Basil Thomson
Sir Basil Thomson (1861–1939) had a colourful career. Educated at Eton and Oxford, he entered the Colonial Service, and became a magistrate in Fiji before returning to England and starting to write. He decided to train as a barrister, but soon turned to prison governorship instead, working in Dartmoor and Wormwood Scrubs. As if that were not enough, he joined Scotland Yard and became head of the CID, as well as becoming involved in counter-espionage and interrogating Mata Hari. But after the First World War, he was pushed out of office, and then humiliated by a sex scandal which may or may not have been orchestrated by his enemies.
In 1925, he published Mr Pepper, Investigator, from which this story is taken. The plot is a variation on a familiar theme, turning up in a different guise, for instance, in a popular film of 1950. PC Richardson’s First Case appeared in 1933, and Richardson’s meteoric rise through the ranks of the police is recorded in a series of books. His work, although almost completely forgotten today, earned praise from Dorothy L. Sayers, and merits rediscovery.
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If I had ever had any doubts about the almost uncanny cleverness of Mr Pepper they were dispelled by the way in which he managed the case of Mrs Fraser. True, his first theory had to be abandoned; but it was he who brought the mystery under his searchlight and probed it to the bottom.
On arriving at the office one day, I found him frowning over a typewritten sheet which purported to be a translation from a paragraph from one of the Paris newspapers. The covering letter, I remember, ran as follows:
Dear Pep,—This is something you need to take care of. I would mail you the original but I think you don’t read the lingo.
Yours cordially,
Winston E. Slack.
It was the first intimation I had had that Mr Pepper was called ‘Pep’ by his intimates.
The cutting related to the alleged disappearance of a Scottish lady, Mrs Fraser, in Paris, under circumstances which were highly suspicious, if they were true. Supplemented by information that came to me at a later stage, the story was as follows:
Mrs Fraser and her daughter Mary had been passing the winter in Naples. They left in April and travelled through to Paris without stopping. At the Midi Station a porter trundled a vast trunk to the cab rank and called up a cabman with a pallid, broad face framed in a bushy red beard, who refused to accept the trunk. If it did not sow the seeds of disease in him, he said, it would certainly kill his horse. Mary Fraser, who was the linguist of the two, reasoned with him, and in the end persuaded him to accept the two, trunk and all, for ten francs. They drove to that little family hotel in the Rue Cambon, the Hotel des Etrangers, much frequented by English people with slender means. There followed a fresh dispute with Redbeard, who said that the trunk had strained the springs of his cab, and that sixteen francs was the least that he would take. Mary Fraser, being firm, came to a compromise for twelve; the cabman went off hurling his frank opinion of the English at the concierge, and Mary entered the hotel to find her mother collapsing on a seat in the hall. It fell to Mary to enter their names in the hotel register. She chanced to notice that the name just above theirs was ‘Dupont,’ executed with an elaborate flourish to indicate, I suppose, that the writer was a person of consideration.
The front room in the entre-sol was assigned to them. It was an old-fashioned room with a wooden bedstead, a peeling flowered wall-paper, and a threadbare carpet, but all was clean. Mary had to help her mother up the stairs and lay her on the bed. Her strength seemed to have given way. The porter staggered up the stairs with the trunk and dumped it on the floor: Mrs Fraser groaned with pain at the noise. To her daughter’s anxious questions, she answered faintly that she was feeling very ill: that she supposed it was fatigue; that she might sleep. But she was flushed and swollen, and Miss Fraser determined to send for a doctor, and went down to the manageress.
A doctor? Yes, the Manageress knew a very good doctor—Duphot was his name. All her English visitors when they were ill sent for him and spoke well of him afterwards: she could get him to the hotel in five minutes. Presently Dr Duphot made his appearance. He was the typical French doctor, as round as ball, wearing a black beard cut like a spade. Mary explained the case as well as she could. The doctor listened without speaking, and then made a systematic examination of the sick woman. At last he stood up and addressed Mary Fraser:
‘Mademoiselle, there is no cause for anxiety. I shall telephone for the necessary remedies. In the meantime, stay here with Madame. I shall return in a few moments.’
