Murder in Lascaux (18 page)

“Unfortunately, Madame, for some in Périgueux that was the case, both before the war and later during the Vichy regime. And Henri Gounot was the principal liaison between Himmler and the bureau. He personally escorted Himmler's emissary to Les Eyzies at the end of the thirties. His correspondence with his Nazi counterparts documents their arrangements to tour the caves of the Dordogne and to meet with French archaeologists. He even arranged for them to meet with the venerable Abbé Breuil. But this brush with evil could not stain that good man's long career.”

“But it did stain Henri Gounot's,” I stated, as flatly as possible.

“Exactly, because with him it was not a brief contact. His association with Himmler's entourage lasted from 1938 to 1945. And his nemesis in the bureau, Michel Malbert, had the documents to prove that.”

“When did Malbert make his accusations?” I asked.

“Not until 1969. That is what gives the son a bit of ground on which to stand. He claims Malbert was motivated by his ambition to replace Henri Gounot as head of the archaeological section. That could be true. But the documents show the accusations were accurate. I tell you this to warn you about Marc Gounot. He is in his own way a fanatic, blinded by loyalty to his father.”

“Do you really think Marc would murder Monsieur Malbert in revenge for his father's death? If that was the motive, why did he wait nearly forty years to do it?”

“The answer may be as simple as opportunity. Consider this: All his adult life, Marc Gounot resents Michel Malbert. Then let's say he becomes involved with foreigners in a project to traffic in prehistoric artifacts. Once again Malbert appears on the scene threatening the plan. His uncle, the guide, reveals that Malbert's name appears on his visitors' list for Lascaux on a certain day. Marc finds his opportunity to eliminate Malbert, and
voilà.
”

It was maddening the way Daglan shifted from lulling conversation to potshots of insinuation. With the word “foreigners” he raised his eyebrows and darkened his tone. Again we protested the implication that we were involved in any plot to sell artifacts. For a while Daglan stubbornly gnawed on this subject like a dog with an old bone in his mouth, but then, just as abruptly, he let it go and the conversation took a new direction.

“Tell me. How long have you known the other members of your
stage de cuisine
, Madame Dexter in particular?”

“Dotty? We met for the first time here at the cooking school,” I replied, “and that's when we met the others as well. Why do you ask?”

“Because Madame Dexter visited Marc Gounot at his mineral shop yesterday, and I would like to know why she did.”

I tried explaining that Dotty probably went just to flirt with Marc, but Daglan continued to look skeptical. Exasperated, I encouraged him to ask our fellow students at the school about Dotty. He would soon learn how plausible my explanation was.

“Inspector, Dotty doesn't have anything to do with this,” Toby declared. “But there's someone else you should be looking at. The handyman here, Fernando, had as much reason to murder Malbert as Marc had. We've been told Fernando once served prison time for stealing findings from an archaeological site, and Monsieur Malbert came to Cazelle on Monday morning to see Fernando—perhaps to accuse him of other thefts.”

The canny inspector smiled wearily. “He was not here expressly to see Fernando. And yes, we know all about Fernando's past. We also know from the authorities at the Bureau of Monuments and Antiquities that this was Monsieur Malbert's third meeting with the baron and his children. They were engaged in discussions about opening their private cave to archaeologists and scholars.”

“What cave?” Surprise showed in my voice.

“There is a long and complex history about a cave located on the property. Inside there may be markings that would be of interest to the authorities, or so Monsieur Malbert thought, on the basis of a rumor. But the family denies it. At any rate, they oppose any examination of the cave.”

Now
that
was interesting. There was a cave located somewhere on the grounds of the château, and the family was jealously guarding it. Were they merely trying to protect their privacy, or something else?

Daglan seemed to read the expression on my face. “You can be sure we are questioning members of the family about the visit, but that doesn't concern you. Right now I'm more interested in what you can tell me.”

Toby bristled. “There's something else you should know about Fernando. He keeps a dovecote, and his doves look exactly like that bird that was speared and left at Monsieur Malbert's feet on Monday. Would it be possible to determine whether the bird came from Fernando's flock?”

