Free The Milliner's Hat Mystery by Basil Thomson

ushered into the acting chief’s room, who rose to receive them.
    Verneuil had been a petty officer in the French navy. Exposure to the weather had permanently coloured his skin to mahogany. He had a strong sense of caustic humour and there was very little about the foibles of his countrymen and countrywomen that he did not know.
    Goron introduced Vincent as a British colleague who had come to the French Sûreté for help.
    â€œYou are perhaps a colleague of my esteemed friend, Monsieur Richardson.”
    â€œMonsieur Richardson has climbed high,” said Vincent. “He is now one of the chief officers of Scotland Yard.”
    â€œI am not surprised; he was one of those marked for promotion.”
    â€œI hear that your comrade, Monsieur Bigot, is absent. Has he also achieved his promotion?” asked Vincent.
    â€œYou have employed the exact word—achieved, monsieur. He has indeed achieved it, but if you think that it has made him happy and contented you will be mistaken. He has become a slave and a beast of burden.”
    â€œA slave? To whom?”
    â€œTo the most merciless of slave owners—the politicians. He bemoaned to me the other day that he can no longer call his soul his own. His duties now lie in the lobbies of the Chamber, and the very atmosphere in that building is poisoned with intrigue. Perhaps it is the same in your House of Commons, monsieur?”
    Vincent smiled, without committing himself to a reply.
    â€œHowever that may be, in Paris even Wagner’s hero Parsifal, of whom the newspapers are talking, would have succumbed to temptation, not from beauteous maidens emerging from gigantic flower petals but from the corrupting influence of money since, after all, no sane man would seek election as a deputy unless there were something solid to be made out of it.”
    â€œNow, Monsieur Verneuil, let us talk business. We have come to ask to have the dossier of Madame Germaine, the Austrian milliner in the rue Duphot, examined.”
    â€œNothing easier,” replied Verneuil; “if those rascals of mine have kept their files up to date.” He stamped on the floor with his heel. A hangdog police clerk stood wilting in the doorway. “I want the dossier of an Austrian milliner in the rue Duphot, a woman named Germaine.”
    â€œVery good, monsieur.”
    When the dossier was brought, Verneuil scanned the pages, with a whimsical air of surprise. “ Tiens ,” he said, “not a word recorded against her. Madame Germaine is of course her professional name—she is Fräulein Kofler—an Austrian from Vienna.”
    â€œWe on the other side of the Channel have nothing against her unless it be that she is selling hats on an almost incredible scale—to the tune of a hundred thousand francs to a single customer.”
    â€œYou think that she was smuggling them into England? That, surely, would be a matter for your customs officers, not for us.”
    â€œThe man who had the bill which I am going to show you was not at all the type of person who would be trading in women’s hats.”
    â€œBut can you say of any man that he would not trade in women’s hats if he had a pretty woman friend?”
    â€œNot to the tune of one hundred thousand francs.”
    Verneuil shrugged his shoulders. “Not being married I have no first-hand evidence to go upon, but I understand that if a woman were condemned to change her hat ten times a day she would gladly forfeit her chance of eternal salvation. May I see this bill for one hundred thousand francs?”
    Vincent put the bill into his hand. Verneuil scrutinized both the handwriting and the paper.
    â€œHere is a bill my wife received from Madame Germaine this morning,” said Goron.
    Verneuil spread both bills out upon the table and compared them. “They are not in the same handwriting. Tenez , my friend, I myself will call on Madame Germaine and ask her the meaning of this