‘Hardly,’ said Mine Kleber, answering for all of them. ‘This whole experience has been far too upsetting for all of us! But please don’t keep us in suspense, monsieur Commissioner, tell us quickly who the murderer is.’
The captain was about to add something to what he had said, but Gauche raised his hand to stop him. This time he had earned the right to a solo performance.
‘I must confess that at first my list of suspects included every single one of you. The process of elimination was long and difficult, but now I can reveal the most crucial point: beside Lord Littleby’s body we discovered one of the Leviathans gold emblems - this one here.’ He tapped the badge on his own lapel.
‘This little trinket belongs to the murderer. As you know, a gold badge could only have been worn by a senior officer of the ship or a first-class passenger. The officers were immediately eliminated from the list of suspects, because they all had their badges in place and no one had requested the shipping line to issue a new emblem to replace one that had been lost. But among the passengers there were four individuals who were not wearing a badge. Mile Stamp, Mme Kleber, M. Milford-Stokes and M. Aono. I have kept this quartet under particularly close observation.
Dr Truffo found himself here because he is a doctor, Mrs Truffo because husband and wife must not be set asunder, and our Russian diplomat because of his snobbish disinclination to appear like a caretaker.’
The commissioner lit his pipe and started pacing around the salon.
‘I have erred, I confess. At the very beginning I suspected monsieur le baronet, but I received timely information concerning his … circumstances, and selected a different target.
You, madam!’ Gauche swung round to face Miss Stamp.
‘As I observed,’ she replied coldly. ‘But I really cannot see what made me appear so suspicious.’
‘Oh, come now!’ said Gauche, surprised. ‘In the first place, everything about you indicates that you suddenly became rich only very recently. That in itself is already highly suspicious. In the second place, you lied about never having been in Paris, even though the words Hotel Ambassadeur are written on your fan in letters of gold. Of course, you stopped carrying the fan, but old Gauche has sharp eyes. I spotted that trinket of yours straight away. It is the sort of thing that expensive hotels give to their guests as mementoes of their stay. The Ambassador happens to stand on the rue de Grenelle, only five minutes’ walk from the scene of the crime. It is a luxurious hotel, very large, and all sorts of people stay in it, so why is the mademoiselle being so secretive, I asked myself. There is something not right here. And I found I couldn’t get the idea of Marie Sanfon out of my head …’ The commissioner smiled disarmingly at Clarissa Stamp. ‘Well, I was casting around in the dark for a while, but eventually I hit upon the right trail, so I offer my apologies, mademoiselle.’
Gauche suddenly noticed that the redheaded baronet had turned as white as a sheet: his jaw was trembling and his green eyes were glaring at the commissioner balefully.
‘What precisely do you mean by … my “circumstances”?’ he said slowly, choking on the words in his fury. ‘What are you implying, mister detective?’
‘Come, come,’ said Gauche, raising a conciliatory hand. ‘Above all else, you must remain calm. You must not become agitated. Your circumstances are your circumstances and they are no one else’s business. I only mentioned them to indicate that you no longer figure among my potential suspects. Where is your emblem, by the way?’
‘I threw it away,’ the baronet replied gruffly, his eyes still looking daggers at Gauche. ‘It’s repulsive! It looks like a golden leech! And …’
‘And it was not fitting for the baronet Milford-Stokes to wear the same kind of nameplate as a rag-tag bunch of nouveaux riches, was it?’ the commissioner remarked shrewdly. ‘Yet another snob.’
Mile Stamp also seemed to have taken offence.
‘Commissioner, your description of exactly what it is that makes me such a suspicious character was most illuminating. Thank you,’ she said acidly, with a jerk of her pointed chin. ‘You have indeed tempered justice with mercy.’
‘When we were still in Aden I sent a number of questions to the prefecture by telegram. I could not wait for the replies because the inquiries that had to be made took some time, but there were several messages waiting for me in Bombay. One of them concerned you, mademoiselle. Now I know that from the age of fourteen, when your parents died, you lived in the country with a female cousin of your mother. She was rich, but miserly. She treated you, her companion, like a slave and kept you on little more than bread and water.’
The Englishwoman blushed and seemed to regret ever having made her comment. Now, my sweet little bird, thought Gauche, let us see how deeply you blush at what comes next!
‘A couple of months ago the old woman died and you discovered she had left her entire estate to you. It is hardly surprising that after so many years under lock and key you should want to get out and travel a bit, to see the world. I expect you had never seen anything of life except in books?’
‘But why did she conceal the fact that she visited Paris?’ Mme Kleber interrupted rudely. ‘Because her hotel was on the street where all those people were killed? She was afraid you would suspect her, was that it?’
‘No,’ laughed Gauche. ‘That was not it. Having suddenly become rich, Mile Stamp acted as any other woman would have done in her place - the first thing she did was to visit Paris, the capital of the world. To admire the beautiful sights of Paris, to dress in the latest Paris fashion and also, well … for romantic adventures.’
The Englishwoman had clenched her fingers together nervously, she was gazing at Gauche imploringly, but nothing was going to stop him now - this fine lady should have known better than to look down her nose at a commissioner of the Paris police.
‘Miss Stamp found romance in plenty. In the Ambassador Hotel she made the acquaintance of an exceptionally suave and handsome gentleman, who is listed in the police files under the name of the Vampire. A shady character who specializes in rich, ageing foreign women. The flames of passion were ignited instantly and - as always happens with the Vampire - they were extinguished without warning. One morning, on the thirteenth of March to be exact, madam, you woke alone and forlorn in a hotel room that you could barely recognize because it was so empty. Your friend had made off with everything except the furniture. They sent me a list of the items that were stolen from you.’ Gauche glanced into his file. ‘Number thirty-eight on the list is “a golden brooch in the form of a whale”. When I read that, I began to understand why Miss Stamp does not like to remember Paris.’
The foolish woman was a pitiful sight now - she had covered her face with her hands and her shoulders were heaving.
‘I have never really suspected Mme Kleber,’ said Gauche, moving on to the next point on his agenda, ‘even though she was unable to give a clear explanation of why she had no emblem.’
‘But why did you ignore what I told you?’ the Japanese butted in. “I told you something very important.’
‘I didn’t ignore it!’ The commissioner swung round to face the speaker. ‘Far from it. I had a word with Mme Kleber and she gave me an explanation that accounted for everything. She suffered so badly during the first stage of pregnancy that her doctor prescribed … certain sedative substances. Afterwards the painful symptoms passed, but the poor woman had already become habituated to the medication, which she took for her nerves and insomnia. She was taking larger and larger doses and the habit was threatening to get out of hand. I had a fatherly word with Mme Kleber and afterwards, under my watchful eye, she threw the vile narcotic into the sea.’ Gauche cast a glance of feigned severity at Renate, who had stuck out her lower lip like a sulky child. ‘Remember, my dear, you promised papa Gauche on your word of honour.’