Mrs Fraser had sunk back exhausted. She was breathing quickly and seemed to be half-delirious. The doctor tarried, and at last Mary, unable any longer to bear the strain, went out to the head of the stairs to call him. She did not go down because from her position she could see his back and shoulders in the telephone-box. He seemed to be speaking emphatically; and the Manageress was hovering about outside, listening. Why all this fuss about her mother unless she were very ill indeed? Mary could bear the suspense no longer: she was on her way down when the doctor left the box and met her on the stairs.
‘You should not have left your mother, Mademoiselle!’ he said gravely, leading the way back into the sickroom. ‘Now listen; there is no cause for anxiety, but it will save time if you go yourself to fetch the drug I require. My colleague, whose address is on this card, will give it to you. As soon as you receive it, come back. I have ordered a cab for you. You can quite safely leave your mother in my care. It is only for a few minutes: you will soon be back.’
There seemed nothing to do but to obey. Mary ran down to the cab and drove off. The sun had set: it began to grow dark as the cab threaded its way through a maze of narrow streets. The distance seemed interminable. At last they crossed the Seine and plunged into another maze. Mary became uneasy and questioned the driver, who answered shortly that the house was now quite near. But it was dark when at last they pulled up at the door of a large block of flats. In spite of the distance they had come, Miss Fraser was surprised at the lowness of the fare. She climbed the interminable stairs to the fifth floor, and touched the bell. The door flew open and a florid woman in a decorated dressing-gown received her as the expected guest. She took her into a tiny sitting-room and bade her feel at home. The doctor was expected every moment: he had gone out on the very business of Mrs Fraser’s illness. And then she branched out into the wonders of Paris. Did Mademoiselle know Paris? Was she under the charm of this capital of the world, so different from London with its gloom and its fogs? She would buy dresses? No? Ah, there was the telephone. Such an infliction, these telephones. She bustled off into the next room and through the communicating door Mary Fraser heard half the conversation and understood about a sixth of it. ‘Up till what hour?’ ‘Eleven?’ ‘Good’—and the conversation ceased. She waited many minutes: her hostess did not return. A clock struck a half-hour. The clock in the room marked eight: her wristwatch 9.30. Heavens, had she been all that time? She would wait no longer. She distrusted this glib, plausible woman. A terror lest she had fallen into a trap began to take hold of her. She crept softly out into the hall to let herself out by the front door. It was locked. She was trapped.
In her terror she shouted ‘Madame’! The door of the telephone room was next to that of the sitting-room. She knocked and, getting no answer, turned the handle. That, too, was locked. She beat upon it with her hands.
The door flew open and there stood Madame, flaming with indignation. What was this? Why all this noise? Locked in? Impossible! No one but their two selves was in the flat. She had not locked the front door and therefore, if it was locked, it was Mademoiselle herself. If she chose to leave just when the doctor was due—he had telephoned that he was coming—well, she was free to go. Mary saw her fumbling in her pocket for the key, and she was first to the door to pull on it. Madame tried it herself and cried, ‘Tiens! It is indeed locked, but how?’ Could she herself have turned the key in absence of mind? What an extraordinary thing! And so saying, she released the catch and threw it open. Before she could close it again Mary was through the gap and racing down the stairs, hearing imploring cries of ‘Mademoiselle!’ growing fainter behind her.
Safe in the street she was not free from her troubles. It had begun to rain and not a vehicle, not even a foot passenger, was to be seen. She hurried from street to street all silent and deserted. At the last she saw the lights of a vehicle which stopped and discharged passengers. She ran and reached it breathless just as the horse began to move. It was a cab and a cab ready for a fare. She gave the name of her hotel and settled down for the interminable drive. But it was not interminable. Two streets, a bridge, the Place de la Concorde, the Rue Cambon, and in five minutes she was at her hotel. It was closed. She rang and a night porter—one she did not know—appeared and asked her politely what she wanted. She replied that she wanted to return to her room. The man admitted her and asked for her name. Fraser? Was she registered? ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Produce the register and I will show you.’ But the name of Fraser was not in the register, nor the name of ‘Dupont,’ the gentleman who wrote his name with a flourish, nor any other name that she had seen on the page.
