Flykiller

The Surete spread a printed leaflet of some kind on the only free space and pulled hairs from the brush, didn’t ask, Are you in the habit of using this, mademoiselle? Just did it, and made sure he had what he wanted.

‘A telephone?’ he asked. ‘Is there one in the house?’

‘No,’ she heard herself yelp. ‘Not since he … the monsieur was forced to leave the bank. So many made such cruel calls, he … he had to have the instrument disconnected. He who had invested so much of his own money and had worked so hard to bring a modern exchange to Vichy, had to sever all links with it.’

An old exchange, and then a new one – would St-Cyr think to remember this?

He gave no indication, said only, ‘Hermann, Madame Olivier’s clothes,’ and pointed to the chair on which Auguste had set them eighteen years ago on his return from the Pont Barrage. The laudanum bottle was still there on top of her things. St-Cyr took out her knife and laid it there, too …

His voice broke over her and she knew he was watching her closely. ‘Mademoiselle Pascal, is this how you remember its being there?’

That dark blue bottle on its side without its stopper, the Laguiole next to it, Madame Noelle’s crumpled French silk pongee step-ins so soft and cold. ‘Yes … Yes, that is approximately as I first found them but that was nearly two months after she had killed herself. Auguste had locked the room and had tried to shut it all out of his mind. I …’

‘You were to have packed away her things, weren’t you?’

‘He wouldn’t have given them away. “The town’s too small” – too spiteful is what he really meant. “Burn them,” he said but later I knew he had realized I hadn’t, though we never spoke of it.’

‘How often do you come here?’

To lie in Madame Noelle’s bed, to touch her things and smell them, to care for them and wonder why Auguste had loved her so much that he had been blind to her affairs, blind until that moment she had drunk the contents of that bottle and had thrown herself into the river?

‘I came. At first it was not often, and only when he was away on one of his walks, but then, as the years progressed, I needed to discover things and came more often.’

‘Waited?’ asked the Surete softly.

‘Waited, yes, for him to come to me, to me!’

‘Toute nue?’ he demanded.

‘Sometimes,’ she answered.

‘Louis … Louis, don’t be so hard on her. It’s life, n’est-ce pas? Mademoiselle, come and sit down. Rest a little. We’ll soon be done here.’

Done, having stripped her feelings naked!

‘The chateau in this photograph?’ Herr Kohler asked.

‘Aux Oiseaux Splendides!’ she blurted tearfully, couldn’t help herself. ‘Monsieur Charles-Frederic Hebert made certain she and the Marechal were alone together in the late summer of 1924. He had always envied Auguste and saw a chance to destroy him.’

‘And recently? Have this Monsieur Hebert and your employer spoken?’

‘Never.’

‘Ah bon,’ said Louis sadly. ‘And now, mademoiselle, please tell us if you’ve recently seen your employer’s children.’

‘I what?’ she shrilled from where she was now sitting on the edge of the bed. ‘Surely they’re not in Vichy? Well, are they?’ she demanded fiercely.

Anger tightened the lines in her face, making it appear even more sharply angular in the candlelight. ‘Hermann, remind her of to whom she’s speaking.’

‘Louis …’

She would clench her fists, thought Edith, but keep them in her lap, would let her voice erupt in a torrent of derision. ‘Inspector, quelle folie! I could not possibly have seen them. Mon Dieu, they were children when they left. I … Why, how could we have met? They wouldn’t have remembered me. A secretary at a bank they seldom went to with their mother? Believe me, Inspector, to keep such news from Auguste would have been for me to have denied everything I’ve felt for him.’

‘Then you saw no signs of forcible entry?’

She must not yield! ‘None. Had there been any, I would have told Secretaire General Bousquet of them when he came here this afternoon to tell us of the theft.’

He’d shrug nonchalantly. That would be best. ‘Hermann, the housebreaker must have entered unobserved and vanished just as easily.’

‘Auguste … Auguste often leaves the gate unlocked.’

‘Especially if he’s out for a stroll after curfew?’ asked St-Cyr.

Ah Saint Mere! ‘I … Why, yes. Yes, then, too.’

‘Louis, go easy, eh?’

‘The truth is often so hard to reach, mon vieux. Blanche Varollier, her hair, please?’

‘Auburn, Chief. Long, dark and fine,’ replied Hermann perfectly and on cue, even throwing Mademoiselle Pascal a questioning glance and a shrug as if he, too, didn’t know what the hell was up.

‘The brush; mademoiselle, suggests other than what you’ve told us. Someone with just such lovely hair has recently thought to use it frequently.’

Ah no. ‘They … they forced me to let them in.’

Tears streaked her mascara. Agitated fingers tried to stop this as she bowed her head in defeat.