Free The Milliner's Hat Mystery by Basil Thomson Page B

suggest themselves to me; the first that the invoice was intended to cover a sum of money that had been used for other purposes than hats; the second that it was to conceal the true nature of merchandise of another kind.” Verneuil’s eyes narrowed. “I think that the second of your explanations will prove to be the true one.” 
    â€œBut we have not yet dismissed the first possibility,” said Goron; “that the invoice was intended to cover a sum of money that had been used for other purposes. My wife has a Spanish friend, a lady with a rich husband. She told her that Spanish husbands, however well to do, dislike handing over money to their wives, but that such is their love of outward show that they like their wives to be better dressed than other women and will cheerfully pay extravagant sums to their wives’ dressmakers and milliners. The wives require money to indulge their little weaknesses, so they enter into an unholy alliance with the dressmaker or milliner, who charges the husband an exorbitant price and when he settles the bill the two, that is the wife and her milliner, divide the surplus between them.”
    â€œ Tiens! ” said Verneuil. “I did well to remain a bachelor. All the same, Madame Germaine has all her goods plainly priced and it would be difficult to deceive a French husband. What is the position in your country, Monsieur Vincent?”
    â€œYou must not ask me, for I, too, like you, am still a bachelor and know nothing about the expedients of married ladies who are kept short of cash.”
    â€œWell,” said Goron, “as the meeting has decided against the first proposition by a majority, let us turn to the second; that this invoice covered other merchandise than hats.”
    â€œNow,” said Verneuil, “we are upon the fringe of the truth. What merchandise can run into those figures? There is only one.”
    Goron, with a quick movement of his thin, lithe body, turned upon him. “You mean drugs?” Verneuil nodded significantly without speaking. “Then, Vincent, my friend, I must warn you that you have before you the most difficult case in your career.”
    Goron’s excitement was infectious. Vincent, himself on wires, caught some of it. “Then all the more fun in solving it.”
    â€œThat’s the spirit! We’ll have the fun of solving it together.” They shook hands.
    An amused smile curved Verneuil’s lips. “It is easy to see that you two have preserved your youth.”
    â€œYou see,” explained Goron, “we were opposite numbers as intelligence officers on the French and British general staffs during the war, and my friend will agree with me that we worked together like brothers.”
    â€œAh. Then you had what you call your fun even in those tragic days?”
    â€œYes, if you call it fun to be obsessed with the weight of responsibility for every bit of information we supplied to our chiefs.”
    For the rest of the meal Verneuil was content to remain a listener as the two younger men “swapped yarns” about their service nearly twenty years before. When they had no further excuse for lingering, Vincent said:
    â€œI think that as Monsieur Verneuil has been good enough to find me the former address of those two Americans, I ought to go to the rue Violet this afternoon.”
    â€œThen I’ll come with you,” said Goron; “in a case like this, when American gangsters—is not that the word?—are concerned, two are better than one.” Having arranged to report the result of their expedition to Verneuil a little later, the two friends hailed a taxi.
    â€œTell me,” said Goron when they had given the address to the driver, “what type of man was this in whose room that invoice was found.”
    â€œHe was the cashier of an important bank in London. It is now known that for many months he had been robbing his employers, and the day came