To Catch a Thief Read online

  “I will. In a few days. I’m still feeling my way.”

  He continued to feel his way. He was sure that Mrs. Stevens, glittering nightly at the casinos, would catch the thief’s eye in time, but he continued to look for other baits. One trap was good, a dozen were better. He had decided on a second logical victim for the thief and was hunting a third when the necklace of pigeon-blood rubies which had been the cause of his arrest in 1939 was stolen a second time from the wife of the Member of the Chamber of Deputies.

  She had a summer apartment on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice. The thief entered through a skylight which he reached by a dangerous climb up a drainpipe. He had cut a hole in the skylight with a glass cutter, lowered himself into the apartment on a rope, and climbed the rope again to make his escape.

  Another uproar followed the theft. Newspaper editorials attacking the Sûreté’s incompetence continued for days, and cartoons appeared showing a black cat with a ruby necklace around its neck making a popular French gesture at a group of dazed men in police uniform. The editorials ignored the fact that the wife of the Member occupied the apartment under a name which was not her husband’s, since another man shared the apartment with her, and that the police had no knowledge of her presence in Nice. Le Chat was offered to the readers of the newspapers at once as the public menace of the century and as a public benefactor exposing the stupidity and corruption of the Sûreté Nationale.

  Bellini had at least one source of information in every commissariat and public office on the Côte. John heard of the theft almost as soon as the police did. It was a bad blow when Bellini told him the news.

  “I could have had him,” he said. “He was bound to go after the rubies. They’re irresistible. If I had known she was in Nice”—he shook his head angrily—“I could have had him. It would all be over.”

  “Never mind, John.” Bellini was as cheerful as ever. “In a way, it is a good thing. You said he would move in Nice or Cannes, and he has moved in Nice. Very well. Cannes is next. Will we be ready for him when he comes here?”

  “I’m nearly ready now. Another few days.”

  “You don’t think it would be worth while to go to Nice yourself? If he robs there again—”

  “I wouldn’t have time to plan the thefts. He’s already planned them. The acrobatics are nothing, Bellini. It’s the groundwork, the preparation, that takes time. That’s why he needs two or three weeks each time before you hear of him in a new place. He plans all the thefts he is going to make in a neighborhood, then moves fast. I worked the same way myself.”

  “You know best.” Bellini peered owlishly through his spectacles. “You seem certain enough of his thinking processes. Do you have any mental picture, any idea of him as an individual, his appearance, his nationality? I could send several of my people to Nice, if they knew what to watch for. Give me an idea, even a hint.”

  “I haven’t any idea. When I try to picture him, I can only see myself. I’ve thought so much about what to steal and how to steal it that sometimes I forget there is another thief. He’s Le Chat, myself, as if I were looking in a mirror. All I can tell you is that he’s an athlete, a gymnast, possibly an acrobat, strong and agile, with plenty of nerve and a good head. A good thief.”

  “In other words, Le Chat,” Bellini said, chuckling. “Very well. We will wait for him here and leave Nice to the Sûreté. I hope they will have better luck than they have had so far.”

  Lepic, the commissaire divisionnaire who had been sent down from Paris to take charge of the hunt for Le Chat after the publication of the Herald Tribune article, was not as philosophical as Bellini. Lepic was a young man for his position, and he had arrived there by working hard at his job. He had no use for incompetence or sloppy police work, and he did not believe in luck, or very strongly in anything else except his own ability.

  He called a conference of his chief assistants the day after the rubies were stolen.

  “Quoting L’Espoir, we are all as dumb as camels,” he told them. “I know it, and I would not expect any of you individually to be as well informed as the thief, who could not only identify the wife of the Member by sight but has had previous experience with her jewels and could logically be expected to renew his interest in them, so that a routine police check of summer visitors in Nice might—I don’t say would, but might—have disclosed the lady’s identity and given us an opportunity to guard her property properly.” He paused for breath. “But how many men do we have looking for Le Chat in Nice? Thirty? Forty? Fifty? All with copies of his picture, all with a physical description, all presumably alert to question anyone resembling him. And he laughs in our faces. If we have no brains, where are our eyes?”

