“They won’t find you guilty.”
“I don’t care, Lewis. You must look after Catherine now. I read about the exhibition—”
He almost smiled.
“—Wonderful for you. We always said, didn’t we? before the war, you’d be the one to be famous, I’d be—”
The smile had gone.
“—notorious. They say terrible things about me now, in the newspapers. An old man going with young girls, you see, that doesn’t make me very wholesome. They probably think I lost my temper because I couldn’t perform with her. That’s what they think, I’m certain.” He lost his way, halted, began again. “You must look after Catherine. She’s got money, but no friends. She’s too cool, you see. Too hurt inside; and that makes people wary of her. You have to stay with her.”
“I shall.”
“I know. I know. That’s why I feel happy, really, to just…” “No, Phillipe.”
“Just die. There’s nothing left for us, Lewis. The world’s too hard.”
Lewis thought of the snow, and the ice-floes, and saw the sense in dying.
The officer in charge of the investigation was less than helpful, though Lewis introduced himself as a relative of the esteemed Detective Dupin. Lewis’ contempt for the shoddily-dressed weasel, sitting in his cluttered hole of an office, made the interview crackle with suppressed anger.
“Your friend,” the Inspector said, picking at the raw cuticle of his thumb, “is a murderer, Monsieur Fox. It is as simple as that. The evidence is overwhelming.”
“I can’t believe that.”
“Believe what you like to believe, that’s your prerogative. We have all the evidence we need to convict Phillipe Laborteaux of murder in the first degree. It was a cold-blooded killing and he will be punished to the full extent of the law. This is my promise.”
“What evidence do you have against him?”
“Monsieur Fox; I am not beholden to you. What evidence we have is our business. Suffice it to say that no other person was seen in the house during the time that the accused claims he was at some fictional patisserie; and as access to the room in which the deceased was found is only possible by the stairs—”
“What about a window?”
“A plain walclass="underline" three flights up. Maybe an acrobat: an acrobat might do it.”
“And the state of the body?”
The Inspector made a face. Disgust.
“Horrible. Skin and muscle stripped from the bone. All the spine exposed. Blood; much blood.”
“Phillipe is seventy.”
“So?”
“An old man would not be capable—”
“In other respects,” the Inspector interrupted, “he seems to have been quite capable, oui? The lover, yes? The passionate lover: he was capable of that.”
“And what motive would you claim he had?”
His mouth scalloped, his eyes rolled, and he tapped his chest.
“Le coeur humain,” he said, as if despairing of reason in affairs of the heart. “Le coeur humain, quel mystère, n’est-ce pas?” and exhaling the stench of his ulcer at Lewis, he proffered the open door.
“Merci, Monsieur Fox. I understand your confusion, oui? But you are wasting your time. A crime is a crime. It is real; not like your paintings.”
He saw the surprise on Lewis’ face.
“Oh, I am not so uncivilized as not to know your reputation, Monsieur Fox. But I ask you, make your fictions as best you can; that is your genius, oui? Mine; to investigate the truth.”
Lewis couldn’t bear the weasel’s cant any longer.
“Truth?” he snapped back at the Inspector. “You wouldn’t know the truth if you tripped over it.”
The weasel looked as though he’d been slapped with a wet fish.
It was precious little satisfaction; but it made Lewis feel better for at least five minutes.
The house on the Rue des Martyrs was not in good condition, and Lewis could smell the damp as he climbed to the little room on the third floor. Doors opened as he passed, and inquiring whispers ushered him up the stairs, but nobody tried to stop him. The room where the atrocity had happened was locked. Frustrated, but not knowing how or why it would help Phillipe’s case to see the interior of the room, he made his way back down the stairs and into the bitter air.
Catherine was back at the Quai de Bourbon. As soon as Lewis saw her he knew there was something new to hear. Her gray hair was loosed from the bun she favored wearing, and hung unbraided at her shoulders. Her face was a sickly yellow-gray by the lamplight. She shivered, even in the clogged air of the centrally-heated apartment.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I went to Phillipe’s apartment.”
“So did I. It was locked.”
“I have the key: Phillipe’s spare key. I just wanted to pick up a few clothes for him.”
Lewis nodded.
“And?”
“Somebody else was there.”
“Police?”
“No.”
“Who?”
“I couldn’t see. I don’t know exactly. He was dressed in a big coat, scarf over his face. Hat. Gloves.” She paused. Then, “He had a razor, Lewis.”
“A razor?”
“An open razor, like a barber.”
Something jangled in the back of Lewis Fox’s mind. An open razor; a man dressed so well he couldn’t be recognized.
“I was terrified.”
“Did he hurt you?”
She shook her head.
“I screamed and he ran away.”
“Didn’t say anything to you?”
“No.”
“Maybe a friend of Phillipe’s?”
“I know Phillipe’s friends.”
“Then of the girl. A brother.”
“Perhaps. But—”
“What?”
“There was something odd about him. He smelt of perfume, stank of it, and he walked with such mincing little steps, even though he was huge.”
Lewis put his arm around her.
“Whoever it was, you scared them off. You just mustn’t go back there. If we have to fetch clothes for Phillipe, I’ll gladly go.”
“Thank you. I feel a fooclass="underline" he may have just stumbled in. Come to look at the murder-chamber. People do that, don’t they? Out of some morbid fascination…”
“Tomorrow I’ll speak to the Weasel.”
“Weasel?”
“Inspector Marais. Have him search the place.”
“Did you see Phillipe?”
“Yes.”
“Is he well?”
Lewis said nothing for a long moment.
“He wants to die, Catherine. He’s given up fighting already, before he goes to trial.”
“But he didn’t do anything.”
“We can’t prove that.”
“You’re always boasting about your ancestors. Your blessed Dupin. You prove it…”
“Where do I start?”
“Speak to some of his friends, Lewis. Please. Maybe the woman had enemies.”
Jacques Solal stared at Lewis through his round-bellied spectacles, his irises huge and distorted through the glass. He was the worse for too much cognac.
“She hadn’t got any enemies,” he said, “not her. Oh maybe a few women jealous of her beauty…”
Lewis toyed with the wrapped cubes of sugar that had come with his coffee. Solal was as uninformative as he was drunk; but unlikely as it seemed Catherine had described the runt across the table as Phillipe’s closest friend.
“Do you think Phillipe murdered her?”
Solal pursed his lips.
“Who knows?”
“What’s your instinct?”
“Ah; he was my friend. If I knew who had killed her I would say so.”
It seemed to be the truth. Maybe the little man was simply drowning his sorrows in cognac.