. He must employ a private detective. This plan would meet the language difficulty by which he was so completely hung up.

He went to a call office and got his chief at the Yard on the long distance wire. The latter approved his suggestion, and recommended M. Jules Laroche of the Rue du Sommerard near the Sorbonne. Half an hour later Willis reached the house.

M. Laroche proved to be a tall, unobtrusive-looking man of some five-and-forty, who had lived in London for some years and spoke as good English as Willis himself. He listened quietly and without much apparent interest to what his visitor had to tell him, then said he would be glad to take on the job.

“We had better go to Bordeaux this evening, so as to start fresh tomorrow,” Willis suggested.

“Two o’clock at the d’Orsay station,” the other returned. “We have just time. We can settle our plans in the train.”

They reached the St. Jean station at Bordeaux at 10:35 that night, and drove to the Hotel d’Espagne. They had decided that they could do nothing until the following evening, when they would go out to the clearing and see what a search of the mill premises might reveal.

Next morning Laroche vanished, saying he had friends in the town whom he wished to look up, and it was close on dinnertime before he put in an appearance.

“I have got some information that may help,” he said, as Willis greeted him. “Though I’m not connected with the official force, we are very good friends and have worked into each other’s hands. I happen to know one of the officers of the local police, and he got me the information. It seems that a M. Pierre Raymond is practically the owner of Raymond Fils, the distillers you mentioned. He is a man of about thirty, and the son of one of the original brothers. He was at one time comfortably off, and lived in a pleasant villa in the suburbs. But latterly he has been going the pace, and within the last two years he let his villa and bought a tiny house next door to the distillery, where he is now living. It is believed his money went at Monte Carlo, indeed it seems he is a wrong ’un all round. At all events he is known to be hard up now.”

“And you think he moved in so that he could load up that brandy at night?”

“That’s what I think,” Laroche admitted. “You see, there is the motive for it as well. He wouldn’t join the syndicate unless he was in difficulties. I fancy M. Pierre Raymond will be an interesting study.”

Willis nodded. The suggestion was worth investigation, and he congratulated himself on getting hold of so excellent a colleague as this Laroche seemed to be.

The Frenchman during the day had hired a motor bicycle and sidecar, and as dusk began to fall the two men left their hotel and ran out along the Bayonne road until they reached the Lesque. There they hid their vehicle behind