‘This is the Hotel des Etrangers, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, Mademoiselle, but you must have mistaken your hotel.’
She looked round the hall. It was the same. She asserted that she had been given No. 4 on the first floor.
‘No, Mademoiselle,’ said the man, consulting the room list. ‘There is no one in No. 4.’
‘Then send for the Manageress.’ But this, it seemed, was not to be thought of. When Madame had once retired for the night it would cost him his place if he disturbed her. Mademoiselle had better try to find her own hotel: it must be one of the others in that street. But Mademoiselle was firm. If he would not call the Manageress she would, if she had to force her way into every room in the house. He went off unwillingly to do the deed that might cost him his place and presently Madame, in a dressing-gown and curling pins, appeared. It was the same woman, stern, uncompromising and cold.
‘You wish, Mademoiselle…?’
‘Madame, you know me. I want to go to my mother.’ The woman looked puzzled.
‘Please explain yourself, Mademoiselle. I have never seen you before.’ Mary explained; the register was consulted; the woman persisted that she knew nothing of her story. No doctor had been summoned to the hotel that evening. None of the guests had complained of illness. But, as Mademoiselle appeared to be lost and the hour was late, she would let her sleep there. In the morning she could go to the British Consulate!
And so Mary was assigned a room on the second floor and when all was quiet she took her candle and crept softly down to No. 4 to find her mother. The number was on the door; she was in the room, but it was not the same room. There were no roses on an old wall-paper, but a blue art wall-paper, devoid of pattern: no wooden bedstead, but a brass bedstead of the modern kind: no worn carpet, but a staring new floor covering. The washhandstand was of mahogany with a white marble top. The crockery was different, and so were the chairs. It was not the same room. She was worn out. In her own room she sobbed herself to sleep.
They brought her coffee in the morning, and when she went downstairs to pay for it she found that there was no charge. The Manageress, repenting of her rudeness overnight, was polite and even sympathetic.
At ten o’clock she related her story to the British Vice-Consul, whose only comment was to ask her for the address of her relations in England. It was clear that he did not believe her, but she gave him the address of her uncle in Kensington. He introduced her to a colleague, a pleasant man of middle-age, who took her out to lunch with his wife. She gathered that he was the Consulate doctor, and that he was probing her hallucination to its source. His wife, to whom she told her story, was the first person who believed her, and perhaps it was this sensible lady who procured her another interview with the Vice-Consul and an offer to accompany her to the hotel. He explained his mission to the Manageress, who consented to a questioning of the hotel servants on one condition—that the Police Commissary of the district should be present.
This functionary arrived presently with his clerk and a semi-official enquiry was opened. Mary told her story and the Commissary remarked judicially that two witnesses ought to be called—the red-bearded cabman and Dr Duphot. The clerk went to the telephone while the Manageress was answering the Vice-Consul’s questions. She reasserted that she had never seen Mary Fraser before she arrived late in the evening, that no doctor had been summoned and no lady had complained of illness. The Vice-Consul scrutinized the hotel register and then the cabman was announced. He, too, had never seen Mary, had carried no large trunk, had driven no one to the hotel on the previous day. Yes, he had driven foreigners, of course, but never to this hotel for several weeks. And then the doctor—the same man with his square cut beard. He had never seen Mademoiselle in his life—nor had he been called to the hotel yesterday, or indeed for more than three weeks. His evidence was strictly professional and the more convincing on that account. The Vice-Consul asked to see the room, to question the concierge, and when all was done he took leave ceremoniously and escorted Mary to the Consulate.
