“From where?” asked Colonel Yashimoto.
“From the kerosene lantern Monsieur LaRochelle was using inside the shed as he worked to repair the generator. She could see him clearly.”
“Ah. So she’s saying the generator was already broken and—”
“—that Madame LaRochelle was nowhere in sight and couldn’t have seen her even if she had been lurking in the darkness.”
“That’s a lie!” shouted Martine LaRochelle as she lurched with unsteady steps through a side door into the kitchen. She wore a fluffy white peignoir, her eyes were swollen and red, and she suddenly had to grip a countertop to keep her balance.
“Madame, you should be in bed!” exclaimed Tama, pushing his vast bulk to his feet and moving purposefully across the kitchen.
“But I tell you she’s lying!” The half-Chinese pointed a violently trembling finger at Valérie Valescu. “We’d turned the generator off for the night just the way we always do when we go to bed. Then when we heard the geese honking, we turned it back on; there’s a button right there beside the bed to switch it on. We turned on the lights in the inn and the courtyard and we came out and found her... found her at the pen. And... and...” She swayed against the counter, recovered her balance, and turned her enormous almond eyes to Tama. “Ask Dominique — he’ll tell you the generator was working when he woke up this morning and that it stopped just before I came to get you. Please,” she beseeched Tama, “that’s the truth!” Once again she swayed from side to side — and fell directly into the Commissaire’s arms.
“Bah,” muttered Tama when he had returned to the kitchen from putting the semiconscious Martine LaRochelle back to bed, this time locking her door from the outside with the old-fashioned key he had found in its keyhole. “She says one thing, the other one says the opposite, and this wretched boy Dominique will probably say something entirely different. Where is la Valescu, anyway?”
“I took her upstairs for a shower in our bathroom — she could use a little soap and water, you know.”
Tama nodded. “And with the door locked, she can’t get in to scratch the eyes out of our skinny demi-Chinoise” He plopped himself down heavily in the plain wooden chair in which he had breakfasted and his eyes moved moodily across the table. “What do you think?” he asked, hefting a crusty piece of stale baguette and absently tapping it against the butter dish.
“It’s one word against the other’s. If they were in my jurisdiction, I guess I’d just try to sweat both of them until one of them broke.”
“And that’s just what the gendarmes and Monsieur le Procureur will do. Though how much her lawyers will let them sweat little Miss V. V. is open to question.” Tama’s eyes dropped to the butter dish on which only a partial curlicue remained. “You know,” he said slowly, “there may be an easier way to find out which one of them is lying. Up on your feet, Mad Dog, and assume your official persona of Colonel Yashimoto, commander of the state police.”
“What do you mean?” asked the Hawaiian as he rose to his feet.
“At some time in the future both of us will be required to make formal depositions.”
“About what?”
The Commissaire swung around to point at the glass-fronted commercial refrigerator that took up most of one wall of the kitchen. “About the state of the food in the refrigerator. I think that ought to tell us all we want to know about the generator and whether it was working or not when the LaRochelles went out to the goose pens.”
“Ah, I see what you mean.” Colonel Yashimoto drew himself up with as much dignity as his shorts and gaudy Hawaiian shirt permitted. “I am ready to testify as an official witness.”
Tama pulled open the door of one of the main compartments. “Look,” he said, “feel. All the food is still cold, although definitely beginning to get a trifle sweaty. The air is still cold, which is what you’d expect with a well-insulated refrigerator, whether the electricity has been off for a couple of hours or not. The test, however, will come when we examine the butter.” He placed an enormous hand on the smaller door that housed the separate butter and cheese compartments and yanked it open. “There’s what’s left of last evening’s butter. Well, pretend you’re our gracious host and stick your finger in it, Mad Dog, and tell me what you find.” Colonel Yashimoto extended a cautious fingertip against the side of a curlicue of butter. “Hard as a rock,” he muttered. “Let me try another one. Nope, they’re all hard, every single one of them.” Tama nodded and, after prodding each of the curlicues with his own thick finger, shut the door. “And you will so state in your deposition?”
“Of course.” The Hawaiian shook his head in gloomy wonderment. “So that means that Mrs. LaRochelle was telling the truth. The generator was working when they got up, the electricity was inadvertently left on for most of the night after they were attacked, and the refrigerator was going and the butter was kept cold. So she’s telling the truth — and Valerie Valescu did kill her husband. What a story this will make!”
“Au contraire,” murmured Tama wearily as he once again seated himself at the table. “Food in a tumed-off refrigerator will stay cold for many, many hours, particularly at night when the refrigerator is never opened. Even the ice cubes won’t start melting. That’s what lets people in Tahiti who use generators turn them off from time to time, especially at night.”
“But—”
“Let’s think very carefully about what happens when the electricity goes off, Mad Dog. First, of course, the refrigerator goes off. And so does the small electric heater or coil in the butter compartment that heats the compartment just enough to keep the butter soft. The main refrigerator remains cold. And the butter compartment becomes cold.”
“What? You’re saying that—”
“Exactly. If the generator’s off long enough, instead of getting softer, the butter gets harder.” Tama harrumphed noisily. “As far as I’m concerned, this proves the electricity was off and the generator broken just as Mademoiselle Valescu says it was when she saw LaRochelle working on it during the night. Which means that that beautiful wife of his is lying when she says it was on. And since she’s lying about being able to see V. V. attacking them, it means she’s probably also lying about who killed her husband.”
“You think she did it?”
“Of course. Probably with the help of that cute little waiter of theirs. God knows that LaRochelle probably gave them both enough provocation. She obviously did see her husband and Valérie Valescu fighting at the geese pen — she was probably standing in the darkness right behind them. Then she watched V. V. drive away and decided that here was the golden opportunity she’d been waiting for to get rid of her brute of a husband. She picks up the crowbar V. V. has left behind in the mud and takes a swing, maybe hitting him on the shoulder. They fight, she gets a superficial but gaudy scalp wound, but finally ends up on top thanks to the crowbar. She may be skinny, Mad Dog, but she’s tall. She’d get good leverage with those long arms of hers. And then she just waits until morning to spin me that story of hers.”