  He scowled at the only man who was not looking at the floor.

  The man said, “It’s been twelve years since the picture was taken. It was no good even then. It is only a reporter’s snap, not a police photograph. Most of us never saw him in the flesh.”

  “I never saw him in the flesh myself. And I agree that the photo is a poor one. But I have his description here.” Lepic slapped a piece of paper. “You all have it. This man’s appearance has not changed so much in twelve years that he would be unrecognizable. I say it because Le Chat climbs drainpipes like Le Chat, and to do that he must be in the same physical condition that he was twelve years ago, or nearly so. I do not ask you to rely on a poor photograph, because it is not necessary. We have a description of him. How many men do you see outside of a circus who answer this description physically?”

  He rattled the paper at them.

  The man who had spoken before said, “None, or we would question them. He wears clothes to cover the body, as he probably wears whiskers and tinted glasses to hide his face.”

  There was a mumble of assent from the other men.

  Lepic bared his teeth. He said softly, “So at a summer resort like Nice, where the whole world comes to take the sun and water, you cannot find a man with whiskers and tinted glasses who never takes a dip in the sea, never sunbathes, never appears in a bathing suit, always wears clothes covering him to the wrist and ankles, like an undertaker? In this weather.”

  There was no answer. One man shuffled his feet.

  Lepic said, “That is all for the present. Le Chat was here in Nice yesterday. I predict that, in accordance with his usual practice, he will soon make other thefts in Nice before moving to a new locale. We have no brains. We have eyes. Let us try to use the eyes to the best of our ability. Bonsoir, messieurs.”

  Lepic was wrong. The thief committed only one robbery in Nice. John, like Lepic, expected others, but it did not matter to him that they did not occur. He continued with his plans. Lepic, when his men had failed to discover the overdressed undertaker with a beard and tinted spectacles, made further plans of his own which did not oblige him to rely on his assistants. He was ambitious for personal glory.

  John spent several hours of every evening in the casinos nearest to Cannes, at Juan-les-Pins or Antibes or the ultra-fashionable Palm Beach. The Côte was having a good season. The casinos were crowded with women who glittered as Mrs. Stevens glittered and gambled as heavily. Heavy gamblers were always so intent on the fall of the cards or the spin of the ball in its circular track that they paid no attention to the player sitting next to them, if he did not win or lose too much or stare too obviously. The appraisals he made at roulette and baccarat tables were the easiest part of his work. The drudgery came later.

  Bellini helped him with names and addresses, occasionally even with floor plans or blueprints of particular villas. But John spent long hours of the night in the shadows outside one or the other of the villas, studying the house and grounds, noting at what hour the occupants came in, the order in which lights went off, and when the servants first began to stir in the morning, listening for dogs to bark, other sounds. Later he drew from memory careful sketches showing the height of a wall, and how a tree shadowed a corner of the house, and whether window shutters were regularly closed or left o
pen as a matter of household routine, night after night. Most of the Hotel Midi’s guests patronized the casinos, so there was nothing out of the ordinary about a man who frequently stayed out until dawn and came in looking tired.

  He remained awake long enough to make his sketches while the details were still in his mind. He abandoned several of the sketches before they were finished; an unpredictable yard dog made one useless, another lost its purpose when the villa he had been watching closed for the summer. He was accustomed to those disappointments. He returned to the casinos and started again from the beginning.

  But he was working against time, always, and Mrs. Stevens handicapped him. She gambled regularly, always alone. Francie did not enjoy gambling, and he rarely saw her in the evenings. But whenever his work took him near a roulette wheel where Mrs. Stevens was playing, she would welcome him with cries of “Lucky! Lucky Burns! Come over here! I need you! This wheel is ruining me!” He could never escape her after that. She would insist on following him to another table if he walked away, and since she was so talkative and friendly, taking everyone around into her conversation and attracting so much notice with her jewels, her lopsided lipstick, her enormous bets, and her loud laugh that he could not remain inconspicuous, he wasted several evenings. He finally had to go to Bellini for help.

