Son of Holmes (14 page)
Later, I could not sleep. Overcome by the events of the day, ashamed that I had doubted Tania, unnerved by the children’s prank, I got up and looked out the window. The only sound was the gurgle of the brook as it flowed through the arbor. A crescent moon had just risen, and it was somehow reassuring. In my mind I went over the details of the St. Etienne arsenal so that I could report the next morning to Lupa. At my desk, I lit the lamp and sketched from memory the general floor plan. That took my mind off my worries, and by the time I finished, I felt sleepy. I remembered, though, to write Fritz a note to have him wake me early; then I came back to the bed, where Tania lay, and crawled in beside her.
But just before I dozed off, I thought I heard the sound of a car engine starting, accompanied by indistinguishable voices drifting over the fields, finally fading into the noise of the engine as it roared toward St. Etienne.
8
T
ania did not stir when Fritz knocked once discreetly. I rose immediately, tapping once on my bedstead to let him know I was awake. After a fast cup of coffee and several minutes of Fritz’s remonstrance over my sagging appetite, I was on my way to Lupa’s.
ania did not stir when Fritz knocked once discreetly. I rose immediately, tapping once on my bedstead to let him know I was awake. After a fast cup of coffee and several minutes of Fritz’s remonstrance over my sagging appetite, I was on my way to Lupa’s.
La Couronne hadn’t yet opened, but Charles stood behind the bar, dusting, and let me in after only a short wait. Lupa had given instructions that no one was to come to the kitchen without his approval, so I sat at the bar and had another coffee while Charles went to announce me.
He returned and I followed him down the narrow staircase to the kitchen. Lupa sat majestically at the table, clad in a brown silk robe with a yellow monogram, cleaning up the remainder of what had been his breakfast.
“One of the problems with being one’s own cook,” he began immediately, motioning me to be seated, “is deciding an order of courses that provides variety yet leaves oneself free to enjoy each course without having to tend to the next. These muffins, Jules, have become too cold while waiting for the eggs to set.”
I noticed he was having no trouble, however, in finishing off the cooled muffins. The eggs had, by the looks of the plate, long since disappeared. I mentioned this to him.
“Yes, but it’s not as enjoyable as it should be, as every meal should be. Every man’s life is divided up into eating, sleeping, and miscellaneous.
Omnia vita in tres partes divisa est,
if I might borrow from Caesar. Of their conscious moments, only in their enjoyment of food are all men brothers.”
Omnia vita in tres partes divisa est,
if I might borrow from Caesar. Of their conscious moments, only in their enjoyment of food are all men brothers.”
I could think of several other conscious moments that might qualify as universally pleasing, but he was enjoying himself, so I let him expound.
“And here I am, presuming to call myself a cook, a chef. Ha! Jules, I nearly let the coffee boil!”
I shook my head sadly in commiseration. In spite of his petulance, which Tania had found so objectionable, I found him entertaining. He knew as well as anyone, possibly better than anyone, the gravity of our situation, but he wouldn’t let himself be bogged down in depression. He was a tonic to my flagging spirits.
“Did you get the beer?” I asked.
“Ah, yes. Thank you. Consistently excellent. Fritz brought it around yesterday.”
He pushed back his chair and settled himself more comfortably. After offering me breakfast or coffee, which I declined, he picked up his cup and sipped.
“Madame Chessal came by to see me yesterday.”
“Yes, I know. She told me about it.”
“She seemed rather upset by my lack of interest in the, ahem, proprieties. I tried to explain to her that worry merely clouds the intellect, that I meant no slight to Monsieur Routier, that I had been enthusiastic about sausage because I was talking about sausage, and that enthusiasm is a state of mind I try to cultivate about many subjects. I’m afraid my explanation fell on deaf ears. She left in rather a huff.”
“She was upset about Marcel,” I said. “They’d known each other a long time.”
“I understand that. But you understand I didn’t want to discuss Marcel’s death with her until I was certain she was not involved.”
“Are you?” I asked hopefully.
“Unfortunately, no.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Perfectly, Jules, perfectly.”
How could I allay his suspicions when only yesterday I had harbored them myself? Still, I forced a response. “At the risk of usurping your methods, do you have anything specific, or is it just a feeling?”
Lupa sipped again at his coffee, smacked his lips with pleasure, then looked levelly at me across his desk. “The questions I have regarding Madame Chessal’s involvement in our inquiries fall into both categories. First, I must confess to a certain feeling that in a general way she is not being completely forthright, that she is hiding something. It may be nothing. It may be that she cultivates an aura of mystery. Many women do, you know, believing that it makes them interesting. In fact, it creates an impression of a fascinating personality that is all the more disappointing when the aura itself is revealed to be a sham.” He continued before I could remonstrate. “I don’t say that is the case here. I merely comment on my feeling.
“Specifically, there are several points. My operatives have stumbled on Madame Chessal many times in and around St. Etienne. She certainly has ready access to the arsenal there. As you yourself have pointed out, she has a relationship of some sort with the director. Secondly, poison is a classic woman’s weapon for murder. Additionally, I find it worthy of note that she is the only woman in what would otherwise be a vigorously masculine grouping.”
“How is that noteworthy?” I had to cut in. His suspicions of Tania seemed to me to be no more than a general indictment of female human beings, and I told him so.
“It’s true. I do have a prejudice there, probably inherited from my father. But I have verified it on my own many times.”
“But we’re talking specifically here about Tania.”
“I understand that. Don’t become upset, Jules. I would expect you to defend her, to be blind to the striking singularity of one woman fitting in so easily with five or six different men. It is certainly odd enough to be labeled a hard fact and to warrant some explanation.”
“She has always . . .”
“Not true! I understand that she only began attending regularly within the past year or two.”
