Prescription: Murder! Volume 1: Authentic Cases From the Files of Alan Hynd (10 page)

Once in a while, with a sad shake of his head, he invited the commissioner into the living quarters of the big stone house and broke open a bottle of Cognac. In time the two men apparently became friends.

Things might have gone on this way indefinitely if, one certain fatal night, the doctor hadn’t gone to Marseilles to enjoy a little of his usual entertainment. Decked out in his corduroy pants and turtleneck sweater, he had hardly settled down in the front row of a bare-bottomed show house when his eyes hit a girl who had just joined the chorus line.

He never even saw the others.

Hustling backstage after the show, the doctor snagged her as she was coming out of the dressing room. Her name was Andrea Audibert and she was a real looker. A brunette at least half a head taller than Bougrat, she was sinewy and lithe, and her wide gray eyes looked out over high cheekbones to promise a time that was a time. Bougrat trotted right along with her to her room near the theater.

Practically every night thereafter, Bougrat, who was obviously a man of considerable stamina, drove down to Marseilles and picked up Andrea. One night the doctor had a startling thought.

“Andrea,” he said, “I have fallen in love with you.” Andrea thought that statement over carefully. Then she told the doctor that she was in love with him, too.

Bougrat, having wearied of the wear and tear of the nightly round-trip between Aix and Marseilles, suggested to Andrea that she come and live in his big stone house. “You can pretend you are my housekeeper,” he said.

Andrea said that the suggestion, attractive as it was, wouldn’t be practical. Bougrat wanted to know why. Because, Andrea replied, she was in the employ of a pimp named Marius.

“I’ll see Marius,” the doctor said, “and have a talk with him.”

“I’m afraid it won’t do much good,” replied Andrea. “He’s a bad man.”

Marius was a real Apache, with a mean, chalky face leering above his black turtleneck sweater. He had quarters near the theater where Andrea worked. The doctor found him there and got right to the point.

“I want Andrea,” the doctor said.

“You already have her.”

“But I don’t want anybody else to have her.”

Marius looked slit-eyed at the doctor and let out a chilling laugh. That apparently ended the negotiations.

There seemed nothing else to do, so Bougrat and Andrea continued their liaison, unmindful of the gathering storm, until a new complication developed. Andrea had become so enamored of the doctor that she no longer put her heart in her work with other clients. The result was that the customers complained to Marius.

Fiery mad, the pimp accosted the doctor one night under a street light. Marius opened the meeting by slowly running his right forefinger across his throat. Then he started to snarl. The doctor, he said, had spoiled a good piece of merchandise, and he demanded reimbursement for the loss.

Bougrat, cheerfully admitting the facts, asked Marius how much he wanted for Andrea. Marius wanted 9,000 francs, equivalent to maybe $5000 at the time or $100,000 today. That was a sizeable sum, far more than Bougrat had. He tried to beat down the price. But the pimp stood firm.

“All right,” said Bougrat, “I’ll raise the money somehow.”

In the late afternoon of the next day, a Friday, Doctor Bougrat was sitting in his office wondering how he would meet the Apache’s terms, when Luck walked in. It planted itself before his desk in the form of a self-effacing little man with a pinched face, buck teeth and a glazed black suit. His name was Jacques Rumèbe, and he was the paymaster of the St. Henri steel pipe mills in Aix. He was also an old patient of Bougrat. The men had been great friends and companions in the army.

The relationship between the doctor and the paymaster had begun years before on the battlefields of Bulgaria, when Bougrat, a medical officer, had treated Private Rumèbe for syphilis. The affliction did not heal, and after the war it began to sap Rumèbe’s strength. The little paymaster feared that if he revealed the seriousness of his condition to his employers that they might replace him. So Rumèbe followed the habit of sneaking into the doctor’s office every Friday afternoon after work to get an injection that would keep him on his feet for another week. Not even Rumèbe’s wife knew he was receiving the treatments. And Bougrat had promised never to mention it to anyone.

Bougrat had come to take the visits of the paymaster for granted until this particular Friday, when Rumèbe had suddenly assumed a new importance. After giving the patient his injection, Bougrat invited him to sit down for a chat.

“Your employers must have great trust in you,” the doctor said, letting you carry all that money from the bank every Saturday.”

