‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ asked Kohler.
‘That one tells others what one wishes them to hear, Hermann. A “fast” woman, eh? Wild, an artist, a sculptress, a forger, but … ah,’ he chose a chunk of carrot, ‘not a forger of coins because, my old one, those were acquired after her death, yet the cabinet was acquired beforehand.’
‘She didn’t make it, did she?’
‘My apologies, my fine Bavarian friend. Please, I have completely spoiled your dinner.’
Kohler shoved his plate aside. ‘You know I can’t eat because of Giselle, Louis. Give.’
‘With pleasure, but first let us sample the cheeses and the pears with cherry brandy, or would you prefer to have them with the chocolate sauce?’
‘There are some paintings of hers in a closet, and some pieces of sculpture in the cellar,’ confided Madame Van der Lynn. ‘I do not think Monsieur Audit could bring himself to throw them away, nor could he dispose of the cabinet.’
‘You’re not to be trusted to mind your own business,’ breathed Kohler, ‘but thanks for the help.’
‘Madame, if you will permit me the intrusion at this late hour, a few small questions.’
He’d come alone, this one from the Surete. ‘Will you join me in a digestif?’
‘But of course. Gladly. Some of the blackberry cordial, I think, or perhaps a little of the choke-cherry? So many, such variety, such beautiful colours … One wishes one could try them all.’
‘My husband uses everything, Inspector, or hadn’t you noticed?’
The girl with the geese. ‘A delightful man. A man of the soil, madame. The salt of the earth.’
Touche. He was more likeable, this one, therefore infinitely more dangerous. ‘What sort of questions?’
‘Oh nothing much. The robbery …’ St-Cyr accepted the liqueur she had poured without spilling a drop. ‘I believe you were at home here, in the manor house.’
Some three kilometres by road from the chateau and the night so dark. He hadn’t driven but had walked in from the turn-off. ‘Yes … yes, I was here with my sons, the cook and housekeeper. None of us knew what would happen to France. We all lived in fear. Antoine … Antoine was called to Paris. A contract with the Ministry of Defence. The silk, I think.’
As with Hermann, Madame Audit had agreed to see him in the library. It wasn’t the main sitting-room where there’d be certain to be a fire, nor the kitchen, but something cold and in between. Ah yes.
‘This is lovely.’ He indicated the room. ‘A Gauron ormolu clock, a Venetian chandelier, perhaps an early Briati. I’m particularly taken with the plasterwork. Italian, is it? Early eighteenth century?’
‘Inspector, what exactly is it that you wish to ask? I can’t tell you much. We were all asleep. In the morning, at about eight o’clock, Madame Auger, our housekeeper at the time, came to tell me my husband’s study had been broken into.’
‘A window?’ he asked. Had the housekeeper then been dismissed?
She took a tremulous sip of the cognac she preferred at times like this. Had she realized her mistake? he wondered.
‘It’s so cold in here,’ she said. ‘Why don’t we go into the sitting-room?’
‘But of course. Did the chateau come completely furnished?’ he asked.
‘Antoine bought it the way he buys everything. Cheaply.’
Touche to her. ‘The window, madame?’ They were now in the main hall. Beauvais tapestries hung from the walls, gorgeous things. Another Venetian chandelier, a sumptuous drapery of dear crystal and coloured flowers, hung high overhead.
‘A pane of glass in one of the French windows. You’ll see it when you go back to the manor house, Inspector. The one right beside the lock. The police said the thief had used a sock to muffle the breakage, but of course they found nothing.’
The main sitting-room was pleasantly furnished in the style of Louis XV. One had only to take it in at a glance to realize its value, even at twenty new francs to the mark.
‘The silk embroidery on the chairs is exquisite, madame. My compliments to your good taste.’
‘Don’t be insulting, Inspector.’
She took a quick sip of the cognac and chose not to sit in any of the chairs but rather to stand and stare at the fire.
He caught her reflection in the gilt-framed mirror that rose to the ceiling above them. ‘The coins really were stolen, Inspector. All the drawers of that … that cabinet he … All the drawers were open and empty.’
‘May I sit down?’
‘Of course.’ She tossed off the cognac. ‘Is the choke-cherry not to your taste?’ she asked, and he wondered then what she was hiding and why she was so afraid he’d discover it.
‘Were any of the coins traceable?’
‘At that time? The Defeat … Antoine tried of course. He … he supplied the proper authorities with a list. The Surete were notified. Surely you would have seen the list or heard of the robbery, Inspector? Once again he has …’
‘What, madame?’
‘Supplied them with another list of the contents.’
‘When? When did he do so?’
‘A few months ago. In September, I think, or was it October? Since there is nothing left, it does not matter.’
The strain was evident, and he wondered at it. ‘The cordial is excellent, madame. Please … No, I insist. Stay by the fire. You’ve been most helpful.’
Was he not going to ask how Antoine had first come by the coins? Was he not going to ask why they’d been in the house instead of a bank vault, or why the cabinet had been hauled away to be hidden from view like all the other things of hers that had been kept? Michele-Louise Prevost!
‘Madame, I take it that some years ago coins were put up as surety against a loan which their owner was then not able to repay?’
Caught in the mirror, he was still standing on the carpet behind her, still holding that stupid, stupid glass of that stupid, stupid cordial.
‘Yes … yes, that is correct. In 1904, a … a long time before I … before I ever knew him.’ Oh damn.
‘Did he add to the collection?’
‘Whenever he could.’
The dream was bad, the dream was terrible! A trapper, a hunter, a prospector perhaps, was skinning a naked woman. Blood … there was blood on the thin, razor-sharp knife. He’d hung her up by the ankles and had pulled the skin down off her buttocks and thighs … There was a gaping wound across her throat, blood in her eyes, blood in her nose and hair, her lovely hair. The lights all flashing from the mirrors and from the overhead rider bars. The court jester grinning, grinning … ‘Faster!’ he shouted. ‘Faster!’ The thing would not stop! Stop! A carousel … a pair of violet eyes that were wide with excitement and pleasure, the woman’s hands firmly gripping a spiralling brass pole upon which a coal-black charger was mounted … mounted … mounted …
Skinny legs and bony knees and a billowing skirt beneath which were glimpses of white cotton underpants. A wire … a wire … The child threw out a hand to lean dangerously from the stallion as the carousel came round. Now up in the saddle to stand laughing at everyone, she balancing as the music blared … ‘Don’t! Please don’t!’ he cried out in alarm, dragging in a breath as he sat up suddenly.
Ah no, another nightmare! Gabrielle again! Gabrielle, but as a child last and a woman first. The flensing-knife had been scraping her peeled skin. A butterfly with a clear, bell-like voice and a shimmering dress.
Gabrielle and twenty-nine hostages. Giselle le Roy also. Ah Mon Dieu, Mon Dieu, where were the coins hidden? Where were Charles Audit and Rejean Tourmel?
St-Cyr flung himself back. The monkey had flitted by on the screen of his imagination carrying its tin cup to the body of what must have been Victor Morande. It had given an excited burst of chattering, had banged the cup against one of the spiralling brass poles and had tried to draw attention to something, but what?