The Stone leopard

CHAPTER TWO

The police discovered Leon Jouvel hanging from the inside of his bathroom door the following morning

`It will be Saturday night-the body won't even be discovered until Monday morning.. ' It was a shrewd and reasonable calculation on the part of Carel Vanek, but the shrewdest plans can be upset by tiny human factors. Sunday, 19 December, was close to Christmas, so before he left his shop on the Saturday evening Leon Jouvel had persuaded Louise Vallon to come in for a few hours on Sunday morning to help prepare for the expected Monday rush of business. 'I'll pay you double,' he had promised her, 'and in cash, so forget the tax man. And I'll be here at 8.30, so mind you're prompt…'

By nine o'clock on the Sunday morning Louise Vallon, who had her own shop key, was sufficiently surprised by Jouvel's non-appearance to phone him. There was no reply. She called him again at 9.15 and then, growing worried, at regular ten minute intervals.

At 10 am she phoned the police.

The inspector in charge of the surveillance on Jouvel, a man called Rochat, went to the apartment himself; worried about what the reaction from Paris might be. After talking to the medical examiner and checking the scene of the death, Rochat -initially suspicious-was soon convinced that Leon Jouvel had committed suicide. Pursuing this line of inquiry, he quickly found evidence to back up his opinion. A number of Jouvel's friends told him how the Frenchman had seemed worried for several months, that he had complained of lack of sleep, that he had stopped spending his evenings in bars as had once been his habit. No one could say why Jouvel had been worried but Rochat thought he knew when he discussed the case with his detective, Bonheur.

`A widower living alone-first losing interest in his friends, later in life itself. It forms a pattern…'

Rochat's complacent view of the case lasted exactly three hours. It was shattered when he received a call from the Paris prefecture informing him that Andre Boisseau was already on his way to Strasbourg. Forgetting the recent edict from the Elysee, Rochat protested that the Paris prefecture had no jurisdiction outside the capital. 'It is my case,' he said stiffly. He then received a further shock when the caller revealed that it was the police prefect of Paris himself speaking.

`And this,' Grelle blandly informed him, 'does come under my jurisdiction since it may well concern the safety of the president of the French Republic…'

Despite his irritation with what he regarded as Parisian interference in a local affair, Rochat had at least had the sense to phone Boisseau and inform him of the apparent suicide before he left to visit Jouvel's apartment. The man in Paris fired a number of questions at him, put the phone down and went straight to the office of the prefect who was working on Sunday -like a juggler trying to keep half a dozen balls in the air at once.

`Leon Jouvel,' Boisseau announced, 'has just died in Strasbourg. He is supposed to have committed suicide. I don't think that Rochat-the man in charge down there-is too bright. I checked up on him-he's fifty-six and still only an inspector.'

`Does the death have to be suspect?' Grelle inquired.

`Not necessarily, but over the years too many people who were connected with the Leopard have died. Now we hear that Jouvel..

`And,' Grelle smiled grimly, 'since we are getting nowhere at this end you are restless to check something else.'

It was true that they were getting no results from their inquiries in Paris. The discreet surveillance on Danchin and Blanc had turned up nothing promising. Danchin, dedicated to his work as always, had hardly left the Ministry of the Interior where he had an apartment on the first floor overlooking the Place Beauvau, so frequently, unlike other cabinet ministers, he didn't even dine out.

Alain Blanc had also spent long hours at his Ministry, but twice he had visited the address in the Passy district where he met his mistress, Gisele Manton. She, also, had been followed, and Grelle had a detailed list of where she had been and whom she had met. For neither of the two ministers did there seem to be any trace of a Soviet link. Grelle, without revealing it to Boisseau, was beginning to get worried. Could he have made a terrible mistake about the whole business?

`You'd better take a look at Strasbourg,' he said. 'Fly there and back, of course. I need you here in Paris…' It was typical of the prefect that after Boisseau had gone he had personally phoned Strasbourg to inform them that Boisseau was on the way.

As he put down the receiver he was inclined to agree with his deputy's assessment: Inspector Rochat was never going to set the world on fire.