“Oh, yes,” said Rumèbe, “they have perfect faith in me.”

“How much money do you really handle? Is it so great an amount?” Bougrat asked.

“Sometimes more than 100,000 francs.”

The doctor gulped.

The following Friday afternoon, when the pipe mills were releasing their workmen for the day, Doctor Bougrat just happened to be passing the main gate in his little blue car. When he saw the paymaster coming out he hailed him.

“I’m glad I ran into you, Rumèbe,” said the doctor. “I won’t be able to take care of you today. But I can see you tomorrow.” Rumèbe, badly in need of the shot, asked eagerly what time. Since the doctor’s office was midway between the bank where Rumèbe picked up the payroll and the factory, Bougrat casually suggested that he drop in on his way back from the bank. The little paymaster couldn’t have been less suspicious.

That evening, according to testimony that was later heard in court, the doctor sat down and, disguising his handwriting, composed a letter to the St. Henri mills. The letter stated that the company’s paymaster was carrying on a secret love affair with a prostitute in Marseilles and should no longer be trusted with money. When the letter was written, the doctor stuck it in his pocket. He was not quite ready to mail it.

A little after 10 the next morning Rumèbe appeared at Bougrat’s office. “How are you feeling?” the doctor asked solicitously. “I need the treatment bad,” the paymaster said. “I don’t know what I’d do if you didn’t give me an injection every week.”

Bougrat smiled understandingly and glanced at the satchel the man was carrying. He prepared a hypodermic needle and told Rumèbe to roll up his sleeve.

“This will take care of you,” the doctor said gently, and rammed the needle in.

When, by noon, Rumèbe had not turned up at the St. Henri mills, the police were summoned. Within an hour the whole town knew the paymaster had disappeared with the payroll.

Doctor Bougrat did not budge from his house until nearly dusk, when he took the short walk to the post office. He had just reached the outside mail slot when the local gendarme came by on his beat. They exchanged greetings and the doctor asked what was new. The cop was surprised that the doctor hadn’t heard, Rumèbe the paymaster had disappeared with more than 100,000 francs of his employer’s money.

“Parbleu!” the doctor swore. “What a terrible thing to do.”

“Is he a patient of yours, Doctor?”

“No, I don’t recall ever having seen the man.”

“No matter,” the policeman said. “He will not get far. The Sûreté has an alert out, and every train, every bus, even every car around here is being watched.” The cop looked thoughtful. “One could almost wish he had a chance: it is a lot of money. Au revoir, monsieur.”

The gendarme walked away, and Doctor Bougrat looked after him pensively. He dropped the letter to the mill in the slot and returned home.

A little later Doctor Bougrat got into his car. He had intended to head for the Rhone to dispose of a recent but decidedly embarrassing acquisition. In the light of what the gendarme had said, however, that errand was out of the question for the time being. He would simply have to leave the thing in the closet locked up.

So, instead of the Rhone, Bougrat lit out for Marseilles. He found Marius and said he had come with the money for Andrea. The Apache counted his 9,000 francs, stuck the money in his pocket, and told the doctor where he could find Andrea. As an afterthought he added a suggestion where they could both go.

Bougrat picked up the girl and drove her to Aix to assume the role of housekeeper. Andrea wondered whether the scheme would work. The doctor was sure it would if, instead of being rouged to the ears, she wore no make-up and dressed conservatively.

On Sunday morning Andrea got up ahead of the doctor to make an omelet for breakfast. Looking around for a skillet, she found she couldn’t open the door of one of the kitchen closets. Going to the foot of the stairs, she relayed word of her plight to the doctor.

“We don’t use that closet anymore,” Bougrat called down. “And never mind about the skillet. I’ll just take some fruit for breakfast.”

All week end the hunt went on through the countryside for the missing paymaster. Official and unofficial opinion had become divided as to whether Rumèbe was an absconder or a murder victim. But on Monday morning when the doctor’s anonymous letter arrived at the St. Henri mills, the answer seemed certain. Rumèbe, the timid little man, leading a double life, had obviously taken French leave with the payroll.

While the whole town of Aix was talking about Rumèbe, a couple of paperhangers, hurriedly summoned by the doctor, were busy in the kitchen of the big stone house. When they came to the door that Andrea hadn’t been able to open, one of them noticed it had been nailed up. Sticking his head into the adjoining office, he asked Bougrat what he wanted done about it.

