Swirling Waters | Page 7

waiting for an answer. "One was probably the injured innocence now at the Malesherbes and cursing those sacr��s Angliches, but the other lies low and says nuffink. That's the one that interests me. Come along in my taxi and watch me chase a story."
Stopping only to borrow fifty francs for expenses from the cashier's wicket, Martin hurried his friend into a taximeter cab and gave the brief direction: "Pont de Neuilly."
Three-quarters of an hour later they had reached the bridge at the end of the long avenue of the suburb of Neuilly and had dismissed the cab.
"Now for our imitaciong Sherlock Holmes," said Martin. "The 'phone message was that a man had found a fur coat and a gold-mounted stick under some bushes by the left bank of the Seine four hundred metres down stream. He was apparently some sort of workman, and explained that he had no wish to be mixed up with the police. On the other hand, he felt he had to do his duty by the civilization that provides him with a blue blouse, bread, and bock, so he 'phoned the news to us.... Wish everyone was as sensible," he added, viewing the matter from a professional standpoint.
Three hundred yards down, they began to look very carefully amongst the bushes that line the water's edge. It was not long before they came to the object of their search. Under an alder-bush they found it--a heavy fur-lined coat sodden with the river water, and a gold-mounted stick.
The maker's name had been cut out of the overcoat; its pockets were empty.
Martin held it up. "Did this belong to your man?" he asked, as though sure of the answer.
"No," answered Dean decisively.
The journalist whisked around in complete surprise and looked at him keenly. "Sure?"
"Positive. There was astrakhan on the collar and cuffs of the coat my man was wearing."
"And this stick?"
"It looks much the same kind, but then there are thousands of sticks like this in use."
The stout little journalist looked pathetically disappointed. For the moment he had no thought beyond the professional aspect of the matter--the unearthing of a "good story"--and the human significance of what he had found was entirely out of mind. He turned over the coat and stick in obvious perplexity, as though they ought somehow to contain the key to the puzzle if only he could see it. Then he examined the traces of footsteps on the damp earth by the water-side. There was another set of footprints beside their own--no doubt the footprints of the man who had first found the objects and 'phoned to the Chronicle.
"What are you going to do next?" asked the young clerk.
"Take them to the police?"
Martin looked up and down the river bank. That part of the Seine is usually deserted except for nursemaids and children and an occasional workman. At the moment there was apparently no one in sight.
"You don't know the Paris police--that's evident," returned the journalist. "They would throw fits on the floor if I were so much as to carry off a coat-button. No, we must hide the coat and stick in the bushes again, and tell them to-morrow."
"Why to-morrow?"
"Twenty-four hours' start is due to my owners, bless their sensational little hearts. If nothing further comes to light, then the press steps aside and allows the law to take its course. Meanwhile to the Morgue and the Malesherbes. We'll pick up a cab on the Avenue de Neuilly. Newspaper life, my young friend, is one dam taxi after another."
The Morgue is, of course, no longer the public peep-show that it used to be, but Martin's card procured him instant admission. On the inclined marble slabs, down which ice water gently trickles, were two ghastly white figures of women which had been waiting identification for some days. The object of their search was not at the Morgue.
They proceeded across Paris to the H?pital Malesherbes, but at the Place de l'Opera Dean asked to be put down. The journalist promised to 'phone to the Grand Hotel if anything of interest came to light, and Arthur Dean went to make his report to Lars Larssen. It was already past mid-day, and without doubt the shipowner would be impatient to hear news.
Only stopping at a telephone call office for a few minutes, Dean hurried to his employer's suite of rooms.
"Well?" asked Lars Larssen.
"To begin at the beginning, sir, I waited last night in the Rue Laffitte until Mr Matheson came out of his office. It was not long before he appeared, and then----"
The shipowner interrupted curtly. "I want the heart of the matter."
Dean gulped and answered: "I believe Mr Matheson has been murdered."
"Believe! Do you know?"
"Of course I don't know for certain, sir; but this morning I assisted at the finding of his coat and stick on the