“With her husband in the area, how could she?”
He smiled, his point won, and finished his coffee in a gulp. “I merely state that it is worthy of investigation, and I intend to look into it. There are other issues that I would prefer for the time being to keep to myself, but I assure you that I view them as significant, or potentially significant. But come. This is a small avenue of pursuit, and we have much more to discuss. Shall we table Madame Chessal for the moment?”
Reluctantly, but seeing the wisdom of the suggestion, I agreed and told him I had the plans for the arsenal with me. He asked me to wait until he’d dressed and then I could report at length. Excusing himself, he went into his quarters.
Almost immediately I heard two voices coming from his rooms. One his, the other female. The woman sounded angry and became more so as they talked. Finally, after several minutes of increasing volume, came the sound of a hand slapping down violently on a table or desk, and Lupa’s voice, not loud, but devastatingly authoritative: “Enough! Leave! We’ll discuss this later.” Then he appeared back in the kitchen.
“Bah,” he said, sitting down, “I’m sorry about that, but that woman nags me much too often. Do all women insist on scheduling time for their men?”
“Not to my knowledge,” I said.
“Well, I won’t have it.” He leaned back and closed his eyes for a moment, his face clearing almost instantly. He had excellent control. “Now, then, those plans.”
I took the crumpled and hastily drawn sketch from my pocket, and together we looked at it. I explained some of my impressions of the place, pointing out that the arsenal was impossible to enter forcibly. In my years as an agent, I’ve learned to recall almost completely events, conversations, and impressions, which was lucky, since he asked me to recount everything that had happened the day before since I’d met Tania for the funeral. He leaned back with his eyes nearly closed, and didn’t move at all as I talked.
He interrupted me three times. Once to ask if I could identify the man I’d seen meet Paul. Once to ask me to repeat everything I could remember Ponty saying from the time we met him until we were shown the explosives anteroom, and again to ask if I was certain that the rock-throwing incident had been a prank, to which I answered no, I wasn’t certain of anything.
When I’d finished, he said, “Pulis?”
“As far as I know, he spent the day consoling his wife.”
“He also spent the better part of the afternoon reading a newspaper at the train station,” he said. “Can you think of why he might have done that?”
I shook my head no.
“You should call on him, I suppose. You haven’t aroused suspicion with any of them, have you?”
“No. I’ve decided to have another beer gathering next Wednesday, though I’m not sure where it ought to be. That will give everyone a chance to get back together, restore our confidence in one another, lay some suspicion to rest. Most of them seem to want to believe it was suicide.”
“Rubbish!”
“I know, but let them think that for a time. It won’t make them wary of me when I ask questions, or at least less wary than if they thought I suspected one of them had killed him.”
“Satisfactory,” was all he said. I asked him if he’d had any trouble with the police.
“No.”
“They haven’t been around?” I asked.
“I didn’t say that. I merely said I haven’t had any trouble with them. I wouldn’t speak with them. Charles told them I had gone shopping and I would call them back at my convenience. Then they wanted to search my quarters, which of course would have been intolerable, so Charles said he didn’t know where I lived, and they believed him. One thing I don’t need at a time like this is the police. I assume they’re content to believe it was suicide also?”
I shrugged, since I really didn’t know.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll try to avoid being bothered by them, though when they find out I live here, they’ll be around snooping for cyanide and whatnot.”
“They haven’t been much of a bother to me,” I said. I found the police no more competent than he did, but I saw no reason to antagonize them gratuitously.
“You are a rich man, Jules. You have standing in this area. You are, in short, more or less above suspicion. I am poor, a foreigner, unknown—in short, a perfect scapegoat. Of course I could demonstrate my innocence if given enough time, or I could save that time by delivering the murderer. And time is short.”
So saying, he took a large silver watch from his vest pocket. All the times I had seen him, he’d been wearing suits of drab brown. He never looked seedy, but neither would well-dressed be an adequate description. Today was no exception, though he had slipped a vest over the pale yellow shirt. He wore no coat while indoors, and when he cooked he wore no tie. Glancing at his watch, he started.
“Nearly nine o’clock! I must be up on the street.” He was peeved, I supposed at me for coming down and causing him to vary his schedule. When we’d gotten settled outside, I commented on the watch, which I hadn’t seen before.
“Yes, it is lovely,” he said, removing it again. “A gift from my parents, one of my few real treasures. Would you like to see it?”
He handed it across to me. It was rather larger than was the fashion and seemed to be made of very pure silver, judging from the weight. Turning it over in my hands, I noticed the inscription on the back, or rather the pair of initials, S. H. & I. A. and the date 1897. I was curious, but said nothing and gave it back to him.
“One of my fondest dreams is to someday own a house where I can keep things,” he began. “Traveling has so long uprooted me that I think someday I would like a home where I could keep the things I love. I could easily envision myself almost totally sedentary. But now this watch is the only symbol I have of all I would like to have.” He sighed.
“I’m surprised to find you so materialistic.”
“Not at all. I want nothing more than what the simplest shopkeeper has: a house, a sense of place, a few loved possessions. So often a man’s surroundings become a man’s background. A man who runs with thieves becomes like a thief. Of course,” he went on, stopping to order the first of his day’s beers, “it’s not absolute, but I’d like a house made for my ideals, so that I might grow into it.”
He paused while the beer—my beer!—arrived. Charles had thoughtfully brought out two bottles, and we each had a glass.
“Take yourself, Jules. You are an aristocrat. No, no, don’t object—that’s not so bad. You own land, a house. Your interests are your own, not dictated by the exigencies of survival. And it shows. The other night, even drunk, you paused to wipe off a table before setting anything on it, even when it was a patently futile gesture. No, the way you live reinforces the way you act; the way you act finally becomes the way you are.”
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