The Death of Dr. Alekhine

By Kevin F. X. Toon

The time: March 24, 1946. The place: Paris. The world chess champion, Dr. Alexander Alekhine, is found dead in his hotel rooms. Was it accident? Or suicide? Or murder?
Detective Inspector Jacques Colbert, a brilliant and highly unusual man, receives the case. With the help of his assistant, Sergeant Guimard, he unravels a tangle of lies, half-truths, false leads, and ambiguous clues. His path leads through Dr. Alekhines character, his murky past and through pre-war and current politics and espionage. In the classic tradition, Inspector Colberts iron logic solves the puzzle.
Along the way meet a kaleidoscope of vivid characters, Russian proverbs, Greek mythology, philosophical references, WWII history, chess lore, wry wit and deep sadness.
The twin aftershocks in the closing pages should satisfy even the most discerning reader.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 18, 2013
• ISBN: 9781481752176

Kevin F. X. Toon

Kevin F. Toon was born in Wagner, South Dakota, a small farming community. Though without financial resources, his family made great efforts to educate him. He showed early promise in every intellectual field. The efforts of his family, and his own, resulted in an astonishing offer for a scholarship from Phillips Academy of Andover, a premier prep school. He was then admitted to Carleton College, where he graduated with a double major, and magna cum laude, in philosophy and classics. From there he earned an MA in philosophy from The University of Texas at Austin. Recognizing that his goal of an academic career was impossible, Mr. Toon returned to mathematics and computer science. While working in the computing field, he again attended graduate school, obtaining an MS degree. For many years he worked as a consultant. He most liked scientific and engineering applications. He was a fine golfer and bowler. He is also a chess master and bridge expert. Because of a remarkable memory, he can recognize almost any piece of classical music upon hearing a few bars. Mr. Toon is now retired in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

Book preview

PART ONE

Opening

 I

DR. ALEXANDER ALEKHINE HELD the title of world chess champion and a law doctorate from the Sorbonne. He authored countless chess books and articles and dazzled audiences with his simultaneous blindfold exhibitions. He spoke seven languages fluently, forgetting nothing he cared to remember.

He was also an alcoholic, a vicious anti-Semite, and a thoroughly unpleasant man.

At this moment he lay dead, and was now equally unpleasant as all the other human beings that have required sanitary disposal. Except, that is, for Detective Inspector Jacques Colbert of the Paris police, for whom the corpse presented an irksome problem.

It was a typical March in Paris—foggy, dank and oppressive. The dull, gray, narrow days reinforced the feeling of gloom. One could hardly believe that in a matter of weeks the foliage would burst, the flowers exude cloying perfume, and young girls again promenade the Champs Elysees in groups, hoping to catch the eye of an eligible suitor.

The Inspector had received the call fifteen minutes ago, just past twelve-thirty. The year was 1946. The date was Sunday, March 24, not quite a year after the German surrender. The Inspector, wearing a light jacket in deference to the weather, trod deliberately up the stairs to the second floor of the Hotel d’Aumont, where a burly, stolid uniformed man patiently stood guard.

The Hotel d’Aumont may be found at the Rue de Jouy, north across from the Ile St. Louis, abutting Schweitzer Square, and nearby the Cite International des Arts and the Pont Marie. It had been a first-class hotel before the war. Now it clung to a genteel respectability inherited from better days. Although the parquet floors in the lobby remained shiny and the brass fixtures polished, the carpeting and overstuffed chairs showed signs of fraying, while the once handsome exterior stone façade suffered from neglect. Neatly clipped hedges flanked the entrance to the hotel, which announced its name on a red canopy in fading white letters.

Outside, a single police vehicle carelessly nudged over the curb onto the sidewalk, defying a no parking sign and blocking other cars. The annoying singsong of emergency sirens wailed in the distance. Green buds peeked out from branches of the lilac and maple trees lining the street.

