To Catch a Thief Page 16

  His ambition had put him into his own trap. Ambition and the desire for the glory that would come from a single-handed capture of Le Chat had led him into the first mistake. The rest had followed because of his confidence in his own cleverness.

  He had set a trap for a thief, the trap had clicked shut, a thief had been caught. He had not meant to kill the gypsy. It had been an accident, as he said; he wanted a confession and the jewelry, not the thief’s life. But a dead thief was still the sign of success, and when he stood in the road looking down at the gypsy’s body, already savoring the public triumph he had earned, and saw that the man he had killed was not John Robie, it was harder for him to discard the fact of success than it was to discard his belief that John Robie was the man he wanted. The first lie had been to deny that he had expected to catch John Robie. He had tried to qualify his story to the newspaper reporters, but he could not bring himself to confess failure. Now it was too late. The story had traveled faster than he expected. Already the Ministry had telephoned from Paris to congratulate him on his success.

  There had been a reprimand along with the congratulations. Single-handed strategies were not orthodox procedure, and the Ministry did not approve of killings, even of criminals by officers of the law. He was reminded that la belle France was not Chicago. But results were what counted. The Ministry expressed its appreciation of his success, and implied that it would express its appreciation even more tangibly when he had effected a return of the stolen jewelry to its proper owners. That was important. Most important.

  He could have denied the truth of the story then. He had not been able wholly to abandon the hope that he might still have his reward. But when Oriol, driven at last out of his shell by the report of the death, had come to see the body for himself and flatly told Lepic that he knew the dead man was not the thief, assuming the blame for his own mistakes so that Lepic would not give up the hunt and promising to make a disclosure, at any expense to himself, if it were not carried on, Lepic’s shaky hopes crashed.

  He did not waste his energy damning Oriol for not coming forward sooner. He needed Oriol’s help.

  “I tell you frankly that your mistakes will cost you your position, Commissaire,” he had said. “As my mistakes will cost me mine, unless between us we find Robie quickly. I have gone too far to change my story now, and the recovery of the jewelry is absolutely essential. No one will ask questions if we deliver the jewels. The whole world will ask questions if we do not. You are sure you can recognize him? We must be absolutely certain we have the right man this time.”

  “As sure as I am that I could recognize my own brother. I played boule with him for three years, drank his wine, and had him in my own home.” Oriol spread his thick, callused peasant’s fingers, then closed them into a hard fist. “He gave me his word that he was through thieving.”

  “I give you mine that we will both be publicly disgraced if we do not take him before he can steal again. We still have a chance. Go home, keep your mouth shut, and stay in touch with me.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Be on hand when he attempts another theft.”

  “When will that be?”

  “I can do no more than make a guess, Commissaire. If it is wrong, we are finished.”

  Mr. Paige’s later visit had only made it clearer.

  Mr. Paige was far from satisfied when he left Lepic. He strongly doubted that Lepic believed all he said he believed, and he was not hopeful about a quick recovery of the stolen jewelry in any event. But the possibility kept him from delivering the check for sixty-two thousand dollars to Mrs. Stevens, and when she trapped him in the lobby of the Midi to ask when she could expect her money, he told her that the commissaire divisionnaire had said she might expect her jewels back very soon instead. He was vague about how soon was very soon.

  “But I have to have something before Friday night,” she explained impatiently. “I’m going to the Sanford gala; everyone who is anyone will be there dripping with diamonds, and I can’t go practically stark naked, with nothing but a single necklace. Now that they’ve finished with this awful thief, poor man, I don’t see why I can’t have either the money or my jewelry.”

  “Quite. Quite. Unfortunately the money hasn’t been forwarded, and the jewels haven’t yet been recovered.”

  “Well, why haven’t they?”

  Mr. Paige was so uncomfortable because of the barefaced lie that he twirled his mustache points the wrong way, unwinding them. “The thief wasn’t able to tell anyone what he had done with the stolen goods.”