  Bellini said, “You want what?”

  “A girl.”

  Bellini pushed his spectacles down to the top of his nose and looked over them. He began to giggle, the loose fat shaking under his shirt. He said, “I have many business interests, John. But I assure you that one of them is not—”

  “Stop joking,” John said. “I’m having trouble with Mrs. Stevens. She won’t leave me alone, and she attracts too much attention. I need someone to go around with me in the evenings to keep her off.”

  “I see.” Bellini pushed his glasses back where they belonged, still beaming. “Someone young and pretty?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Anybody who won’t be too inquisitive. She’ll have to speak English, of course.”

  Bellini nodded. “But she must be someone young and pretty as well. A gentleman like Mr. Burns would not be interested in an intellectual type. I have just the girl for you.”

  He took one of his business cards out of a drawer and wrote with a scratchy pen. When he had finished, he blew the ink dry.

  “La Plage Nautique, near your hotel. Ask for Danielle. She works there. Tell her what you want with her, and how much you will pay. She has had experience with American gentlemen before.”

  He found the signboard of La Plage Nautique not far from the Hotel Midi’s plage privée. It was one of half a dozen similar signboards along the promenade which advertised small sections of sand open to the public. Each plage had its own chairs and umbrellas for rent, its own paddle boards for hire, its own small row of dressing rooms for the use of its customers, its own professeur de natation. He saw from the sign that the professeur’s name at La Plage Nautique was Claude. There was no mention of Danielle.

  A small flight of wooden steps went down from the promenade to the sand. He stopped at the bottom step to look over the beach. It was crowded and active. He snapped Bellini’s card against his thumb, wondering what to do with it. He could see at least a hundred girls on the plage who were young and pretty and might answer to the name of Danielle. He wished that Bellini had been more specific.

  But Bellini had sent other Americans to La Plage Nautique with his card. Almost immediately a girl in a bikini came up to the steps where he stood. She smiled at him.

  “I am Danielle, m’sieu. Do you want to see me, or Claude?”

  He gave her the card. She read what was on it and said politely, “How do you do, Mr. Burns?”

  “How do you do, Danielle?”

  He thought, Damn Bellini. I can’t use this child.

  She was nineteen or twenty, as pretty as a flower. She had the straight nose and heart-shaped face common to many French girls, widest at the level of the eyes and tapering to a delicate mouth and chin. Her hair was a short mop of blond curls, and her figure was still the figure of a young girl, slim and small-breasted. Her skin was golden brown from the sun. She could have been Mr. Burns’s daughter, the youngest of three or four.

  He told her what he wanted, feeling more ridiculous each minute. He explained that he was alone in Cannes, liked to visit the casinos in the evening but felt out of place without a companion, did not speak French—Mr. Bellini had recommended her highly—he would pay well for her time—she could be sure it would remain a business arrangement—nothing personal—

  He stumbled through it. It was natural for an embarrassed stranger to stumble in the circumstances, and he did not have to pretend a poise he did not feel. He was conscious that she was studying him while he talked, measuring the balding, middle-aged man with the flat feet, wondering how he would behave after the second drink and what he meant by a “business arrangement.” He knew what was going on behind her gravely polite expression. But when he finished at last, half hoping she would think of an excuse to refuse him, she said without hesitation, “I’ll be happy to go with you in the evenings, Mr. Burns. I work here during the day. If that is all right?”

  “That’s fine.”

  “When do you want me to start?”

  “Tonight, if you have no other plans.”

  “Shall I come to your hotel?”

  “I’ll be glad to call for you.”

  “It will be better for me to come to your hotel, I think. Where are you staying?”

