“I went there to see Wolfe. That’s true.”
“But did he expect you? We know that you were about to be arrested at the embassy, and that you got away. Did Mr. Wolfe warn you, did he tell you that was about to happen, or did Mr. Pearce do that? You came over on a private plane, and Mr. Pearce and the ambassador were old friends, were they not?”
Hart looked to Valette for an explanation, but Valette lit another cigarette and said nothing.
“What difference does it make if I was expected? I went to see him; that fact has been established. I went to see him, heard the shots, told that woman-the landlady-to call the police, ran upstairs and found Wolfe dead and Austin Pearce dying. Wolfe had shot the first one, and I picked up the gun, and Austin warned me, and I looked behind me and saw the second one and I fired and hit him in the shoulder.”
“Did the man you shot say anything? Could you tell where he was from? Was he an American?”
“No, he didn’t say anything. So if you’re asking whether he spoke French or English, I don’t know. But I was chased in the streets after I left the embassy, and I can’t be sure, but I think he was one of them.”
The inspector raised his eyebrows and nodded as if that fit with what he knew.
“The dead one, the first one through the door, the one Wolfe managed to shoot, was an American, but we couldn’t be absolutely sure about the other one.”
“He had identification? You found something that told you who he was?”
“They were in a hurry. They probably started chasing you as soon as they discovered you had left the embassy. They didn’t have time to plan anything. So, yes, we found identification on the body. He worked at the embassy, a ‘cultural attaché,’ which means in his case someone with one of your intelligence agencies. That’s why I’m asking whether Mr. Wolfe expected you. How did they know to go there? They could not have been following you; they were already there when you arrived.”
“Well, Wolfe wouldn’t have told them, would he?”
“Then he did expect you? Before you left the embassy, you had made some arrangement.” With a knowing look, the inspector turned to Jean Valette. “Which means that Wolfe had some reason to believe that the charges against Mr. Hart weren’t true, and that Mr. Hart was somehow being used. Is that what happened, Mr. Hart? You have some evidence that you weren’t involved in the murder of the president, Robert Constable?”
Hart’s first reaction was to ignore the question, but then he changed his mind. He was tired, confused, and fast losing patience.
“Maybe he just believed me. Maybe because I had come all the way to find out who was behind the murder of the president, and whether or not The Four Sisters might be involved,” he added with a quick, questioning glance at Jean Valette that stopped just short of being an accusation, “he realized that the suggestion that I might have wanted the president dead did not make any sense.”
Inspector Dumont did not show any surprise. He turned to Jean Valette.
“The Four Sisters?”
Valette stoked his chin as if he were considering the possibility.
“Everything you’ve learned leads back to us, doesn’t it, Mr. Hart? The Four Sisters, I admit it, reaches almost everywhere. There would be no reason not to think that we might be involved in something like this. We wouldn’t be the first financial institution to help get rid of someone or bring down a government we didn’t like. But the question, Mr. Hart-the immediate question-is what Marcel has just now asked: How did anyone know that after you left the embassy you would be at that apartment?”
“It’s what I said before,” said Dumont, referring to an earlier, private, conversation.
“Yes, I think you must be right,” agreed Valette.
“Right? About what?” asked Hart.
“They didn’t go there for you,” replied the inspector. “You had gotten away, lost them in the streets of Paris. That’s when they decided they had to clean up the loose ends. It would not have been difficult to figure out that you had been warned-told you were about to be arrested-when you were at the embassy. They had to believe that Wolfe knew something, and that Pearce, who was in the room, had to have known the same thing: the name of the person you thought was really behind the murder of the president. They could not afford to let them talk to anyone. That was the reason they went to Mr. Wolfe’s apartment: to kill them both. If they had gone there to kill you, they would have waited for you, but they didn’t do that, did they? Not only did they not expect to find you there, you ruined their plan when you showed up.”
“Ruined their plan? They did what you said they had gone there to do. Both Aaron Wolfe and Austin Pearce are dead!”
“Yes, unfortunately, that fact is true. But, you see, I’m almost certain that they planned to blame both murders on you.”
“Me? But why would I kill Austin Pearce? Why would I kill Aaron Wolfe?”
“You?-A fugitive from justice, someone who arranged the murder of a president? What would stop a man like that from killing two people who might have known where he was heading, or who might have refused to help him get away? The question of a motive would never have entered into it.”
Something had been bothering Hart since he first found out that Marcel Dumont was the chief detective of the Surete Generale.
“Why were you here today? Why were you waiting outside the door? Of all the different places I could have gone, how did you know I would be coming here?”
The inspector exchanged a glance with Jean Valette and then opened the door.
“Do you think anyone recognized him?” asked Valette.
“He was sitting in the back, and we got him out before anyone had a chance to really notice. So, no, I don’t think so. Still, there is a risk…”
The inspector got out of the car. Valette followed him and closed the door behind him. They stood together, talking earnestly, and while Hart could not hear what they were saying, he could tell from the way they were gesturing that it was about him. After a few minutes, Valette got back in the car and told the driver to start.
“You’ll come home with me,” he explained to Hart. “You’ll be safe there.” He paused, and then added with a serious expression, “At least for a while. Marcel wanted to arrest you, take you into custody. He is an old friend, but he’s a policeman, and you, I’m afraid, are the most wanted man in the world. Every police organization in Europe has been told to look for you.”
“I didn’t do a damn thing!” protested Hart, letting all his pent-up frustrations burst forth.
Jean Valette had a way of tilting his head back at an angle that made his gaze seem distant, remote, detached from any feeling of common sympathy or understanding. It was the look of someone completely analytical.
“That, of course, is not, strictly speaking, true.”
“You think I had something to do with-?”
Valette stopped him a quick movement of his head, a look of disapproval for an obvious mistake.
“What you did was to let yourself be used. You came here to discover who, or what, was behind the murder of Robert Constable. You, a single individual-an important one, it is true-but not part of some investigative unit of your government! And you did this before there was any investigation, any official investigation; before there was so much as a public announcement that the president had not died, as first reported, of natural causes. That means, does it not, that someone knew, or had reason to know, that the president had been murdered and had some reason to ask you to look into it?” A shrewd, knowing smile crossed his lips. “I can understand why Hillary Constable would want someone to do that; the more interesting question is why she chose you. Do you think it was because someone intended to blame you from the beginning?”
“I didn’t tell you that Hillary Constable asked me to look into it.”