  “They shouldn’t have shot him until he did, then.”

  “Quite.”

  “Didn’t he leave a map or something?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Well, all I can say is that it was all very badly managed. I never thought much of that Lepic character anyway. Do you think he can find my jewelry before Friday night? That’s two days and a few hours.”

  “I’m sure he’ll try his best.”

  Mrs. Stevens sniffed. “Whatever that is.”

  She told Francie about it during the afternoon. She had decided that an immediate investment of her own money at Cartier’s and Van Cleef & Arpels was the only sure way to insure herself against appearing barefooted and in rags at the gala. It kept her running from shop to shop for the rest of the day. John found Francie alone on the beach and was able to make his apology without witnesses.

  She wore the zebra-striped bathing suit, and lay sunning herself on the sand with a straw beach hat over her face to shield her eyes from the glare. When he spoke to her, she removed the hat long enough to say hello, then put it back so that it hid her face again. It was not a gesture of rudeness; her greeting was pleasant enough, and the hot sun made an eye shade excusable. But she withdrew behind the hat as effectively as if it had been a door closed between them.

  He said, “I shouldn’t have said what I did the other day, Francie. I did it without thinking, and I apologize for it. I would have apologized even if I didn’t intend to ask for the help you offered me and I refused.”

  The hat kept him from seeing her expression. She took so long to answer that he thought she as ignoring him. She said at last, “I was trying to bring myself to apologize to you.”

  “To me? Why?”

  “For not minding my own business. I should have realized that you would have to manage your own affairs in your own way. I did, later. That’s why I haven’t pestered you since.”

  “You never pestered me, Francie. I tried to explain. I don’t want you to get into trouble if something goes wrong. I wouldn’t ask you now if there was any way to avoid it.”

  “Isn’t it all over?”

  “No. Lepic didn’t get the right thief.”

  “He told Mr. Paige he had, according to Mother.”

  “I think it’s a smoke screen. I think he’s inviting another theft. Whether he is or not, I still expect something to happen at the gala, and I want to be there.” A moment later he added, “You won’t involve yourself. All you have to know about me is that I’m a fellow American at the hotel.”

  “So that in an emergency I can always claim that you deceived me as you deceived everyone else, and go my own merry way unsullied? Is that what you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  He thought she sighed. He couldn’t be certain. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking by watching a straw hat, and he doubted that even if she took the hat away her face would tell him anything. His apology hadn’t changed things. She was still the girl he had known first, the one who could sit at a table with him and others, smile when somebody spoke to her, and not be there at all. He had the feeling that she was neither for him nor against him now, only withdrawn.

  He said, “Do you still want to meet Bellini? He asked me to bring you to see him.”

  “When?”

  “Any time. Right now, if you like. It’s not far.”

  He expected her to say that Bellini no longer interested her. Instead
, she pushed the hat away, stood up, reached for a robe hanging on the back of a beach chair and belted it around her.

  “I think meeting Mr. Bellini would be very interesting.” She brushed the sand from her slim bare legs. “I hope he knows something about American girls.”

  “He won’t be surprised to have you call in a bathing suit, if that’s what you mean.”

  “That’s what I mean. What else would I mean?”

  He didn’t know what she meant.

  Bellini bubbled welcome like a boiling teakettle when John brought Francie into the little office.

  “I am honored,” he said breathlessly. “I am delighted.” He put his heels together, bowing deeply. “I am overwhelmed. Do sit down, Miss Stevens. No, not that chair. That is for visitors whom I wish to drive away as quickly as possible. Wait.”

  He struggled to pull up another chair that was too heavy for his bad arm, chuckling at his own clumsiness.

  “How is your charming mother?” he said, beaming, red-faced from the effort before John could help him. “I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting her, although I know her by sight. A lovely woman.”

  “Very well. The robbery upset her, but she’s recovered from it.”