She, poor girl, saw from his manner that he was now convinced beyond hope of redemption that she was mentally unstable, but at the Consulate she had no time for brooding: her uncle had arrived from London. Mr Anderson, of Mincing Lane and Vicarage Gate, was not a sympathetic person. He had quarrelled with his sister, Mrs Fraser, many years before and he had come over in response to the Consul’s telegram unwillingly—from what he called a sense of duty, which was really, though he did not know it, the insistence of his wife. After a brief interview with the Vice-Consul he announced that they were leaving by the train at four, and that they must leave for the Gare du Nord immediately.
It was a melancholy journey. Mr Anderson made no reference to his sister, and if he spoke at all it was about the weather. Mary replied in monosyllables. Her aunt’s warm-hearted welcome made up for much, but she, too, said nothing about her mother, nor about Paris or their travels. It was very late and all trooped off to bed. Mary did not sleep.
The details of the story reached me at a later date. All that we had at first was the paragraph in the French newspaper which had published a garbled version of gossip from the Consulate clerks. Mr Pepper was pondering noisily: I did not like to interrupt him, although to me the case seemed simple enough. Miss Fraser, I thought, must be one of those neurotic young women who imagine things. She must have lost first her memory, then her luggage and then herself. The hotel she pitched on as the site for her hallucination about the loss of her mother refused to admit her, and somewhere her mother must be searching for her and for all we knew might already have found her. Mr Pepper fetched a book from the laboratory—an American book about Secret Societies—and while he was turning over the pages with his thick fingers I ventured to ask whether he had formed any theory. He made no answer until he had found the passage he was looking for, and then he said, ‘I want to hear what you think, Mr Meddleston-Jones.’ I told him. He gave a short laugh.
‘The young woman was telling the truth.’
‘Then you think it was a murder?—that she murdered her mother?’
‘Not at all.’ There was a triumphant note in his voice that convinced me that he had solved the problem. I was puzzled and expectant.
‘You noticed,’ he went on, ‘that the daughter described how she was spirited away to the other side of Paris and detained there for hours.’
‘To get her out of the way?’
‘And that when she returned she found the room entirely changed—new wall-paper, new furniture, a new carpet.’
‘You mean that they re-furnished the room while she was away? But why, unless someone had murdered her.’
‘And that these two ladies had come from Naples?’
‘Yes, but I don’t see the connection—’
‘Evidently you’ve never heard of the Mafia.’ Light was beginning to dawn on me.
‘You mean, Mr Pepper, that she was kidnapped by the Mafia.’
‘I mean that this lady, Mrs Fraser, had been dabbling in Naples with politics, as so many of your English women do; that the Mafia took her measure and hunted her out of the place; that she knew too much. First they tried to poison her on the train—a waiter in the restaurant car dropped a pinch of powder into her food, but she was a Scotchwoman and it wasn’t strong enough—and then they went to work in Paris in their usual way. They terrorized the hotel management, the cabman and the others; got the daughter out of the way, terrorized the furniture man and changed the room—’
‘But the doctor?’
‘Oh, he wasn’t a doctor at all. He was the head of the Mafia outfit in Paris. I think I could lay my finger on him in five minutes.’
‘And Mrs Fraser is dead?’
‘Probably not dead yet: she is being held to ransom while they are going through her papers. If she can’t pay they will drop her into the Seine in a sack, probably to-morrow or on Thursday.’
‘Do you know that Mrs Fraser is the sort of woman who would dabble in Neapolitan politics, Mr Pepper?’
‘They all do, or if they don’t the Mafia think they do, which comes to the same thing.’
‘But this is frightful. What are you going to do about it?’
‘I am going to get that Mafia outfit before they get me. That’s what I am going to do. I may want you to run over to Paris some day this week. You speak French, I know.’ He had risen and was putting on his coat. I took the hint and made for the Club with my head full of the impending fate of that poor lady held to ransom in the attic of a filthy Italian lodging-house, with death hanging over her head.
The only man in the smoking-room was Jimmy Boyd, whose practice at the Bar was growing so fast that one scarcely saw him in these days. He laid down his evening paper and seemed inclined to talk.