“Tear off the outside frame,” said the doctor, “and paper over it. There are so many wires and heating pipes inside that it is useless.”

Late that afternoon, who should pop up in Aix but Commissioner Robert of the Sûreté? After buzzing around town trying to extract some clue that might lead him to Rumèbe, Robert went up to the door of Doctor Bougrat’s house and pulled the bell. Andrea, dressed in a demure black frock, answered. Robert gave the girl a puzzled double-take.

“Haven’t I seen you someplace before?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t know, monsieur,” answered Andrea politely.

Robert cocked his head and eyed her steadily for a moment, as policemen have a habit of doing. She looked slightly uncomfortable, but it was a little late for Andrea to start blushing, so she didn’t.

“Is the Doctor in?” the commissioner finally asked.

“Oui, monsieur,” said Andrea. “But he is busy just now. Will you wait?”

Robert nodded, his eyes still on her, and she showed him to a seat.

When the doctor had dismissed his patient, he came into the waiting room with his usual sad smile

“I’ll bet I know why you’re down here, Commissioner,” he said. “Isn’t it terrible about that paymaster?”

“Did you know him?” asked Robert. “Did you ever have occasion to treat him for anything?”

Bougrat looked off into space. “That’s the strange thing,” he mused. “This is not a large town, yet I can’t recall ever having laid eyes on the man.”

“Or hear any stories about him?”

Bougrat shook his head, and Robert got up to go.

“Don’t be in a rush, Commissioner,” said the doctor. “Stay and have a drink with me.”

He led the commissioner to the dining room, next to the kitchen where the paperhangers were at work. Robert, hearing them, peered in curiously. Bougrat explained,

“I’m having the kitchen done over. How do you like the paper?”

“Looks fine,” said Robert. He glanced at the old paper still exposed, and noted that it seemed hardly faded at all.

The commissioner left shortly, and as he was returning to Marseilles through the thickening dusk, he couldn’t get the girl at the doctor’s house out of his mind. He was sure that he had seen her someplace before.

On an impulse he returned to his office. There he began to flip through the picture files of girls who had come under the scrutiny of the police for anything from prostitution to murder. Hours passed. Along toward midnight, when Robert was fortifying himself with glass after glass of black coffee, he came to the picture he was looking for.

Andrea Audibert, it seemed, had been brought to Marseilles from Paris not long before to appear in third-rate music halls and double as a prostitute. And the man who had brought her was Marius.

Now Robert went to another file. Presently he was scanning all the cops knew about the pimp. One opinion stuck out: Marius was perhaps the hardest man in the Marseilles underworld with a franc. Going back to his desk, Commissioner Robert sat sipping hot black coffee, lost in thought. If Andrea had been one of the stable of girls maintained by Marius, how come she had made the jump from Marseilles to the doctor’s home? Had she just been up in Aix temporarily when Robert called? He thought not. There had been something about the way she had stood in the doorway that led him to believe she was in permanent residence. Perhaps it was her very lack of make-up, most unusual in a
femme de joie
.

Robert started sniffing around the waterfront dives of Marseilles. Among a host of minor items, he learned that Marius, unlike most Apaches, believed in banks. At the bank where the pimp kept his money, Robert found out that he had made a deposit of 9,000 francs, on the Monday after the paymaster dropped from sight.

The commissioner wondered if there was a connection between the bank deposit and the appearance of the prostitute in the doctor’s house. He also wondered if there was a connection with the disappearance of the paymaster. Had that anonymous letter to the mill been a fake, a red herring to throw the police off?

He had to get some answers. Sneaking into Aix at night, Robert watched the stone house where the doctor lived. He could see, moving on the window shades, two shadows, obviously those of Bougrat and the Audibert doll. When the lights went out, Robert let himself into the garage.

He didn’t know exactly what he was looking for, but after a little poking around he lifted up the rumble seat. Thus he came upon that Apache attire of the doctor’s. Why, Robert asked himself, would the doctor have been driving around with that rig in the rumble seat? Inevitably it was a disguise. And it must have been used where such clothes were common, in the dives of Marseilles. The commissioner’s mind clicked on. There the doctor must have met, and purchased, the girl who was now living in the big stone house.