  “There is no further news of her jewelry?”

  “No.”

  “Regrettable. Regrettable.” Bellini peered amiably over his spectacles. “I am sure it will be recovered in time, and in any event there is always the compensation of the insurance. I am a great believer in insurance of all kinds, particularly against theft. There are so many dishonest people about nowadays. One cannot be too careful.”

  Francie laughed. Bellini, delighted with his own wit, laughed with her.

  She said, “I thought John was exaggerating when he told me about you. I see that he wasn’t.”

  “He has been talking about me?” Bellini looked at him with mock reproach. “I don’t trust him. He has probably filled you with all kinds of wild stories.”

  “Very wild.”

  “He is like that.”

  “He told me something that I found very interesting. Something you said about me and my reason for existence, or lack of one.”

  “It was tactless of him.” Bellini shrugged his good shoulder. “But it is true enough. At the time, I had not been able to classify you, and it disturbed me. I had a certain professional interest in you and your mother. John has undoubtedly told you about our little plot.”

  “What do you mean by ‘at the time,’ Mr. Bellini?”

  “Since then I have discovered your raison d’être, of course.”

  “What is it?”

  Bellini giggled. “Don’t you know, Miss Stevens?”

  They looked at each other for a long moment, the fat, round little man beaming brightly, the girl calm and serious. Something that John did not understand passed between them, because Francie said at last, “I wasn’t even sure myself. Is it so obvious?”

  Bellini raised his hands in exaggerated horror. “It’s not obvious at all. Quite the contrary. I arrived at it only by a process of elimination.”

  John said, “What are you talking about?”

  “Miss Stevens’s reason for existence, naturally.”

  “What is it?”

  Francie tried to say something. Bellini spoke first.

  “Currently, I would say it was to help us at the difficult task we have set ourselves. Always one raison d’être at a time. Do you agree, Miss Stevens?”

  She nodded.

  The secret she shared with Bellini was too subtle for John. As Bellini had once told him, his mind did not lend itself to subtleties. He said, “In that case, we had better get down to it. Did you warn Le Borgne off?”

  “He will have the message by now.”

  “Good. The next most important thing is to try to find out what Lepic intends to do, if we can. We have two days.”

  “I have had no luck with him, so far. He does not talk where any of my men can overhear, if he talks at all.” Bellini cocked his head to look at Francie. “Perhaps with an attractive spy in the enemy camp, one with a legitimate reason to ask leading questions because of her mother’s jewelry—”

  He left the suggestion dangling delicately in the air.

  Francie said, “I’ll call on Mr. Lepic in the morning, unless John objects.”

  “Why should he object?”

  “He doesn’t want me to soil my morals with anything underhanded. He’s a great believer in moral values. We had an argument about it once.”

  Bellini looked from her to John and back, then began to giggle. Francie was still serious. It irritated John, not so much that she mocked him but because she did it so gravely. He wished Bellini didn’t find something to laugh at in everything she said.

  The following day was Thursday. The newspapers had had time to give proper attention to the death of the thief. There were photographs, one of the villa where the robbery had been attempted, one of Lepic, his back to the camera in accordance with Sûreté procedures, pointing to the portico from which the gypsy had made his leap, an excellent studio portrait of Mme. Souza wearing a low-cut gown and most of her jewelry, a photograph of the dead man’s head and shoulders. The gypsy was identified by name, and his known record reviewed—several arrests on suspicion, detentions at the maison d’arrêt, no convictions. There followed a tabulation of the thefts that had occurred on the Côte since the beginning of the summer season, listing names, dates, locations, and amounts stolen.

  The accompanying editorial comments, although generally kind to Lepic in a cautious way, still suggested that the death of the thief would prove to be unfortunate in more respects than one, since none of the stolen jewels had been traced. One writer who had been most critical of the Sûreté was not even kind. In his opinion a job half done was not finished, and a botched job worse than one half done. Where were the stolen jewels, M. Lepic? There was an implication that the writer intended to withhold judgment, a hint that he, at least, was not entirely convinced of the truth of Lepic’s story.