  He told her. They set the hour and arranged a price. It was very businesslike after the uncomfortable preliminaries. He felt less like a fool.

  While they were still talking, Claude, the professeur de natation, came up and said, “Qu’est-ce que c’est?” to Danielle, smiling professionally at John.

  She introduced him. He said, “Enchanté.”

  John said, “Tell him I don’t speak French but I’m pleased to meet him.”

  Claude smiled again when Danielle translated. He had a good smile, even though it involved only his mouth. He was a little man with a sleek cap of black hair, hardly taller than Danielle but broad-shouldered, slim-hipped, and muscled like a weight lifter. He wore only bathing trunks, and ropes of muscle crawled under his tanned skin when he moved. John, looking at Claude’s shoulders, thought idly, A good climber, if he isn’t muscle-bound. And immediately, automatically: Thief?

  The thought stirred him. But he knew it was senseless to suspect anyone simply because of overdeveloped arm and shoulder muscles, and after he had listened to the conversation between Claude and Danielle, the suspicion left him.

  Claude was not clever enough to be a successful thief. He was small-minded, and as pompous as a man of his size could be. When Danielle had explained what Mr. Burns wanted of her, he said, “I do not like the looks of the type. He will massage your legs under the table.”

  “They are my legs, not yours.”

  “They are not the type’s, either. Tell him to go break his head against a wall.”

  “I will not. It’s easy money.”

  “And what about me and the beach?”

  “I’ll still be here. He only wants me in the evenings.”

  “Naturally. Certain hours are best for certain things. I know these types.”

  “If he wasn’t looking I’d slap your face, you imbecile. Can’t you see he’s harmless? Bellini wouldn’t send me anyone who was one of those.”

  “He’ll massage your legs at the very least,” Claude said stubbornly. “How do you expect me to feel about that? A man has his pride.”

  “Oh, spread your pride on a piece of bread and eat it!” Danielle was trying to keep the anger from her voice. “You don’t own me.”

  “I’ll spread the type on a piece of bread and eat him if he massages your legs. Tell him that, and don’t stay out so late that you can’t be here on time in the mornings. And get him to patronize the beach while you’re about it. I have no objections to taki
ng his money.” He turned the professional smile in John’s direction. “Au revoir, m’sieu. Enchanté de vous connaître.

  He walked away swelling his chest. The muscles rippled in his back.

  “Doesn’t he approve?” John asked.

  “Oh, yes. I’ll see you this evening, Mr. Burns. Please excuse me now.”

  She hurried after Claude. John did not wait to see if the argument developed further.

  Danielle met him in the lobby of the Midi that night, and regularly afterward. Usually they had dinner together before going on to the casinos. Her wardrobe was not extensive, and because he thought she would feel out of place among the expensively gowned women in the Midi’s huge dining-salon, he took her to smaller, less public restaurants. At the gambling-tables he always bought her a handful of hundred-franc counters when he bought his own. She liked to play, but she insisted on turning everything back to him whenever she won. Actually she cost him very little. She was pretty, chic, well-mannered, and demanded no more attention from him than he wanted to give her. As he had hoped, Mrs. Stevens let him alone when she saw that he had a companion, except for an occasional friendly shout across the table. He continued to look for his baits.

  He saw Francie Stevens eyeing Danielle speculatively one night. Francie never paid any great attention to him, beyond a casual greeting when they passed in the hotel or on the beach. But on an evening when he took Danielle to dinner at a boîte on the Quai St. Pierre, Francie was at the adjoining table with a party of friends. She paid less attention to the friends than she did to John and Danielle, and she did not attempt to hide her interest. The next afternoon, while he was reading his paper in the beach chair, she stopped to talk.

  It surprised him, not only because she stopped but because she was alone. She wore a polka-dot bathing-suit this time. She sat down beside his chair, funneled sand through her hands, and said something about the heat. When they had discussed the weather, they had nothing in common to talk about except Francie’s mother and her gambling.