‘Someone told me that you were mixed up with that Yankee detective fellow, Pepper,’ he said. ‘What’s all this nonsense about a Mrs Fraser and the Mafia?’ He pointed to a paragraph and gave it me to read. These reporters are extraordinarily indiscreet. Nothing escapes them. The paragraph was an English version of the French newspaper account, but it went on to say that Mr Pepper, ‘the world-famous American detective,’ was engaged upon the case and that sensational developments were expected; that there was now reason to believe that Mrs Fraser had been the victim of a widespread secret conspiracy, from which, unless it was unmasked by Mr Pepper, no English traveller would be safe.
‘What I want to know,’ said Boyd, ‘is the identity of Mrs Fraser. It is a common name. In my dancing days I used to know a mother and daughter of that name. They lived in Hampstead when they were not travelling abroad. They were charming people. I wouldn’t have anything happen to them for worlds.’
I had to confess that I did not know them, and could not say where they lived.
‘This Pepper fellow who is always getting his name into the newspapers—’ At this moment a club waiter came up and, addressing Boyd, said, ‘You are wanted on the telephone, sir.’ He left me for a few minutes and returned in some excitement.
‘A most extraordinary thing, Meddleston-Jones. Do you know who called me on the telephone? Miss Fraser herself. She wants me to go to her in Kensington at once. Have you had lunch?’ I had not. ‘Because I want you to go with me. She asked me whether I knew anyone who could help her and begged that I would bring him with me.’
I had no thought of lunch, nor had he. While we were bowling along to Vicarage Gate he told me about Miss Fraser’s journey and her position in her uncle’s house—disbelieved by everyone and treated as a person suffering from delusions. All this she had contrived to tell him on the telephone after two unsuccessful attempts to find him earlier in the day.
Miss Fraser was at luncheon when we arrived, but she came out of the dining-room at once. She was a handsome, slender girl of about twenty-five, a little nervous and overwrought, but perfectly collected. I hung back when she showed us into her uncle’s den, something in her manner and Boyd’s having warned me that they had better be left alone together. In earlier days, I fancy that there must have been a dawning romance between them.
Presently I was called in to hear the whole story from her lips. I don’t know what Boyd had been saying about me, but she treated me as if I were a master of detective science—as if I were the Master himself. It was very flattering to my self-esteem. I was certain after hearing and seeing her that Mr Pepper had been right: she was telling me the actual truth, but when Boyd said suddenly, ‘I believe that Mr Meddleston-Jones is prepared to cross by the next boat if you ask him,’ I was taken aback. How could I do this without consulting Mr Pepper?
‘You see,’ said Boyd, ‘I don’t speak French, and I’ve an important case on to-morrow or I’d come with you. According to the papers you, or this Pepper fellow, have got a theory and you can run it to ground while the scent is fresh. I see that you took notes of the names while Miss Fraser was telling her story. Will you go?’
I looked at my watch. There was just time to catch the four o’clock train. My chief himself had talked about sending me to Paris. Why should I not surprise him? Leaving Jimmy Boyd with Miss Fraser, who really seemed quite grateful to me, I went back to the Club to cash a cheque and to scribble a note to Mr Pepper telling him that business had taken me to Paris for a day or two and that I would keep my eyes open while I was there. I gave him my Paris address in case he should wish to communicate with me.
I pondered deeply over the case on my way over: somehow Mr Pepper’s theory, fantastic though it was, that the daughter was purposely got rid of while the mother was being spirited away and the aspect of the room was changed, did seem to fit the facts. For what other reason could the page in the register have been tampered with? Mrs Fraser was poor; if the photograph shown to me by her daughter did not lie, she was unattractive, but the people who thought it worth while to take all this trouble to kidnap her and cover up their tracks were Southerners actuated by motives quite different from those of reasoning beings like ourselves—motives which Mr Pepper seemed to understand and I did not.
I drove from the Nord Station to the Hotel des Etrangers in the Rue Cambon. I was received by the Manageress, who, to do her justice, did not at all look like a person who would be intimidated into doing what she did not want to do by an Italian with a pistol. I felt that if terrorizing were resorted to in our relations it would be exercised by her without having recourse to any pistol. She did not seem to take to me.
