“No, you didn’t.”
“And you still haven’t told me-your friend, the chief inspector, didn’t tell me-why he was here.”
“He came because I asked him to come. I knew you would come, Mr. Hart. You had to come; there was not anything else for you to do. There isn’t anything mysterious about it. Austin Pearce called me yesterday, just after you left the embassy, just after you made your escape. He was very agitated. That is a serious understatement: He was angry. He accused me of all sorts of things. I had a very difficult time getting him to calm down. He told me why you had come, what you thought I had done.”
In the failing light of late afternoon, the limousine raced down a tree-lined country road. Sunlit shadows cast a dappled pale glow on Jean Valette’s finely formed auburn-colored face. He had to be over sixty, but he looked almost as young as Hart, even though Hart, still in his forties, also looked younger than his age. There were differences, of course. Hart did not yet have any of the gray hair that, in the right proportion, added a certain distinction, and none of the web-like lines around the eyes that made Jean Valette’s face, even in repose, look so serious.
“He told me why you had come,” he repeated in a way that suggested not so much astonishment as a deep curiosity. He seemed intrigued by what Austin Pearce had told him. “He demanded-there is no other word for it-demanded that I tell him if it was true; demanded to know if I had had anything to do with this plot to murder Robert Constable.”
Valette seemed almost to enjoy it, the memory of that accusation. If Austin Pearce had not been murdered, if he were still alive, it is quite possible that Valette would have laughed out loud as he recounted their strange conversation. Hart, on the other hand, did see anything even the slightest bit amusing in any of it.
“And did you?-Did you have anything to do with this, the murder of the president, the murder of Frank Morris, the murder of Quentin Burdick, the murder of-?”
“Mr. Hart! I promise you, I’m not what you seem to think.” Valette’s eyes flashed with contempt. “What did I care whether Robert Constable lived or died? What did I care about any of this? I’m not interested in what happens to this person or that person; I’m not interested in individuals. I’m not interested in what happens today or tomorrow; I’m interested in what is going to happen fifty years from now, a hundred years from now.”
The look in his eyes changed. Contempt vanished; something more hidden, more enigmatic, took its place.
“Though I could have told you that what happened to Constable, and what is happening now, was all but inevitable; perhaps not in that form-murder-but in some other. We can discuss that later. Let me finish what I was telling you about what Austin said to me, let me-”
“You’re not concerned with individuals-you’re only interested in what might happen a hundred years from now!” exclaimed Hart as he leaned forward and jabbed his finger in the air. “Austin Pearce was murdered! He died looking into my eyes, and you don’t care what happened to him? I’m supposed to believe you-Austin was supposed to believe you-when you insist you weren’t involved in any of this?” His gaze sharpened and became more intense. “Did Austin tell you where he was going? Did he tell you he was going to be at Wolfe’s apartment?”
“You think I sent those people-? If I had done that, why would you be riding in my car? Why wouldn’t I have just let Marcel take you away, turn you over to the Americans and let them dispose of you? By this time tomorrow, I can almost guarantee that you would be dead.”
“Why didn’t you-let your friend, the chief inspector, arrest me?”
“Austin Pearce, of course.”
“What did Austin do that made you-?”
“He asked me-after I gave him my word that I didn’t know anything about what had happened, that I did not even know Constable had been murdered until he accused me of being involved-he asked me, or rather he insisted, that I do whatever I could to help you get to the bottom of this.”
Jean Valette looked out the window at the rolling hills in their patchwork colors and the river that ran not far from the road, out to the dark green forest that marked the beginning of where he lived; the forest that, if he could not yet see it with his naked eye, would be there, in full view, in just another few minutes. There was a certain satisfaction, a sense of possession, in seeing things that others could not yet see.
“You knew Robert Constable, of course,” he remarked after a long silence. “But how well did you know him?”
Hart thought about it, wondering how to answer the question that, in the last few weeks, he had often asked himself. He gave the one answer he was sure about.
“My wife did not know him at all.”
Valette’s head snapped up. His eyes brightened with approval.
“That’s exactly what Austin told me. He had seen the papers, read the story, said that no one who knew you both would believe a word of it. Good for you, Mr. Hart; good for you. A man who doesn’t doubt his wife! I once had that privilege. But never mind. How well did you know him, Robert Constable?”
“I never thought I really knew him,” confided Hart. “He was too elusive, always calculating what he wanted and how he was going to get it-and how you were going to help him-to be someone you could really get to know. And now, after what I’ve learned-after what I’ve learned about his connection with you, with The Four Sisters-I’m not sure I knew him at all.”
The line across the bridge of Valette’s prominent nose deepened and became more pronounced as he drew his eyes together into an attitude of the utmost concentration. He scratched the side of his face with the back of three fingers. A smile that barely broke the line of his full mouth seemed to reflect a considered judgment that nothing could now change.
“Then you knew him as well as anyone did; better, really, because you knew him for what he really was: a man who, when dealing with others, thinks only of himself; a man who, when he tries to understand himself-if he ever does that-thinks only of what others believe. He was an actor, someone who always played a role-the only thing important that everyone else believe he was important, so that they would always want to see and hear him. That’s why he wanted money: so he could continue to occupy center stage. And that, of course, is why he came to me.”
“He came to you? You-The Four Sisters, the companies you control-didn’t go to him, didn’t offer him millions in exchange for making it easier for you to do business in the United States?”
“When you want money, Mr. Hart-when you ran for reelection the last time-did you wait for people to come to you, or did you ask them for their support? Yes, I understand there is a difference: that you weren’t offering to do anything specific in exchange. I understand the difference, Mr. Hart; we both do. But Robert Constable did not. The truth is that Robert Constable did not really understand much of anything.”
Valette stared down at his manicured hands, folded neatly in his lap, troubled, as it seemed, by this last remark, not so much for what had been said as by what had been left out. He closed his eyes and shook his head as if there were no point going on with it: that nothing he could say would explain what he meant. But then, because he thought it important, he turned and searched Hart’s waiting eyes.
“Though obviously from a distance, I have watched your career with some interest. You seem-how shall I say this?-more grounded than the rest of them, the ones like Constable who only run for office because they would not know what to do with themselves without the attention of the crowd. You were going to quit a few years ago, I understand; go back to California and live a private life-something having to do with your wife, if I am not mistaken. I understand you have even been known to read a serious book. It’s no wonder you don’t seem to have many friends. We have at least that much in common.”