“Very good, madame. I will keep your fantasy in mind for my next fiction. You left out the most important thing, though. You see, M. Sieurac’s unhappy death will increase the value of his work tremendously. M. St. Cloud knew this, and it would be a motive for murder, if you ask me. Too bad he was so stupid as to get caught. Oh yes, another thing you neglected. You said you had proof that I was involved.”
“There is a list of buyers in Sieurac’s studio, given to him by M. St. Cloud. It is a list Sieurac demanded because he suspected the very swindle you and M. St. Cloud were perpetrating. The list consists of fictitious names, and you helped compose it.”
The mention of the list did produce a trace of concern on M. Boucherot’s otherwise placid expression. But it evaporated instantly.
“Three of the names, ‘Baron de St. Eugène,’ ‘Mme. Charles Beauchamp,’ and ‘Mme. Pinet,’ are characters from a weekly serial in La Gazette de France, authored by yourself under a nom de plume.”
“ ‘Antonin,’ my dear,” M. Boucherot contributed.
Aichele was silently mortified, and at the same time understood both M. St. Cloud’s reaction to his story of the dinner party and Mrs. Poll’s later smile.
“Mrs. Poll,” Boucherot said, “you are indeed wasting our time. I am pleased M. St. Cloud chose three of my characters to include on his list. The publicity will do wonders. But it has nothing to do with me. It shows the popularity of my writing, not my complicity.”
“Except for one crucial point. Is it not true that ‘Mme. Charles Beauchamp’ is the suddenly widowed cousin of ‘Baron de St. Eugene?’ ”
“Excellent. You too are a reader.”
“She first appeared in yesterday’s episode. Before then, in fact, we readers did not even know the baron had a cousin.”
“Right you are.”
“But the list was mailed on Friday of last week, when ‘Mme. Charles Beauchamp’ existed only in your imagination and in your manuscript, which was by then at the offices of La Gazette and under guard, we curious readers are constantly assured. You helped St. Cloud compose a list of fictitious buyers, and you could not resist this touch of conceit, and because of it we have found you out.”
Boucherot’s aplomb did not desert him completely, but it was obvious he was thinking hard, and without success.
“Monsieur,” Aichele said, finally breaking his silence. “Your accomplice stands accused of a murder. There is strong circumstantial evidence against him, and you yourself have suggested a motive. However, I have evidence that will clear him. I will share it with the police if you agree to a certain course of action, which I will explain in due time. If not, I will let justice run its course, but I warn you, if I were in M. St. Cloud’s position, I would not go to the guillotine alone.”
“Would you like a drink?” M. Boucherot suddenly said, opening the door wide.
Aichele and Mrs. Poll had been waiting only a few minutes at Sieurac’s studio when Inspector Leroux arrived in response to their invitation. The day was almost done, but there was still enough light for their purposes.
The room was under guard, and nothing had changed since that morning, except the rope now dangled empty from the beam.
“I am glad you found time to come, Leroux,” Aichele said. “And as I told you in Galerie Lefevre, it is fortunate that a detective of your caliber was first upon the scene. None of the things I will point out escaped your notice, I’m sure, but I have cogitated upon them all day, and they do now finally suggest a different picture.”
Aichele untied the rope from the steampipe and let it fall. Then he gathered it up in his hands.
“Your conclusion that Sieurac’s death was a murder clumsily disguised as a suicide is wrong, Leroux. It is in fact just the opposite. Marcel Sieurac did commit suicide. By sheer coincidence — or so you must assume, since you have no evidence to the contrary — his death looked like a murder. Allow me to demonstrate.”
Aichele pulled the rope through his hands, examining it as he did so until he came to two distinct creases a few inches apart.
“These creases were made by the sharp corners of the beam where the rope passed over it while it suspended a heavy but stationary weight.”
He then threw the rope back over the beam, but with the fatal loop toward the steampipe, and the creases just beyond the beam.
“Now, Leroux, take hold of that end of the rope, and I will grasp this end. Then pull me up, as you theorize M. St. Cloud must have done to raise Sieurac’s unconscious body.”
Leroux hesitated for a moment, squeamish about holding the loop. But then he hauled away. Aichele hung by his hands from the other end of the rope. It was by no means easy to lift him off the floor, but Leroux finally accomplished the task. When Aichele was more or less at the height Sieurac’s body had been, he released his grip and dropped to the floor.
“Let’s look at the rope,” he said.
The difference was immediately obvious. The section of rope which had been pulled over the sharp corners of the beam was scraped almost completely bare of grime.
“Sieurac did hang with this rope,” Aichele said. “But he did it himself. No one pulled him up.”
“But the chair,” Leroux said, in something of a weak counterattack.
“The chair was too low for him to stand on, and place the loop around his neck. But he could reach the loop, then pull himself up high enough to thrust his head through it. That is why his hands were so grimy, just as ours are now.”
Leroux did not have to look at his hands to appreciate this point. “What about the lump on his head? The cut? And the argument with M. St. Cloud?”
Aichele pointed to a shattered absinthe bottle lying at the base of the radiator. “The wounds could have been self-inflicted for all we know. Whatever pain Sieurac felt this morning was not physical pain. As for the argument, well, men do argue occasionally. I am sure M. St. Cloud offered an explanation, and there is no reason it cannot be accepted at face value.”
Leroux’s teeth were tightly clenched. He looked about for a rag, found one, and wiped his hands on it.
“This is only my interpretation, Leroux. Perhaps there is other, more compelling evidence against M. St. Cloud that I am not aware of.”
“There is no other evidence,” Leroux muttered, his eyes on the coil of rope on the floor. “Nor was there even a crime.”
View of Pont Neuf was delivered to Aichele’s flat two months later. He accepted the painting from Mme. Sieurac in lieu of cash payment for his services. Boucherot and M. St. Cloud had graciously sold back to her, on credit, their collection of her husband’s work, for exactly the prices on their list. The paintings were then assembled into a posthumous exhibit, which became an extraordinary critical and financial success. This was due in no small part to an unprecedented barrage of glowing pre-exhibit publicity, spearheaded by M. Boucherot and Le Figaro. He wrote, among other things, how it sometimes takes the tragedy of a man’s death for the world to appreciate his life’s work.
Aichele had compiled a small scrapbook of these articles. Also included, in the author’s inimitable, flowery prose, was a complete and signed account of the proposed swindle of Marcel Sieurac.