The proprietor, M. Jouvel, has died suddenly. This shop, therefore, will remain closed until further notice.

Lennox stared at the typed notice pasted to the glass door and went on staring beyond it at the girl inside. When he rattled the handle she waved at him to go away and then, as he persisted, came forward glaring and unlocked the door. Taking of his hat, he spoke before she could start abusing him. `I'm a friend of Leon's-this is a great shock to me, you'll understand. Can you tell me what happened?'

Relenting, because he was so polite-and because now she could see him properly she liked what she saw-Louise Vallon, who had just returned from being interviewed by Inspector Rochat, let him inside the shop and told him all the grisly details.

Lennox had the impression that although she managed to bring tears to her eyes, she was rather enjoying the drama of it all. At the end of ten minutes he had heard most of the story; he knew that Leon Jouvel had been found hanging behind his bathroom door, that the time of death was estimated as being between six-thirty and eight-thirty the previous evening.

`They wanted to know whether anyone normally visited him at that time,' the girl explained tearfully. 'The last words he said to me were..'

Lennox excused himself after explaining that he had been away from Strasbourg for some time and had just called to have a word. 'It wasn't a close friendship,' he went on, aware that this conversation might be reported back to the police, `but we had business dealings occasionally.' Telling her that his name was Zuger, that he had to catch a train for Stuttgart, he left the shop, walked a short distance towards the station, and then doubled back over one of the bridges into the old quarter.

The police patrol-car he had seen earlier was still outside No. 49, so he left the vicinity of the rue de l'Rpine. At one in the afternoon it was still very quiet on Sunday in Strasbourg as he wandered round the ancient streets thinking. He found the suicide of Leon Jouvel hard to swallow. The Frenchman had been followed to his home by the unknown man with the newspaper only an hour or so before he had died. He had arranged to meet Lennox the following morning with the expectation of receiving more money in exchange for more information. A man who is contemplating killing himself is hardly likely to show interest in the prospect of acquiring more money. It smells, Lennox told himself; in fact, it more than smells, it stinks.

Over lunch he wondered whether to go straight on to meet the next witness on the list, Robert Philip of Colmar, and then he decided he would wait until Monday. The local Monday newspaper should carry an account of Jouvel's death, which could be enlightening.

Robert Philip, 8 Avenue Raymond Poincare, Colmar, was the second name on the list Col Lasalle had handed over to Alan Lennox. It was also the second name on the list Carel Vanek carried in his head. On Saturday evening the three members of the Soviet Commando pad their bills at their respective hotels and left Strasbourg, driving the forty miles to Colmar through a snowstorm. They arrived in the Hans Andersen-like town of steep-roofed buildings and crooked alleyways at 9.30 pm and again Vanek took precautions, dropping off Lansky with his suitcase near the station, so that only two men arrived together at the hotel.

Lansky walked into the station booking-hall, inquired the time of a train for Lyon for the following day, and then smoked a Gauloise while he waited for a train to come in-any train. Walking out with the three passengers who got off a local from Strasbourg, he crossed the Place de la Gare to the Hotel Bristol which Vanek and Brunner had entered earlier and booked a room in the name of Froissart. The receptionist, noting he had no car, assumed he had just come off the Strasbourg train.

Upstairs in his bedroom, Vanek had followed his usual routine, checking Philip's address in the telephone directory and locating it on the Blay street-guide of Colmar he had obtained from the hall porter. He looked up as Brunner slipped into his room. 'This is very convenient-staying here,' he informed the Czech. 'Philip lives just round the corner…'

`If he is home,' the pessimistic Brunner replied.

`Let's find out…'

Vanek did not use the room phone to call Philip's number; that would have meant going through the hotel switchboard. Instead he went out with Brunner to the car and they drove about a kilometre into the shopping area and entered a bar where Vanek called the number he had found in the directory. The voice which answered the phone was arrogant and brusque. 'Robert Philip…'

`Sorry, wrong number,' Vanek muttered and broke the connection. 'He's home,' he told Brunner. 'Let's go look at the place…

On a snowbound December night at 10.30 pm the Avenue Raymond Poincare was a deserted street of trees and parks with small, grim, two-storey mansions set back behind prison-like railings. No. 8 was a square-looking stone villa with steps leading up to a porch and a gloomy garden beyond the railings. There were lights in the large bay window on the ground floor and the upper storey was in darkness.