“I doubt it. There are few large properties in the Dordogne that lack a dovecote, and the doves all look very much alike. There was nothing unusual about that particular dove except the manner of its death.”

“Do you know anything more about it that you could tell us?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I am told the symbol is quite well known by the experts.”

“Yes, we know that much. So perhaps Monsieur Malbert had other enemies in the profession,” I pointed out.

“Oh, he certainly did. But only Gounot and his nephew Marc had access to Lascaux,” snapped Daglan. His eyes narrowed. “And what if this bird is merely a distraction, something that was left to throw us off the track?”

“Are you saying that the dove may have had nothing to do with the killer's motive?” asked Toby.

“I have to consider that a possibility,” replied Daglan. He was about to say something else when he was interrupted by a knock on the door. Marianne entered, looking more than a little flustered.

“Inspector, we have finished the lesson, and the students are almost through with their meal. Do you want me to ask Monsieur and Madame Press to wait, to talk with you after you are finished talking with Toby and Nora?”

“Yes. Would you be so good as to ask all the members of the class to go to their rooms? I will talk to each one shortly.” Marianne looked disturbed but walked quickly back toward the kitchen to execute her orders. “We are finished here for now,” Daglan said to us. “I must ask you to say nothing to the others about any part of our conversation.”

“Of course,” said Toby. “Actually, we have plans for this afternoon. Do you mind if we leave now?”

“You may go. I know where to find you.”

We managed a cursory goodbye as we hurried away to our rooms to get a few belongings before going out to the car.

I
n Montignac we stopped at a busy café for a late lunch (ham sandwiches on baguettes) and claimed our reservations for Lascaux II at the ticket office in the center of town. The lines were intimidating. Luckily, since we had reserved in advance, we went through the pick-up line in a reasonably short time. Lascaux II has become a popular attraction. Visits are staggered at half-hour intervals, and the daily operation of shuttling hundreds of tourists to and from the artificial cave is planned with military precision.

With tickets in hand, we killed some time by window-shopping on the main street of Montignac before driving to the well-marked site on a wooded hill on the outskirts of the town. Arriving at the parking lot, we claimed one of the few open spots and joined the line waiting at the entrance. There were picnic tables scattered about and kiosks selling soft drinks, ice cream, souvenirs, and booklets.

From a professional standpoint, I had my doubts about Lascaux II. A copy can never replace an original. I scold my students who rely on reproductions instead of looking at original art when they can. But that's just it: because of conservation worries, the real Lascaux is no longer accessible to the public. So wasn't it reasonable for the government to construct a facsimile to satisfy their curiosity? Tour books tout it as an amazing technical achievement, faithful in every respect to the contours of the original cave and to the size, placement, and colors of the paintings. That may be, said a competing voice in my head, but after all, it is still just a copy. It's a pity the fake cave has been seen by far more people than will ever see the original.

Those were my first thoughts as we waited in line, but it wasn't long before my mind reverted to the murder. Then I began to worry that this visit might trigger memories of the violent scene we had witnessed only days ago. Toby seemed to sense my disquiet, and he placed an arm around my shoulder.

“They move these groups through pretty quickly. We won't be in there long, and we need to make the most of our time inside. I want to check out the size of the space and see if we can re-create where we were standing when Malbert was attacked. Try to look around and get a feel for any hiding places someone might use to conceal himself. Are you up for it?”

Yes, I thought so. The line was moving. We were approaching a sheltered overhang with a cement staircase leading down into the ground. The crowd pressed in, and in another moment we were milling around inside a dark antechamber with illuminated wall displays and diagrams. The guide, a young woman, began her introduction. She described the construction process for Lascaux II and went over the history of the real Lascaux's discovery and the reasons for its closing. She pointed out that only the Hall of Bulls and a section of the Axial Gallery had been reproduced in Lascaux II. We were invited to consult the wall diagram if we wanted to get a sense of the entirety of the cave, which was of course much larger than the replica. I tuned out the rest of her spiel as I studied the map, trying to trace the sections we had visited three days ago and to situate them in relation to the Hall of Bulls.