She assigned me a room on the second floor at the back which lent itself to the comedy I intended to play on the morrow. At about nine in the morning I sought her out at the receipt of custom and complained about my room. I was, she was surprised to hear, a literary person, travelling for my health, and I had been medically recommended always to choose a front room on the first floor in every hotel I stayed at. Expense was no object. The lady was sorry but firm. She could not turn the people out of their rooms to meet my wishes: the front rooms of every floor were engaged. I was equally firm. I liked the hotel, but not its back bedrooms. I was writing my experiences for the English papers and if I had been comfortable, I should have liked to mention the Hotel des Etrangers in my article. As it was—
‘You write, Monsieur? Tiens! There is certainly a room, but it is newly decorated, and smells of paint. Would Monsieur like to see it?’
I will not try to describe my emotions when I saw the room in which the drama or tragedy of Mrs Fraser had been enacted. Miss Fraser’s account of it was photographic in its accuracy. My luggage was moved down and I was at last able to lock the door against interruption. My first business was to search the room from top to bottom in order to discover who had supplied the new furniture in a desperate hurry. The furniture itself disclosed no maker’s name, but when I turned back the carpet I was lucky enough to find half a torn billhead:
My conjectures about the case had now taken a more concrete form. There might be other more cogent reasons for getting rid of Mrs Fraser than the suspicions of a secret society, and a news paragraph from Naples had given me a new line to work upon. If I was successful it was Mr Pepper’s wonderful intuition that had furnished me with the first clue and no credit attaches to me, his humble fellow-worker.
With the scrap of paper in my pocket-book I set out on foot for the Rue St. Jacques and visited in turn No. 3, 13, 23, none of which was a shop bearing any name ending in sjean, but No. 33 bore the name ‘Grosjean’ in gilt letters over the shop window, and M. Grosjean dealt in wallpapers, paints and bathroom furniture. I walked in boldly and asked the young man for patterns of wallpapers. He showed me hundreds, but found me hard to please. Not one was of the shade of dark blue that I was looking for. I demanded an interview with the manager, who was vapouring about the office at the back. He emerged a little unwillingly, I thought.
‘I have not seen all your patterns, Monsieur.’
‘Yes, Monsieur; we have no others.’
‘Forgive me, but the pattern I have set my heart on is that which you used in papering the front first-floor bedroom of an hotel in the Rue Cambon last Thursday. You remember, you did it in two hours at the special desire of the authorities?’
The curious change in his features warmed my heart. He was quite a nice-looking French paperhanger when he first came in; he was an unpleasant paperhanger to look upon when I had done with him. Alarm, consternation, suppressed fury possessed his expressive features in turn, and when words failed him and he was reduced to inarticulate hissing, I said suavely, ‘Used it all up, did you? Well, I am sorry. Good morning.’
I took a cab for my next visit, feeling sure that my paperhanger was busy with his telephone.
The policeman on duty in the police station of the Arrondissement was polite but perfectly firm in insisting that I should divulge my business before I had a private interview with his Commissary. He found me equally firm and when I paltered with the truth and said that I represented the Times newspaper in London he departed from his desk to take counsel. Presently he returned and beckoned to me. The Commissary was suspicious and short with me. I said, ‘Monsieur the Commissary, is it an offence to tamper with an hotel register?’
‘If you have a complaint to make, Monsieur, I am listening.’
‘I assume, Monsieur, that it is an offence. I am come to denounce the Manageress of the Hotel des Etrangers, in the Rue Cambon, of erasing the names of two English ladies named Fraser from her register.’
His face was not pretty to look upon. He appeared to be biting his lips to keep the words in. I thought for a moment that he was going to shout for his myrmidons to drop me down an oubliette.
‘No matter, Monsieur,’ I said lightly. ‘I am quite satisfied,’ and then as I was going out I dropped these words over my shoulder:
‘For a newspaper like the Times I am more than satisfied. “Bubonic Plague in Paris. The Eve of the Great Exhibition.” It will be a great sensation, Monsieur. Good day!’
