Honoré de Saussine was in his mid-forties, the picture of health in these days when the sick got sicker and most others became ill through worrying. He did not back away from anything, thought St-Cyr, but met each question with a confidence that was troubling. A civil servant, and no doubt once a lover of la petitesse, the virtue of living small, he had come up in the world. No longer was his tie worn loose so as not to wear it out, nor did he bother to save his cigarette butts.
‘Inspector, as assistant director of building codes in the Ninth arrondissement, I was at my desk on Thursday from eight a.m. until noon, and from two until six. I could not possibly have gone to Charonne, nor had I any intention of, or wish to harm Alexandre. Oh bien sûr, we disagreed. Among scientists is disagreement not a fact of life? But to poison him … Ah no. No. It’s impossible.’
‘And you’ve those who will swear to your being at that desk?’
‘My secretary and my assistants, the director also. Let me tell you nothing escapes that one’s eye. Nothing.’
‘Then that’s settled. A moment. I’ll just jot it down in my little book. “De Saussine at work.”‘
The Sûreté took his time and wrote far more, so as to be unsettling, but one could only smile at such a ruse, thought de Saussine. St-Cyr would find no paste-pot pinching civil servant here, no shifty-eyed accumulator of the rubber bands and erasers of fellow employees.
From time to time Juliette de Bonnevies would glance their way and he had to ask himself, What has she told the Inspector? That I hated Alexandre even more than she did? That I knew very well where the nitrobenzene was kept — had I not been in his study many times? Had I not my own to use, in any case?
At the flash of a lewd and knowing grin from him, the woman quickly averted her veiled eyes and turned her back on them, a back that, when naked, had been seen by many.
The Hôtel Titania, eh, madame, he silently taunted. Was Alexandre aware of the things you did in that place, things Herr Schlacht bragged about to me?
‘Your lunch, monsieur,’ said the Sûreté, suddenly looking up from his notebook. ‘Where, please, did you have it on Thursday?’
‘My lunch …? In the café at … at the corner of the rue Rossini and the rue Drouot, near the office. We always go there. Myself and two others.’
‘The soup, the pot-au-feu … a glass of wine?’
‘No wine, Inspector. It was a no-alcohol day, remember?’
‘Bread?’
‘Two of the twenty-five gram slices.’
‘The National?’
That grey stuff that was made of sweepings and a lot of other things. ‘Yes.’
‘Bread,’ he muttered and wrote it down. ‘No wine.’
‘Inspector, is this necessary?’
‘As necessary as is the truth, monsieur. You see my partner has spoken at length with …’
‘All right. I … I dined with Herr Schlacht at l’Auberge de Savoie.’
‘Thirty-six rue Rodier, but still in the Ninth and not far from that office of yours in the town hall, not far from the auction house either. Before the war, the porters at the Hôtel Drouot were its regulars. They all came from Savoy, a prescriptive right Napoleon insisted on, but now … Now I do not know how things are.’
‘Occasionally a few of them still eat there, but … but it’s a busy place and the clientele has changed.’
‘Black market?’
‘The gratin de pommes de terre de Savoie was superb.’
Baked, thinly sliced potatoes, cheese, eggs, milk and garlic, with pepper, salt and butter, optional nutmeg and sometimes sliced onions or shallots … in a city where most hadn’t seen a potato since the winter of 1940 to ‘41, to say nothing of the butter and cheese!
‘The soufflé de truite à la sauce d’écrevisses was magnificent.’
Mon Dieu, trout with a crayfish sauce! ‘The Reblochon and the Boudane?’
Cheeses from Savoy, the latter matured in grape brandy. ‘Those also, and coffee. Herr Schlacht likes to dine well.’
The Inspector painstakingly wrote all of this down, then took a break to pack his pipe and light it. The match was blown out, not waved out, and then, as an added precaution, spittle wetted a thumb and forefinger and the thing was decisively extinguished.
‘One never knows, does one?’ he said. ‘The threat of fire in winter seems even more imminent than in summer.’
Fire in a greenhouse! ‘Inspector …’
‘Monsieur, I am certain Herr Schlacht expressed to you his thoughts regarding your president.’
‘He was concerned, yes.’
‘Not simply concerned, monsieur. The two of you …’
‘What, exactly, did Madame Roulleau tell you, Inspector? That I was deutschfreundlich and assisting one of the Occupier? Since when is that a crime?’
‘Madame Roulleau and I did not even discuss you, monsieur.’ This was a lie, of course. ‘But it is interesting that you should think she has accused you of murder.’
‘I didn’t say that! I …’
‘But the possibility arose between you and Herr Schlacht, didn’t it, and you were asked advice on how best to do it?’
‘I refused absolutely to even speak of such a thing.’
‘At what time did you finish your lunch? Please remember that the patron will be consulted.’
‘At three forty. We … we talked of other matters.’
‘The honey you were selling for him. Honey you knew carried diseases and yet … and yet you sold it to your colleagues to augment the winter stores of their hives.’
‘Inspector, to not have done so was for them to have lost their colonies. If Madame Roulleau were at all honest and reliable, she would have acknowledged this.’
‘You deal on the black market, monsieur; you sell diseased queens.’
‘What else did that interfering old woman tell you?’
‘That you threatened your president with legal action; that the two of you argued vehemently and that Monsieur de Bonnevies sent out notices to warn others of the diseases you were so thoughtlessly spreading.’
‘He had no proof! It was all a figment of his “scientific” imagination. Acarine mites … A crisis in the making? A tragedy? It’s absurd. Idiotic. Their numbers were far too small. Only a few hives showed any signs of it. All were fumigated most thoroughly. All!’
‘And Herr Schlacht, monsieur? Didn’t he offer you a substantial reward if you took care of things for him?’ This was another lie, of course, but when needed, could lies not be forgiven in these difficult times?
‘I refused. Ask him.’
‘Two hundred thousand francs?’ It was a shot in the dark.
‘A million. It … it was insane, Inspector. I … I couldn’t agree to such a thing — how could I? Alexandre and I go back too far. When I was but a boy of thirteen, he took me under his wing and shared his love of bees. I …’
‘Inspector …’
It was Lalonde, the assistant gardener. ‘Well, what is it?’
‘A moment, please. I … I have found something you must see.’
‘Can it not keep?’
‘Forgive me, Inspector, but it can’t. Your partner also wishes to speak with you in private.’
Hermann … Merde, what the hell had happened? ‘He’s always in a hurry. Monsieur de Saussine, please remain ready to continue. A million you said? Ah! I must jot that down and get you to … Sign here, please.’
‘It … it’s in code. I can’t re-’
‘Just sign it, monsieur, and date it. Thirty-first January, 1943 at … four ten in the afternoon. No wonder I’m hungry. I’ve totally missed my lunch!’
Hermann was waiting in another of the greenhouses and didn’t look up when approached. Humus was scattered. Two of the potted flowers, set well behind a screen of others on the trestle table, had been uprooted and hastily replanted. Broken, blackish-brown rootlets formed a tangled spaghetti on the leaves of adjacent plants.