Families returning from church paraded in their Sunday finery, umbrellas ready, occasionally stopping to peer and point at merchandise through a store window. Little girls liked to squash their noses against the glass. Mothers kept the children in formation like ninepins, scolding them severely when they broke ranks. The boys would pluck at their mother’s sleeve, the girls at their father’s coat, appreciating instinctively which will was weaker. Several generations would sometimes be represented, the old resembling faded blueprints of the young.

I take it, Sergeant, that we await the arrival of the medical examiner, remarked Colbert to the constable, placing on the floor the somewhat bruised, tan-colored leather briefcase he always carried.

Yes sir, replied Sergeant Guimard. He should be here momentarily. Nothing has been moved. The night clerk discovered the body approximately forty-five minutes ago. He called right away. No evidence of criminal intent, but… he shrugged, it was unexpected, so I thought it best to inform you.

The Inspector nodded. A good man, Guimard. And why did the clerk come up to the room?

To deliver lunch, sir. Dr. Alekhine did not like to be bothered before noon. I understand he tended to stay up late, working on his chess schemes. As to that, he added, I understand nothing whatever. I supposed you would.

Just so, said Inspector Colbert dryly. While we await the medical examiner, I should like to look around.

Detective Inspector Jacques Colbert was of average height, slender, middle-aged, clean-shaven, with a generous head of brown hair graying about the temples. His mouth was firm and his expression serious. Otherwise physically unprepossessing, his face held a most expressive, startling pair of blue eyes. He chose words carefully, with a slightly exaggerated courtesy that confirmed most people’s impression of aloofness. There was in truth an aura of noli me tangere about him.

Eschewing fashion, Inspector Colbert never wore a hat. When it rained he carried a small umbrella and donned a trench coat. He despised ties, claiming that they cut off circulation to the brain, so his shirt stayed open at the collar. His clothes were not fashionable, but always tidy and brushed. That, along with his thoughtful and energetic bearing, made it clear that he was a ‘gentleman’. The police uniform remained smothered in mothballs except for special occasions.

The Inspector had never married, observing only that it is a wonderful institution and something a wise man would contemplate all his life.

It might also be mentioned that Inspector Colbert was a former chess champion of Paris, and a patriot: he had been a captain in Leclerc’s army, and returned to police work only after liberation of the city.

Now he glanced about the shabby and unkempt flat. It was chilly and damp, but then most places in Paris had poor heat these days. Chess books, periodicals, and mimeographed papers littered the room, many dog-eared and marked with notations in French, German, or Russian. At least a half-dozen chess sets depicted games in progress.

The late Dr. Alekhine slumped over a desk where he had been examining a position. One hand, clutching a pair of reading glasses, rested on a writing pad. A pen had dropped to the floor and rolled a short distance, picking up dust. Cigarettes littered an ashtray. An open, nearly empty bottle of vodka lay at arm’s reach. A plate with orts from a meal had been pushed to the side.

Colbert knelt beside the body, stiff from rigor mortis. Dr. Alekhine had been tall, almost six feet, with aristocratic and once handsome features ravaged by time and excess. He was trim, not more than twelve stone. The forehead was large and intellectual, the nose finely shaped, the eyes deep-set green, and in life, intimidating. The jaw, now slack, was square, with a bit of stubble on it. There was a slight cleft in the chin. Thinning dark hair, streaked with gray and cropped short, formed a widow’s peak. Dr. Alekhine’s hands were delicate, albeit stained with nicotine, and unacquainted with the calluses of manual labor.

But the great mind that had animated the body was gone.

The clothing was expensive, the labels sporting the names of several famous men’s stores in Paris, though now noticeably threadbare in the cuffs, elbows, and knees. Nor was it clean, the stench of tobacco and alcohol permeating the fabric. The pockets turned up little: a gold watch on a chain, keys, coins, a cigarette case, a snapshot of a heavyset mature woman (his wife?), a worn billfold containing several hundred francs in cash, a cheque-book for a bank in the city.

