Murder at Renard's (Rose Simpson Mysteries Book 4) (19 page)

‘We are looking at all possible avenues, Miss Simpson. That is just one of many we must consider. At this stage we want to know only if such a thing would be feasible.’ 

‘I suppose it would be. But it’s rather unlikely, isn’t it? For one thing, Monsieur Girard was going backwards and forwards between the storeroom and the shop all evening. If the murderer did come in that way, he would be taking an awful risk of being discovered, unless of course Monsieur Girard was the person who unlocked the door for him. You had better talk to Mary. She’ll be able to tell you whether the storeroom door was unlocked when she tried the key.’

‘Thank you, Miss Simpson, for your words of wisdom. We will naturally be speaking to Miss Jennings in due course, and of course Monsieur Girard himself. Now, if you don’t mind,’ the inspector paused to bestow on her a particularly stern look, ‘I would be grateful if you would refrain from interrupting for the rest of this interview. Otherwise I will have no alternative but to ask you to leave.’

‘In which case I would refuse to answer any more of your questions,’ said Madame Renard.

This was so unexpected that without exception they all turned to stare at her.

‘That is of course your prerogative, Madame. But I don’t think I need to tell you that you would be taking a very grave risk if you refused to answer our questions. By that I mean the conclusions that we would be bound to draw from your refusal to answer would not be favourable. If you are innocent of this murder, you would not be going the right way to make us think so.’  

‘You think I murdered Sylvia? That is ridiculous!’

A flush of colour appeared on Madame Renard’s neck and crept up across her face. Her eyes which had been dull and half veiled by drooping lids and heavily blackened lashes, opened wide and bright. For a moment she even looked as if she might get up and wave her arms about, but presumably on reflection she thought better of it. Her attitude of listless, sullen indifference was replaced by an animated being. This was the Madame Renard with whom Rose was better acquainted. She had been concerned by her employer’s withdrawn and dispirited state. Really, she should have been pleased at the change. Instead she felt inexplicably afraid.

Having provoked a reaction, the inspector showed no signs of relinquishing his advantage.

‘We must investigate every possibility and until we have eliminated a person from our enquiries, they remain a suspect,’ Inspector Deacon said rather coldly. ‘Now, I should like you to tell me about Miss Beckett if you will, Madame. What sort of an employee was she?’

‘Sylvia … ah, she was the sweetest of girls. My customers, they were very fond of her.’

‘Indeed? I was told she could be difficult and uncooperative.’

‘I do not need to ask from whom you heard such stories.’ The proprietor paused to glare at Rose, who herself coloured visibly.

‘It doesn’t matter who told us,’ said the inspector rather abruptly. ‘Are you saying it wasn’t true?’

‘The girl had her moments, like everyone, when she was not on top form as you English say. She could be a little rude sometimes. When this happened I took her aside and had a quiet word with her. The girl, she was receptive.’

‘Was she indeed? I am glad to hear it. I understand she was very fond of your son, and he of her.’

What?
Non
! Who has told you such lies?’

Madame Renard looked indignant. Her eyes blazed and she leant forward in her seat so that she appeared to loom over the desk towards the inspector. Any moment now, Rose thought, she is going to wag a finger at him.

‘It was a mild flirtation that is all. My son, he is a very handsome man and of course he has the good prospects, yes. He could have any girl he likes and he will set his sights high. Higher than poor Sylvia. Jacques, he was pleasant to the girl, nothing more. I am not saying she did not read more into it than there was. She was that silly sort of girl who attributes serious intentions where there are none. She went about with idle young men whose idea was only to amuse themselves. I will not speak ill of the dead, Inspector.’ Madame Renard paused a moment before, having started on a subject on which she had very strong views, she did just that. ‘Poor Sylvia was not at all a satisfactory girl when it came to boys. She was young and pretty and very popular with men. She was one of those girls who get themselves talked about.’

‘I see. But your son, he was not particularly fond of her, you say? It has been suggested to us that you were afraid Miss Beckett and your son had formed an attachment.’