`I think you can get round the back,' Brunner said as the Citroen cruised slowly past the villa and he tried to take in as much detail as he could.

`The next thing to check is whether he lives alone,' Vanek remarked. 'Tomorrow is Sunday. If we can check out the place in the daytime I think we might just pay a visit to Mr Robert Philip tomorrow night…'

`One day you will be too quick…

`Tomorrow is 19 December,' Vanek replied calmly. 'We have only four days left to visit two people-one of them across the Rhine in Germany. In speed can lie safety. And this will not be a job for the Rope. We have had one suicide, so Robert Philip will have to die by accident…'

Earlier on the same day, arriving in Strasbourg by helicopter, Boisseau put Inspector Rochat through a grilling almost without Rochat realizing what was happening. He was well aware he must tread warily: unlike Lyon, Grelle had no particular friendship with the prefect of Strasbourg and the locals were prickly about his arrival. After half an hour he suggested that later Rochat must join him for a drink, but first could they visit the dead man's apartment?

It was Boisseau who extracted from detective Bonheur the information that two men had entered No. 49 between 6.30 and 7.15 pm, that the second man had shuffled and carried an umbrella, that later the first man had left at 7.2 pm, followed by the umbrella man half an hour later. 'Which was just about the time Jouvel may have died,' he pointed out to Rochat.

It was Boisseau who interviewed the other tenants in the building and discovered no one could identify the shuffling man, which meant he did not live there. 'Which proves nothing,' he informed Rochat, 'but why did he come here when we can find no one he visited? And half an hour is a long time for a man to enter a building for no purpose.'

It was Boisseau who interviewed Denise Viron, the red-headed girl, obtaining from her a detailed description of two quite different men who had made inquiries about Leon Jouvel the previous day. He made a careful note of the descriptions, observing that neither of them could have been the shuffling man

`Could either of these two men have been English?' he asked at one stage. Denise had shaken her head vigorously, crossing her legs in a provocative way which made Inspector Rochat frown. Boisseau, on the other hand, who was interviewing the girl in her apartment, had noticed the legs appreciatively while he offered her another cigarette.

`Was Jouvel often asked about by people?' he inquired. `Did he have many visitors?'

`Hardly any. The two callers were exceptional…'

Boisseau had not blamed Rochat for failing to dig up this information. It was quite clear that his superiors had resented the Paris police prefect's intrusion on their territory and had ordered the inspector to clear up the case quickly. So, once it seemed clear it was suicide, Rochat had inquired no further.

`You are satisfied?' Rochat suggested as he drove the man from Paris back to the airport.

`Are you?' Boisseau countered.

`Technically everything was as it should be-taking into account Jouvel's short stature, the length of the rope, the position of the bathroom chair he had kicked away from under himself. Only an expert could have faked it.'

`I find your last observation disturbing,' Boisseau said.

Robert Philip, fifty-two years old-the same age as Guy Florian, but there the resemblance ended-rose late from his bed on Sunday morning, and was then annoyed because his companion, Noelle Berger, continued sleeping. Shaking her bare white shoulder roughly, he made his request with his usual finesse.

`Get up, you trollop, I want some breakfast…'

Separated from his wife, he now consoled himself with a series of fleeting affaires, each of which he took care to ensure did not last too long. As he told his drinking cronies, 'Have them in the house for a week and they think they own the place…' Of medium height and gross, heavy figure, Philip had a thatch of reddish hair cut en brosse and a thick moustache of the same reddish tinge. Grumbling, he went downstairs and pulled back the living-room curtain. At the opposite kerb in the normally deserted street was parked a Citroen with the bonnet up and two men peering inside at the engine. A holdall lay on the pavement with tools spread about. 'Serve you right for wasting petrol,' Philip muttered, holding his silk dressing- gown round his middle as he went off into the kitchen. A few minutes later, similarly attired, Noelle Berger, small and blonde-haired and with an ample figure, wandered into the living-room in search of a cigarette.

