The woman had, apparently, been absent from the clinic on Thursday, 28 January, and hadn’t returned until 3 February, the day after the most recent murder.
She’d also been absent at the times of the first two killings but was it all hogwash? Had Menetrel told the doctor what to write?
The paper was crisp, the penmanship precise but there were no faded places over the almost two years the bugger had been treating Julienne Deschambeault.
Fountain pens always run dry and have to be refilled or dipped, and each time that happens, the likelihood of leaving a blot or at least a misplaced period spells it out.
Other files, chosen at random, verified that Normand had. written the file at a sitting and not on different dates as it implied.
In the corner next to the wall mirror, and buried under clutter, there was a small, turn-of-the-century cast-iron safe. Frantically Kohler searched the desk but Normand wasn’t the type to have written the combination down on the back of the wife’s photo or tucked beneath a corner of the blotter. He’d have kept it safely in his waistcoat pocket or wallet, though if either were misplaced …? An overworked, understaffed practitioner of la medecine thermale with added sidelines in forgery and herbalism?
Jars and jars of rose petals, spruce needles, juniper berries, et cetera, were ranked on the shelves above, their Gothic-script labels bordered by gold leaf and each of them bearing the Latin name … Vitex agnus-castus L. Verbenaceae … Monk’s pepper. Zanthoxylum americanum Mill. Rutaceae … Toothache Tree. Mein Gott, the bark had been used by the Red Indians of the Americas!
Turning the jar, lifting the lid to first tentatively smell the contents and then shake out a little on to a sheet of paper for the sculptress, he saw the combination written in time-faded ink on the underside of the label.
2-27 left, 1–4 right, 17 left, 9 right, 3 left.
Julienne Deschambeault’s file was there at the top of the heap. Like doctors the world over, Normand had thought it best to keep a little insurance.
Stark in a white-collared, beige house dress with crocheted shawl tight about thin shoulders, Julienne Deschambeault stood as if trapped before drawn blackout curtain’s, her expression that of a woman of fifty-five who was haunted by guilt and fear.
Clearly distraught, she’d been pacing endlessly back and forth in her room. The Thonet chaise longue and matching wicker armchair had been shoved aside. On the small, round wicker table with its lace cloth, the glass beside the measured bottle of the Chomel had fallen over to roll about as the table had been hurriedly lifted aside.
‘Eugenie, why have I been locked into my room? Why am I not allowed to leave if I so choose?’ she shrilled.
‘It’s for your own good,’ said Dr Normand ingratiatingly. ‘The Chief Inspector merely wishes …’
‘A Surete?’ she yelped, the ribbed and knitted gloves rolled down below the wrists, the hands clasped tightly and pressed hard against the bony chest and just beneath the angular chin.
‘The negatives,’ said St-Cyr.
Her hazel eyes were quick to register suspicion.
‘You can’t have them. I haven’t got them!’
The shoulder-length, auburn hair was awry and framed the haggard countenance of one whose crisis was definitely of the nerves and whose lips were parted in despair.
‘My dear,’ interceded Madame Petain, ‘we have had to agree to turn them over.’
‘Gaetan has forbidden me to do so!’
‘Gaetan …?’ blurted Madame la Marechale, throwing Sandrine Richard a glance of alarm.
‘Madame, was he here?’ demanded St-Cyr.
‘Here?’ the woman asked, tossing back her hair. ‘He never comes here. He telephoned.’
‘Inspector …’ began Normand.
The room was rebounding with their voices. ‘A moment, Doctor. Madame, when, exactly, did your husband call you?’
Had the Inspector discovered the truth? Had he? wondered Julienne. ‘Late this afternoon. He said that if I would agree not to give up the negatives but to turn them over to him, he would see that I received the very best of legal defences and would want for nothing.’
Ah merde alors …
‘He accused you of killing Lucie Trudel, didn’t he?’ asked Elisabeth de Fleury, aghast at the implications of what must have happened. ‘He told you in complete detail how it was done.’
‘I wanted her dead! I wanted her smothered!’
‘But you didn’t do it, did you?’ implored Madame Petain.
Swiftly the woman looked to Sandrine Richard. ‘The negatives, Julienne,’ said that one firmly. ‘Don’t say anything. Just give them up.’
Beseechingly the gloved hands went out to her. ‘She lost the child, Sandrine. She spilled her baby into the armoire.’
‘Please, it’s best you do exactly as I’ve said!’ implored Sandrine.
‘My dear …’ attempted Madame Petain.
The woman tore her hair. ‘It would have been a son, Eugenie! An heir. I couldn’t have that happen, could I? She had to be stopped!’
‘Inspector, this isn’t right,’ seethed Madame Petain. ‘You can see the state she’s in. That … that husband of hers would call to accuse her!’
Elisabeth de Fleury had stepped from the group to comfort Madame Deschambeault, and hold the woman in a tight embrace.
‘The courts will be lenient,’ offered Raoul Normand blandly. ‘The judges are always very understanding in such cases.’
Madame Petain and Sandrine Richard exchanged glances of alarm.
‘Madame Deschambeault,’ said St-Cyr, ‘who told your husband that you would have the negatives?’
Again glances were exchanged. Madame de Fleury released Madame Deschambeault who, looking to Madame Richard, said, ‘Sandrine, forgive me, but he said that it was Alain Andre who had told him. They met and they talked. An urgent conference. Honore was with them, Elisabeth, and … and Secretaire General Bousquet.’
The four of them. ‘Then tell us, please,’ sighed St-Cyr, ‘what was on Lucie Trudel’s night-table?’
Once more the woman looked to Sandrine Richard for advice, then flicked an apologetic glance at Elisabeth de Fleury. ‘The Chomel, as I have it here on my own table.’
‘And the rats?’ he asked.
‘Rats?’ she bleated, throwing questioning looks at each of the other three. ‘What rats?’
Something would have to be said, thought Eugenie Petain. ‘Inspector, Julienne did want to smother Lucie Trudel. Sandrine was determined to drown Marie-Jacqueline Mailloux and to pay Henri-Claude Ferbrave to garrotte Camille Lefebvre, since Monsieur Bousquet’s wife was not among us.’
‘And God forgive me,’ said Elisabeth de Fleury, ‘I wanted desperately to stab Celine Dupuis in the heart.’
‘We spoke of it often, Inspector,’ confessed Madame Petain, ‘both here when visiting Julienne, and at our committee meetings in my flat, when Julienne was free to join us and when she has not, but I swear to you none of these ladies would have done as they’d said. It was all talk, but didn’t it help them to cope with what was happening to them? Didn ‘t I know exactly how each of them felt? How hurt and utterly betrayed, how insanely jealous, how totally exposed to the ridicule of others and to financial ruin?’
‘We also talked on the telephone when in need,’ said Elisabeth de Fleury. ‘No matter what hour of night or day, Madame la Marechale was always there to patiently listen and stand by each of us, but as to our carrying out such threats … Would that we had had the courage.’