  “It will be more than a hint in a few days,” John told Francie when she came to report the results of her call at the commissariat. “Even if the thief doesn’t break into print again, Lepic has got to deliver before somebody challenges him to prove what he says. Do you think he believes it, or is it all a bluff?”

  “I don’t know. I couldn’t get a thing out of him. Mr. Paige told Mother that the insurance money would be held up until the police either recover her jewels or say that they haven’t been able to trace them, so I had a good excuse to ask for something definite from Lepic. All he would tell me was that he expected to be able to locate the jewelry within a few days. He wouldn’t budge from that.”

  “He must know he failed. He can’t have gone as far as he has in the Sûreté without brains. He’ll have to cover the gala.”

  “If you’re certain of that, you needn’t risk going yourself.”

  “It doesn’t follow. If I thought he and the Sûreté could handle it, I wouldn’t be here at all.”

  “But it will be so dangerous for you. If you’re right about him, he’ll be expecting you there.”

  “Mr. Burns has been under his nose all the time. He hasn’t seen me yet.”

  “Mr. Burns can’t hope to go on deceiving the whole Sûreté Nationale forever.”

  It was developing into another argument. He had got along better with Francie when she was urging him to let her help steal her mother’s jewels for a thrill.

  He said, “Let me worry about it. I know what I’m doing. You said the other day that you weren’t going to interfere.”

  “I meant it when I said it. I didn’t know you were going to be such a complete fool.”

  “Whether I am or not, it’s no more true now than it was when I started. I’m not risking anything I haven’t been risking all along. If you really want to help me, do what I ask you to do and let me handle the rest in my own way.”

  He was talking to the air before he finished.
She had walked away.

  She avoided him until Friday afternoon, when they were to leave for the Sanford party. On Friday morning the follow-up stories of the thief’s death had moved to the middle pages of the newspapers and appeared side by side with a list of guests who were to attend the annual fin de saison gala week-end at the Château Combe d’Or. Mimi Sanford had arranged for proper publicity.

  The hard-headed editorial writer pointed out how fortunate it was for all concerned that Commissaire Divisionnaire Lepic had disposed of the thief in good time, since otherwise the gala would offer an unparalleled opportunity to bring off the robbery of a lifetime. Among the expected guests was the most famous of all Parisian couturières, as well known for her jewelry as for her dress creations, and a one-time American cinema star, now the Princess Lila, whose late wedding to her royal Oriental bridegroom had made international headlines partly because she had been married in a bridal gown decorated with six thousand precious stones, wearing with it her husband’s gift of a string of pearls said to have been originally presented to the Queen of Sheba by King Solomon. The prince, occupied with affairs of state, would not attend the gala, but there were others nearly as important to Mimi Sanford’s social triumph—the heir to a doubtful European throne, a Turkish cabinet minister, minor celebrities of various nationalities, and, at the bottom of the list, Mme. Maude Stevens, Mlle. Francie Stevens, M. Jack Burns, and M. le Comte du Pré de la Tour.

  The unexpected news that Paul would be at the gala was a blow. John and Francie had met in the lobby and were waiting with the luggage while Mrs. Stevens made a last minute flying trip to Cartier’s to buy a diamond sunburst she could not possibly do without after hearing about Princess Lila’s pearls, which were insured for a hundred thousand pounds sterling. John said, “I didn’t know Paul even knew the Sanfords. I’ll be handcuffed with him there. He’ll keep his eye on me every minute.”

  “Doesn’t he know the truth?”

  “Only that I’m Le Chat. He’s tried twice to bribe me to stop stealing.”

  “Why haven’t you told him the rest of it?”

  “The same reason I didn’t want to tell you. I don’t want to get him involved.”