I returned to my hotel, for now, I felt sure, I had nothing to do but to wait. I think that the telephone had been busy; the Manageress’ eyes scorched my face once but did not linger on it. I knew what she was feeling, for I had myself allowed my eyes to rest upon the puff-adder at the Zoo. But I was as easy and unconcerned as that unamiable reptile. Having left my card with the Police Commissary I told the porter that I expected a visitor and went into the salon to wait. Nor was I kept waiting long. The Manageress herself announced my visitor—M. Henri Bonchamps, of the Ministry of the Interior; a very diplomatic gentleman in silk hat and frock coat, brimming over with nervous amiability.
‘Mr Meddleston-Jones? Ah! Monsieur, I am enchanted to make your acquaintance.’ He looked at the retreating form of the Manageress and assured himself that the door was shut behind her. I put a chair for him and he sat down. ‘I call upon you at the desire of the Minister himself. His Excellency would have come in person, but unfortunately he has been summoned to the Elysée and he felt that the business was not one that brooked delay. His Excellency has been shocked at learning only this morning that some of his subordinates have been guilty of proceedings that he condemns in the strongest manner. It appears that a poor lady, a compatriot of yours, Monsieur, arrived in Paris with her daughter a day or two ago. She complained of illness, a doctor was called in; he discovered her to be suffering from bubonic plague contracted, no doubt, in Naples, whence she had come. The doctor notified the police and thus far no exception can be taken. But at this point their zeal ran away with them. They ought, of course to have informed the lady’s daughter and the British Consul, but instead of this they began an elaborate course of concealment. The daughter was sent away on some pretext and during her absence the poor lady was removed to a hospital, where, unfortunately, she died the same night. They then appear to have deliberately deceived the daughter by pretending that the incident had not occurred. This was entirely indefensible and the Minister is taking very serious measures with all the officials and others concerned.
‘You are, no doubt, a relation of the poor lady, Monsieur,—a relation closely connected with the press in England. In tendering His Excellency’s apologies, I am desired to say that the lady was reverently interred in the Père La Chaise cemetery. I have with me the certificate and the title to the grave which His Excellency begs you to accept on behalf of the lady’s family. If there is anything else that you think should be done, Monsieur, you have only to suggest it. There is one request, one hope, I should say, that His Excellency desires to express. He does hope, he does most earnestly hope, that if possible no mention should be made in any newspaper of this most unfortunate occurrence. A mention of bubonic plague, for example, on the very eve of a Great Exhibition, would be deplored by us all—deplored even by your own compatriots in Paris. May I reassure His Excellency on this point?’
The gentleman had discharged his task with delicacy and skill, but I was not at all convinced that the Minister’s indignation and regret had not made its appearance at the moment when he thought he had been found out. I had the documentary evidence, the case was cleared up; I had only to tell the Consul and return to London.
My first visit was to Vicarage Gate, where I broke the news to the aunt and left her to tell Miss Fraser. She was very strongly against any publicity and on this occasion I resolved to tell Mr Pepper something less than the truth. I felt that in all innocence he might happen to mention the case in the hearing of his press agent and these journalists are so dreadfully indiscreet.
I presented myself at the office without saying a word.
‘Well,’ said Mr Pepper, ‘what was Paris like?’
‘Cool and a little showery,’ I replied.
‘Ah!’—a pause—‘did you hear anything about the Fraser case?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘you were right, Mr Pepper, as you generally are, I believe that the furniture in the room was changed while Miss Fraser was out.’
‘Under threats from the Mafia?’ He was begining to crow.
‘Under a threat of some sort emanating from Naples, Mr Pepper—at least, that is what I think. But the poor lady is dead—so the police believe—and the British Consul desires that for the present everything should be left to him. Any publicity at this point would ruin everything.’
‘Ah, well. They will never get the guilty people. You’ll see.’
‘I think you are right in that too, Mr Pepper.’