Examination of the closet revealed older, well-tailored suits, which must have cost dearly at the time of purchase. Among the odds and ends were a collection of ties, a woolen scarf, a pair of house slippers, belts, a heavy coat, and two number 7 fedora silk-lined hats, also of fine quality.

The bedroom was a jumble. Covers were thrown to the side. The Doctor’s sleep patterns confirmed the obvious signs: crumpled cigarette packs littered the floor along with shoes, empty liquor bottles, and dated newspapers. Next to the wrought iron bedstead a pewter gooseneck lamp sat unsteadily on a table. The table also held a second pair of reading glasses, writing materials, and a pocket magnetic chess set. Like many creative people, Dr. Alekhine during the time between wakefulness and sleep occasionally jotted new ideas.

A feeble light shone through the drawn curtains of the window. Opening them revealed sills with chipped paint and cracks embedded with grime. The window lock was frozen shut. The glass outside was filthy, covered with a thin, putrid brownish-yellow film. Someone had attempted half-heartedly to caulk the warping at the bottom of the pane with glue and shredded newspaper. The wallpaper in the room was discolored, cracked, and peeling.

Attached to a scarred chest of drawers was a full-length mirror with a hairline crack. On it laid several poorly bound paperbacks, in French, which signified Dr. Alekhine’s recreational interest in the romans policier. One was uncut. Others were broken so that chunks of pages had loosened. The drawers contained socks, underwear, toiletries, can-opener and corkscrew, bottles of patent medicine and elixirs. Nothing worth investigation. A cheap bookcase accommodated rows of volumes. Most were legal works. Interspersed were historical and philosophical treatises.

An old-fashioned alarm clock dropped ticks into the silence like pebbles into a pool, marking time that no longer mattered.

The chess champion of the world slept with a revolver under his pillow.

Goodness, the Inspector murmured. He beckoned to Sergeant Guimard and held the pillow up to expose the weapon. Have this examined, if you please. Fingerprints, pedigree, caliber, markings, whether it has been fired recently.

The Sergeant carefully guided the weapon into an evidence bag. A strange piece, very old. And there’s a Russian inscription on the grip.

I see, nodded the Inspector. It may be moot, of course, because that is not how he died. Thinking aloud, he ruminated, "But if he had a gun available, and if he intended to commit suicide, why not use it? Poison is a woman’s method. Men commonly shoot themselves. Queer."

He thrust his hands into the pockets of his trench coat, wandered back to the other room, and surveyed it carefully again. He frowned and touched his forehead. Something—

But at that moment the medical examiner arrived. A gaunt, saturnine man with a perpetually gloomy visage, the pathologist, whose name was Pierre Roux, greeted the company with his usual melancholy air.

Ah, Jacques, good to see you again. Such weather! And you too, Sergeant, he added, extending limp handshakes all around. A sad occasion, to be sure, he pronounced with disapproval. Death in its many forms! Indeed. It is difficult to discern the plans of the Great One when—

The Inspector gently broke in. It appears the man has been dead for some time, true?

Let us see. Once Roux started it was difficult to head him off.

He unpacked his kit. He examined the now-insensate green eyes, thumbing back the lids to look underneath. Then with difficulty he removed the dead man’s shoes, the feet turned almost blue. The skin on the arms and legs was mottled.

With growing interest Roux loosened the shirt collar and examined the neck. He donned a pair of rubber gloves, opened the mouth and checked the tongue. Finally he sniffed at Dr. Alekhine’s lips, grimacing in distaste as he did so. After a few minutes he rose, satisfied. His professional speech was clipped and to the point.

Dead between twelve and sixteen hours. This can probably be narrowed somewhat. The proximate cause appears to be asphyxiation, indicated by the condition of the eyes and feet. To put it in layman’s terms, Inspector—he stopped for emphasis and wagged a forefinger—for some reason, which we do not yet know, he stopped breathing for several minutes. This under heavy sedation. As you already know, he was drinking. We will find out roughly how much with a blood test. You may take it as a working hypothesis that his respiratory system failed because of an overdose. Nothing else definite at the moment. Does the body need to remain?