Chapter 11 #2
He caught the surprised look on Alex’s face as Fournier eyed him through that sharp, narrowed gaze, much like a fox, he thought, eyeing its next meal.
“You can promise this?”
He was taking a risk. Yet he was certain Sir Ridley would have to agree if they wanted the information. He nodded.
Fournier continued to stare at him, then eventually replied, “I will see what can be learned. How long will you be in Calais?”
“For the night,” Brodie replied.
It was now 15 October. Three days until that date that had been in the communication the contact with the CID in France had intercepted. That meant that whatever was to happen would be in three days.
“You are welcome to stay at the hotel that my brother-in-law owns,” Fournier told them. “Courtesy of the casino.” He grinned.
A dangerous proposition. As far as he knew from Munro, Fournier wasn’t married and didn’t have a brother-in-law.
“We will return tomorrow night for the information.” Brodie replied.
“It is quite late,” Alex commented as they left Fournier’s office. “We might have taken him up on the offer. And I certainly do not have access to twenty-five thousand pounds.”
“It is always best to keep to oneself as much as possible. Others have been known to disappear after the man’s hospitality.”
“I see,” he replied. “Quite right, then.”
“There is a place,” Brodie commented. The tavern where he had stayed with Mikaela.
“I know an innkeeper down at the waterfront. The less he knows about you, or me, for that matter, the better.”
They found a driver and returned to the main street at the waterfront. He had the driver let them off short of the inn, and they walked the rest of the way. He made certain they weren’t followed.
“Turn up the collar of yer coat,” he told Alex as they reached the inn. “It’s best the clerk canna remember wot ye look like. And dinna say anything.”
It was a typical waterfront inn that served up hot meals and drinks for those traveling on, with rooms for others who needed to spend the night before the next crossing back to Dover or on to the rail station to Paris.
They crossed the tavern to the adjacent room with the front desk. The portly man behind the counter nodded when Brodie requested a room at the back of the inn.
He signed in with the name he had used before when he was there with Mikaela—Mr. Smith—and paid in advance.
“Number three, Mr. Smith. Very good to see you again,” the innkeeper said and handed him the key.
“A room at the back?” Alex asked as they walked to the back of the inn.
“There is a back entrance, if we need to leave of a sudden.”
Alex’s eyes widened. “You’ve done this before.”
“Aye.”
This particular time he was not looking forward to sharing a room or a bed with Alex Sinclair.
The room was sparsely furnished but clean, with a coal stove. The fee for the room had included the coal. There was a single electric lamp on a small table with two chairs and a washstand. The bed was just big enough for one. As he remembered, the accommodation was across the hall.
“You can have the bed,” Brodie told him. “I’ll make use of the blankets before the stove.”
“Are you certain, Mr. Brodie? The floor will be quite hard and cold.” He glanced skeptically at the bed. “I don’t take up much room.”
Brodie looked over at the bed. “I’ll take the floor.”
They left the inn early the next morning and walked the waterfront, each taking a different direction to cover the length of it before the tide went out, taking ferries, steamboats, and fishing trawlers out along the coast or across the channel.
“Dinna give yer name or any information about the reason yer here,” Brodie cautioned before they set off.
They met back at the inn at noon. Alex had found the slip where the Celeste Marie put to sea days before.
A dock worker who usually manned the slip along with two others alongside remembered thinking it strange there was no cargo.
The man knew Caspian, who would take any cargo, legal or not, as long as there was enough money in it.
Brodie returned to the dock where Alex had spoken with the worker. He told them the Capitaine de Port might be able to tell them more about Caspian...for a fee. He directed them to the man’s office.
Monsieur Guillard was the Captain of the Port. He had just returned from handling an accident where two vessels collided, determined to have the same slip. Neither ship was badly damaged—however, a fight had broken out between the crews.
Guillard was stocky, with a pencil-thin moustache and a weary expression as he shouted at his assistant that a report would need to be made.
“I have no time for complaints about lost cargo at the moment. You will need to return and complete the necessary paperwork.” He spoke flawless English, as did a good many at Calais.
Brodie explained that he was not there regarding a cargo, but for information about Emil Caspian.
“Caspian? The man is a liar and a thief!” he exclaimed. “He owes fees for the use of a slip, and now he has disappeared. If the man owes you money, I wish you luck. The next time he shows his face in port, I will have his boat seized. Said he would pay everything he owes when he returns.”
“He was supposed to come into some money? From a cargo?” Brodie inquired.
“More lies. Persuaded me to allow him to leave port and not seize his boat this time, after he met with a man who was to pay him for his next shipment.”
“Where did he meet the man?”
“Here the day he left. I had the authorities here to take the boat. I knew the two men he had with him. Good men, but I could not continue to allow him the use of the slip when there are others waiting for a berth.
“This is a busy port, day and night. If one is turned away, it may be a cargo lost or a lost fee. And then it would be my position.”
“What about the man he met with?”
“He owes you money as well? The man was German, possibly Austrian with a thick accent. They spoke about the cargo Caspian was to secure in London. But that was the strange part. The cargo wasn’t the usual sort for one like him—wool, cotton, or metals.”
“What was the cargo?” Brodie asked.
The man hesitated. Brodie pushed a twenty-pound note across the counter that would undoubtedly never be seen on the account books for the Port of Calais.
“It was a person, not cargo. He was to pick up a passenger and make certain he had the package with him before leaving London.”
“Yer certain?”
“I overheard the German mention ‘him,’ someone important it seemed. They were to meet.” He hesitated. “He might have said something more...”
Brodie handed him another ten-pound note, undoubtedly more than the man earned in a month.
Caspian, heavily in debt, unable even to pay for the use of a slip, had inquired if the man would need to make a return trip. The man shook his head.
“He said that he would be traveling on after they concluded their business. The German left and went to the casino. Caspian put to sea the next morning.”
“Do you believe him?” Alex inquired after they left.
A steam ferry provided for someone’s use.
Not for a cargo but for someone Caspian was to meet.
And he was to make certain he had a package with him that the German was waiting for.
And a date, 18 October, three days away, when the German would be waiting at the casino. Except that Caspian was now dead.