‘Nonsense! I have told you he did not like the girl.’

‘You said no such thing. Isn’t it correct that your main reason for securing your son a job at Harridges
was to get him away from the clutches of Miss Beckett?’

‘No! He needs to learn the trade.’

‘Shall I tell you what I think, Madame Renard? I think your son and Miss Beckett were very fond of each other. I also think that you did not consider the girl to be good enough for him, your words I think, and did your best to distance them from one another. Unfortunately for you, Monsieur Renard came to the fashion event this evening and saw Miss Beckett wearing a dress which, I have been reliably informed, made her look like a princess. He was so taken by her appearance that he uttered an exclamation that was sufficiently loud that it made people turn around and stare at him.’

‘That is not right. He was not fond of her. She … yes, as I have said she may have been fond of him, but what girl wouldn’t have been? But she was not going to marry Jacques. My son, he could see the sort of girl she was. Pah! She gave herself airs and graces that one. The way that she glanced around my shop as if it were already hers; I saw it in her eyes. The way she put her nose in the air and looked at the mannequins and the displays. I could see what was going on in her mind. She was thinking, when this is my shop, I shall put this there, I will have different mannequins, I will sell only couture, I will be mistress of this shop that is what she thought. She was a simple girl. She thought she was too clever for me, but no, I saw through her, her “Madame” this and her “Madame” that. I see what she is after. She would not get it, my shop … my son. She would not get them at all.’

All the while she had been talking, the proprietor’s voice had been rising in both volume and pitch. Her tone had begun measured, but as she had worked herself up into more and more of a state, her words had come out tumbling over each other until she was speaking very fast indeed. Rose thought the whole thing the most awful spectacle. More than once she had been tempted to put out a hand in an attempt to stem the flow. She knew, however, from bitter experience it would not have done any good. Madame Renard was determined to have her say, and nothing would stop her. If possible, Rose did not wish to draw any more attention to Madame Renard’s outburst. In particular, she did not want the policemen to realise how alarmed she had been by it. Far better to pretend it was a regular occurrence and that the proprietor meant nothing by it. It was only words after all.

‘Over my dead body,’ added Madame Renard, as if to avoid any lingering doubt regarding how strongly she felt on the matter.

‘Perhaps it would be more apt to say over
her
dead body,’ said Inspector Deacon quietly.

Behind them Rose heard the sergeant suppress a chuckle.

The colour that had risen so vividly in Madame Renard’s cheeks disappeared, replaced by a chalky pallor. The eyes that only moments before had been alert and bright, became dull and clouded. The hands went back in her lap, clenched tightly together and held fast, as if she were afraid that they had a will of their own. She sat there with her head bowed, as if she knew she had said too much. Looking at her now, Inspector Deacon was certain that he would obtain little more information from her this evening. She would hold him alone responsible for goading her into a temper, so that her words had come cascading out of her mouth almost of their own accord, with little thought given to what she was saying.

‘I would like you to tell me something, Madame,’ said the inspector after a while. ‘We are particularly interested in the time between Miss Beckett returning to the dressing room in that silver gown of hers, which seems to have sparked such a reaction, and when the woman screamed drawing everyone’s attention to the fact that the curtain was alight.’

‘I can’t tell you anything, Inspector. I saw nothing. Lady Celia, she was very angry. She clawed at my arm. Look, you can see the bruises where her fingers dug into my flesh.’ She pushed up the sleeve of her dress to the elbow reveal two angry black smudges on her forearm. ‘It was not my fault if the girl, Sylvia, chose to defy my orders. Yet to hear her talk you would have thought that I’d worn the dress myself. I did my best to stop her making a scene. That woman, Lady Celia, yes? She spoke so loudly, everyone could hear. I saw nothing because I was trying to placate her.’

‘But I am right in thinking that, where you were standing, you would have been facing the curtains and the candelabra? You didn’t perhaps look up for a moment and see something?’

‘I told you. I saw nothing.’

‘It might have been something very small,’ persisted the inspector. ‘Perhaps someone standing rather close to the candles, or perhaps holding the curtain in their hands? They might have been pretending to admire the fabric.’

