The Last Judgement

As spectator sports go, however, it could command the attention for only a short time, and after a while he left to go for a walk. He was feeling quite pleased with himself. See if you can talk to Rouxel, Flavia had instructed and, obedient as he was, that was exactly what he’d done. When he’d left Jeanne Armand, he’d promised to bring the picture round the next day; the implication was that he would take it round to her apartment. But there was no reason why he shouldn’t indulge himself in a little misunderstanding so, taking the picture, a taxi and what money he had, he’d gone out to Neuilly-sur-Seine.

A suburb just outside Paris proper, Neuilly is very much a place for the rich middle classes who have the funds to indulge their tastes. Apartment blocks began to spring up in the 1960s, but many of the villas built there still survive, small monuments to France’s first flirtation with the Anglo-Saxon ideal of gardens and privacy and peace and quiet.

Jean Rouxel lived in one such villa, an 1890s’ rusticated art nouveau affair, surrounded by high walls and iron gates. When he arrived, Argyll rang the bell, waited for the little buzzer indicating that the gate had been unlocked, then marched up the garden path.

Rouxel had taken the possession of a garden seriously. Although the English eye could fault the excessive use of gravel and look a little scornfully at the state of the lawn, at least there was a lawn to look scornfully at. The plants were laid out with care as well, with a distinct attempt at the cottage-garden look of domesticated wildness. Certainly there was none of the Cartesian regimentalism with which the French so frequently like to coerce nature. Just as well; however geometrically satisfying, there is always something painful to the English eye about French gardens, creating a tendency to purse the lips and feel sorry for the plants. Rouxel was different; you could tell at a glance that the owner was inclined to let nature take its course. It was a liberal garden, if you can attribute political qualities to horticulture. Owned by someone who was comfortable with the way things were, and didn’t want to tell them how they should be. Good man, thought Argyll as he crunched up the path. It is dangerous to form an opinion about someone merely on his choice of wisteria, but Argyll was half inclined to like Rouxel even before they’d met.

He was even more so inclined when he did. He found Rouxel outside, around the side of the house, looking pensively at a small flower-bed. He was dressed as people should be on a Sunday morning. As with gardens themselves, there are two schools of thought on this: the Anglo-Saxon, which prefers to slope around looking like a vagabond, in old trousers, crumpled shirt and sweater with holes symmetrically located at both elbows. Then there is the Continental school which dons its best and presents itself to the outside world in a haze of eau-de-Cologne after hours of preparation.

However much he was the epitome of French values, Rouxel belonged, sartorially, on English territory. Or at least on an off-shore island: the jacket was a bit too high-quality, the trousers still had a crease in them and the sweater only had one, very small, hole in it. But he was trying, no doubt about it.

As Argyll approached with an amiable smile on his face and Socrates under his arm, Rouxel grunted, bent over — stiffly, as you’d expect from a man in his seventies, but with signs of suppleness none the less — and pounced on a weed, which he ripped out and eyed with triumph. He then placed it carefully in a small wicker basket hanging on his right arm.

‘They’re a devil, aren’t they?’ said Argyll walking up. ‘Weeds, I mean.’

Rouxel turned round and looked at him puzzled for a moment. Then he noted the package and smiled.

‘You’ll be Monsieur Argyll, I imagine,’ he said.

‘Yes. Do forgive me for disturbing you,’ Argyll said as Rouxel looked placidly at him. ‘I hope your granddaughter told you I would be coming...’

‘Jeanne? She did mention she’d met you. I didn’t realize you’d be coming here, though. No matter, you’re most welcome. Let me just get this little one here...’

And he bent down again and resumed the attack on his incipient bindweed problem. ‘There,’ he said with satisfaction when this too had been consigned to the basket. ‘I do love my garden, but I must confess it is becoming a bit of a burden. A brutal occupation, don’t you think? Constantly killing, and spraying and rooting out.’