`See the girl,' Vanek whispered, his head half under the Citroen's bonnet. 'This is going to be complicated.'

`Ideally,' Brunner replied, 'she should be dealt with away from the house…'

`If she leaves the damned place. This is Sunday…'

Robert Philip had been the Leopard's armourer during the war, the man in charge of acquiring weapons and ammunition for the Resistance group, a process which normally involved raiding enemy munition stores, and as such he had been one of the key members of the Leopard's staff. Since the war Philip's career had been a success story-if you measure success by the acquisition of a large villa and a sizeable bank account by dubious means. Philip was a gun-runner.

In 1944, while Resistance groups in the Midi were building up huge caches of weapons to support the Republique Sovietique du Sud the Leopard was on the verge of bringing into existence, Robert Philip was busily diverting some of these weapons to secret hideouts. It must have been a great relief to Philip when the Communist coup failed. Seeing de Gaulle was winning, Philip proclaimed himself a lifelong Gaullist, revealing half of his weapon caches to the General. The other half he salted away as a future investment.

In the years which followed Philip supplied weapons to Fidel Castro in his early days-using the Communist connections he had built up in the Lozere-to Eoka terrorists fighting the British in Cyprus, to Kurdish rebels fighting the Iraqi government, and to anyone hard-pressed enough to pay over-the-odds prices for an inferior product. 'I have,' as he once boasted to a bar companion, 'overtaken my contemporaries.' His wife, Yvonne, now occupied an apartment in Paris. 'I have pensioned her off,' as he was fond of saying. 'After all, I do not believe in treating a woman badly…'

At two in the afternoon Noelle Berger emerged from the villa alone, well wrapped in a fur coat, and walked the few steps which took her to the station, leaving Robert Philip alone in the house. The Citroen which had been parked opposite No. 8 had long since disappeared and the only person in sight was a lean, bony-faced individual who stood gazing into a shop window. Noelle went into the station and bought a return ticket to Strasbourg, taking no notice of the man who came up behind her and in his turn purchased a single to the same city.

Vanek's instructions to Lansky had been simple. 'I don't think she's his wife-she looked far too young and casual. If she comes out, follow her-unless she has a suitcase, in which case she's leaving, so forget her…'

Noelle Berger had decided to go and do some Christmas shopping in Strasbourg to give Philip time to recover his temper.

Let him stew in his own juice, she had reasoned, and then he'll be glad to see me back this evening. In Strasbourg the shops had opened at two-to scoop in more business since it was so close to Christmas-and Noelle spent quite a lot of Philip's money in the rue des Grandes Arcades. Which damned well serves him right she told herself. Later she relented and bought him a bright yellow waistcoat. Once, someone nearly knocked her under the wheels of a bus as she waited at a crowded kerbside, but when she looked round she saw only a fat woman behind her. At the end of the afternoon, laden with purchases, she made her way to the quiet district known as Petite France down by the river. She had decided to have a cup of tea with a friend before catching the train back to Colmar.

At the edge of the lonely Place Benjamin Zhia the river Il divides into three different sections before joining up again lower down, and here an intricate network of footwalks crosses the river. There is a lock-gate, a penned-up channel where the water roars through the bottleneck, and sluices which flood out from under a building beyond. The sound of churning river is deafening. Taking a short cut, Noelle moved out on to the footwalks, quite alone as far as she knew. She was half-way across, she had heard nothing above the growling roar of the water, when something made her turn round. Lansky was one step behind her, both hands upraised. She stared in disbelief as the hands reached her and shoved. She was half-way down before she screamed, and her screams were lost in the boiling sluices which dragged her under and then rushed her at speed towards the Quai des Bateliers. Bobbing on the surface of the racing flood her Christmas purchases had a bizarre, festive look, including a bright yellow waistcoat which broke free from its wrappings.

In twenty minutes Lansky was boarding the turbo-train which would return him to Colmar by seven in the evening. With two people in a house it is too difficult to stage a convincing double 'accident'.