‘No. The first I was aware of anything was when I heard the woman scream.’

‘Did you see who screamed?’

‘No, I did not. And I am quite, quite sure, Inspector. You do not need to ask me again. My answer, it will not change. My head, it was turned towards Lady Celia all the time.’

‘What about after the scream? Did you by chance see anyone walk over to the corridor in, shall we say, a deliberate fashion?’

‘No, I don’t think so. It is hard to tell. People were running all over the place. It was not possible to say where they were going.’

‘And what about before the scream? Let us say the time between Miss Beckett returning to the dressing room and the scream itself. Did you see anyone walk across the shop and disappear under the arch then?’

‘No.’

There had been a slight hesitation before Madame Renard had given her monosyllabic answer. Rose had picked up on it immediately, and she felt certain the policemen had also. It had been another trap, set to see if the proprietor would answer truthfully. And it was a test that, without a doubt, she had failed.

Rose walked out of the room with Madame Renard. It was possible that Inspector Deacon would have permitted her to remain and discuss the proprietor’s interview with them, drawing conclusions from the answers given. However, she felt little would be achieved by this, for she knew what they would be saying, as clearly as if she were in the room with them now.

Madame Renard had not given a good account of herself. She had come across as highly strung and volatile. When the need arose she had shown herself capable of a violent temper. The police would consider her just the sort of person to pick up a convenient pair of scissors, which just happened to be lying close at hand, and stab Sylvia in a moment of anger. To make matters worse, she had made it very clear how much she had despised the murdered girl, particularly regarding the supposed relationship between Sylvia and her son. It was clear to the most casual observer, and Inspector Deacon was far from being that, that Madame Renard adored her son and would stop at nothing to protect him. And if that wasn’t enough in itself, she had appeared to lie about seeing her son go through the arch into the corridor. Or was it possible that she might not have seen him, deeply embroiled as she had been in discussions with Lady Celia? They might have thought no more of it, or at least given her the benefit of the doubt, had that slight hesitation not given her away.   

All this and more passed through Rose’s head. It would have been enough to engross her thoughts, but there was something else that was on her mind. An additional reason for not wanting to remain in the room at the back, huddled in its close confines with the policemen. She must have a word with Jacques Renard. It might well be her only opportunity. She surveyed the room. Madame Renard had resumed her seat on the sofa and, always the attentive son, Jacques was bent over his mother now ascertaining how she had fared and whether or not she required any further refreshment. While she awaited a suitable opening to draw the young man aside, Rose was provided with an opportunity to consider further something that had been worrying her throughout the interview. She thought how fortunate it was that the inspector had not picked up upon it. It seemed to her so very obvious a point, it was almost remiss of him not to have done so. Thinking about it now, she realised this matter had been troubling her for a while. Why, even Lady Celia had enquired about it during the very brief time she had spent in the shop earlier that day. If Rose remembered rightly, the proprietor had been moaning about the way Sylvia behaved towards her customers. She had made her complaints following Rose’s suggestion that the girl be the mannequin in Lavinia’s absence. Madame Renard had referred to the girl’s bad manners and said that she would scowl at the customers and frighten them away. It had been an exaggeration of course, but it had prompted Lady Celia to make the observation that if that was the case, she was surprised Madame Renard employed the girl. And hadn’t Rose herself often wondered that? Why had Madame Renard continued to employ Sylvia as a shop assistant when she found the girl so unsatisfactory and wanting?

Rose would once have believed it was because the proprietor wished to keep an eye on the relationship developing between her son and Sylvia. But Jacques had effectively been removed from contact with Sylvia following his employment at Harridges. She recalled how Madame Renard had responded to Lady Celia. She remembered how the proprietor had appealed to her to reinforce her claim that Sylvia possessed some redeeming qualities. At the same time, Madame Renard had turned scarlet and fiddled with a button on her blouse. Why hadn’t it occurred to Rose before? It was all so obvious when one thought about it now. There really could only be one logical explanation, one that fitted all the pieces. Sylvia had had a hold over Madame Renard, the possible nature of which for the moment alluded her.