It was obvious at a glance that there were significant sections of the real Lascaux we hadn't visited during our tour—in other words, any number of hiding places where a killer might have been concealed. There were in fact two passageways leading into the Hall of Bulls. One led from the Axial Gallery, but we had gone most of the way through that one, and I remembered it as too narrow to have shielded a person from view. The other passageway, though, led to the Nave, a much larger area, which we had entered briefly but never explored. Beyond the Nave was still another gallery, and off to the side was the mysterious pit containing the falling man and the bison. What better hiding place for a killer who was planning to leave a duplicate of the pierced bird as a calling card?

Soon we were herded into the faux Hall of Bulls, forty or fifty of us pressed together as if in a crowded elevator. Familiar outlines of bulls and horses surrounded us, but the magic I felt at seeing the authentic art was gone. Besides the crowding, what made the experience so different from the original was the impact on the senses. Lascaux is a natural cave, smelling of earth and stone. Its limestone walls are glossy, whereas the walls of Lascaux II are made of polyester resin and have a dull matte finish. The floor is concrete, the air paper-dry from the anodyne air-conditioning. Yes, the murals are replicated in their proper spatial relationships. The lines and colors are right; even the bulges in the walls are reproduced down to the last centimeter. It's very well done but— like all copies—lifeless.

Lifeless: the thought drew me back to the murder. Toby, I could see, had barely glanced at the paintings. He was trying to find his approximate position in the real Hall of Bulls before it had gone dark. I jostled my way toward him until we were pretty close to our original locations in the cave. We imagined Gounot in front of us near the entrance and then the others behind us. Yes, there was room enough for Gounot to have circled around us, but how much time would he have needed to get behind us, strangle Malbert, and return to his place before being discovered? I remembered Gounot fumbling in the dark for a replacement battery for his lamp. Might that have been a cover for his movements? How much time had actually passed before the lamp had been made to work again? Several minutes, at least. And yet I felt sure Gounot had not doubled back on us. No, I concluded, whoever killed Malbert had stalked him from behind, had emerged stealthily from some hiding place deep in the cave.

“What about David?” asked Toby. We were back outside again, comparing notes. Toby agreed Gounot could not have outflanked us without attracting attention, but he reminded me David had been closest to the victim and need not have emerged from some lair.

“I just can't accept that,” I said.

“I'm only pointing out that, in terms of logistics, eliminating Gounot leaves only David as a suspect, along with anyone else who may have been hiding in the cave before we went in.”

“Do you mean Marc?” I asked.

“Yes, Marc. He could have acted on his own or as Gounot's accomplice, but ‘could have' isn't the same as evidence. The same goes for Fernando.”

I sighed. “So that leaves us pretty much where we started.”

“Pretty much. Do you feel like checking out the shop?”

“Sure, why not?”

The shop on the grounds of Lascaux II was well stocked with prehistoric paraphernalia, everything from T-shirts with images of bulls, to Lascaux ashtrays, models of dinosaurs, and children's picture books on cave art. While Toby slowly spun a rack of postcards, I was drawn to the back of the shop, where a large color poster of “the scene in the pit” caught my eye. There it was hanging on the wall, larger than life-size, its details much sharper than in smaller photographs. What was its meaning? The wounded bison with its entrails dragging; the spindly man in profile falling backward, arms flung out; the bird or effigy of a bird on a stick, either planted in the ground or dropped from the dying man's hand? I peered more closely and now noticed with surprise that the man in profile was shown with an erection. That was puzzling enough, but so was the fact that his nose looked more like a beak, suggested by two horizontal dashes. Stylistically, his nose was the mirror image of the beak of the bird on the stick, which faced in the opposite direction. Was the man wearing a mask? Were his hands really bird's feet? The Birdman— the word popped into my mind. Who or what was he? And why did the artist who otherwise was so sparing of anatomical detail depict him as sexually aroused?