Flykiller

‘Auguste-Alphonse felt particularly honoured to have Henri Philippe stay at his house, Inspector, before coming out here to spend a few days away from the crowd. A man of the soil. Noelle visited frequently. Alone, of course, for Auguste was far too busy to take notice. There was, I believe, a strand of blue sapphires which Noelle wore with that dress and the earrings. Like everyone else, Henri Philippe couldn’t help but take notice of her at that party, even though married himself.’

Find the leader of the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans, Hebert had said in the kitchen, but did he suspect Olivier was that leader?

He’d have had him arrested! And what of the dress and the necklace – Hebert hadn’t known of their having been left in that room, had been badly shaken by the news. ‘Monsieur, the Bollinger Cuvee Speciale, the 1925, and Remy-Martin Louis III?’

Had the detectives told no one else of their having found the dress? wondered Hebert. He’d have to stand, would have to face this Surete. ‘Menetrel let it be known he was going to have de Fleury present a little gift to Henri Philippe. Naturally I searched my mind for something suitable, something which would also remind the Marechal of a friendship gone cold since the loss of fortune. I’d had an equally fine Cuvee and cognac sent to the couple’s room that first summer. What better way, then, for me to toast his latest conquest and remind him of our friendship? A man in his eighty-seventh year whose wife, I must tell you, when she discovered the affair with Noelle, took his service revolver out of a drawer and told him in no uncertain terms to choose!’

Ah bon, the ultimate target, then, and either the betrayed wives as the killers or the cuckold. ‘Yet it wasn’t Celine who drank the Cuvee, monsieur. It was Marie-Jacqueline Mailloux.’

A last cage was ignored but for a few handfuls of hurriedly tossed feed, the hawks and eagles still to come.

‘Didn’t you find the bottles I sent for Celine to take with her? A picnic hamper? Saint-Louis crystal, caviar, a little pate, a baguette and some of the Cantal and Saint-Nectaire? I packed these especially for the Marechal and even included a corkscrew he would not fail to recall. My knife … ah, not so handsome as Noelle’s and much worn, but still … I knew he’d recall it and remember the affair.’

‘A Laguiole?’ hazarded St-Cyr.

‘Why, yes. It was one I’d had since a boy. Albert can confirm, since it was he I asked to deliver the hamper to Celine at Chez Crusoe early last Tuesday evening.’

Albert …

‘Inspector, the hamper …’

‘Has not been found.’

‘Was it taken – intercepted?’ demanded Hebert.

‘Perhaps.’

The Laguiole, with its opened blade, was fixed in memory as Ines fought to see and again stumbled blindly. Cascades of what must be seepage clung to the passage walls of these cellars they were now in, cellars that had been built in the twelfth or thirteenth century. At each breath’s escape she knew a little cloud of vapour would appear in the torchlight but still she couldn’t see a thing. Blanche was ahead of her, blocking the light; Herr Kohler well out in front of her, and with the torch. Water trickled distantly, the taste of its sulphur in the air and on the tongue. And wasn’t that what Vichy was all about? she demanded. A coldness that made one cringe, a warmth that was as if subterranean and filled with innuendo, its sound constantly hollow, the air acid?

Celine hadn’t mentioned the chateau’s spring in her letters, nor had Monsieur Olivier said anything about it. But, then, after his first letter, the rest, without names or addresses on their little envelopes of thin paper, had been concealed in those from Celine, and she had had to courier them to others to his contacts in Paris, had wanted to do this. Never the same cafe, never, even, the same contact. No names there either. Just greet as if old friends – the contact always recognizing her from a photo perhaps?

She didn’t know, was not to know, and had accepted this. Simply telephoned a number from a cafe no one could trace her to when a letter arrived, the time and place of meeting then being assigned eight hours before that given and always two streets away to the south from the one given. Even the telephone number to call had changed with each letter.

Wear Shalimar, Celine had said in her last letter. That way, if anything happens to me, M. Olivier will know it’s really you.

St-Cyr had been quick to notice the perfume but would he see that she’d worn it expressly for that purpose?

These days so much had to be hidden. And, yes, Celine had said she would be wearing it too.

‘Stay here,’ said Herr Kohler.

‘No!’ implored Blanche.

‘Please don’t leave us,’ Ines whispered.

‘I’ll only be a minute. Either Albert took the left fork or the right.’