It was with this thought foremost in her mind that she became aware that Jacques had left off his attentions to his mother and now seemed intent on drawing Rose aside.

‘How did it go? My mother’s interview, I mean?’ he said, speaking quietly.

‘I’m afraid it could have gone better. At first she appeared rather uncooperative and then … well, she as good as lost her temper with the inspector.’

‘Did she indeed?’ Jacques frowned. ‘We thought we could hear raised voices, Marcel and I.’

‘Jacques, quickly, I must ask you something,’ said Rose pulling at his arm. He could not fail to notice the urgency in her voice. ‘The sergeant will be coming out any moment now asking for you to go in and be interviewed. We haven’t much time, so please just answer my question. Don’t, whatever you do, become all indignant and say you won’t answer such a question. You’ll just be wasting time. And you needn’t bother asking me why I want to know.’

‘Very well,’ said Jacques, looking more than a little apprehensive. ‘I should tell you, however, that you are beginning to alarm me very much.’

‘That certainly isn’t my intention. Listen to me. Earlier this evening, just before the fashion show, your mother told me that she thought Sylvia was a thief. She accused Sylvia of having stolen from the shop. She didn’t say it to Sylvia’s face. She said it to me. She told me that Sylvia had stolen from the till and had also taken some items, silk stockings, I think your mother said. As you can imagine, she was very upset about it. I daresay a few more items had gone missing than those she told me about.’

‘I say, that’s pretty rum. Poor Mama. I’d have thought better of Sylvia than that. Well, it just goes to show … We needn’t say anything about this to the Inspector. I wouldn’t want him to think badly of the girl. I say,’ said Jacques, a sudden thought having struck him, ‘you’re not going to tell me that my mother tackled Sylvia about it this evening, are you?’ His face had gone quite ashen.

‘No, I don’t think so. For one thing, she wouldn’t have had the chance. But she did say that she would put a stop to Sylvia’s activities.’

‘Surely you don’t mean – ’

‘No, I don’t mean she killed her. As it happens, I think she changed her mind about Sylvia’s guilt.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I think she decided that the thief was someone else entirely. Your mother said as much to me this evening.’

‘I take it she didn’t say whom she suspected?’

‘No, but I’ve got a pretty good idea.’

‘Oh?’

‘I think it was you.’

‘Me? I say, Rose, that’s a bit rich. I – ’

‘Shush! Keep your voice down. I am not saying the thief
is
you, only that I think your mother thinks it’s you. Something must have happened to make her think so. Cheer up. For what it’s worth, I don’t think it was you.’

‘Good. Because I mean to say, if I was going to steal from anyone it would be from Harridges, not from my own mother. For one thing they have a much better selection –’

‘Do be quiet and take this seriously,’ said Rose. ‘I want to know why your mother changed her mind about Sylvia being the thief and decided it was you instead. What happened to make her suspect you? Have you any ideas? I think it would have had to have been something you did today. Up until just before the fashion show, she still thought Sylvia was the thief. But she subsequently changed her mind. That’s to say after the murder, she definitely thought it was you. She must have thought things through during the fashion show.’

‘Today, you say?’ said Jacques, racking his brain. ‘Well, all I can think is that it must be connected with when she caught me going through the papers on her desk. I was looking for something of mine that I thought I might have left there by mistake. Now I come to think of it, she did accuse me of acting like a thief in the night. You know how my mother is one to overreact. I suppose it didn’t help matters that I refused to tell her what I was looking for.’

‘What were you looking for?’

‘Never you mind. It doesn’t matter now. I’ve found out what happened to it.’

‘That doesn’t answer my question, Jacques.’

‘No it doesn’t, does it? It’s funny,’ said Jacques, ‘at the time I thought she was more concerned with the idea that I had been rifling through her private correspondence than anything else. She didn’t mention anything about money. I suppose she must have kept some in the office?’

Rose didn’t reply. She was suddenly thinking about something else entirely.