Dead, Stavisky could tell no tales; alive, he could have identified all those who had benefited from the swindles.
‘How much of a bundle did Madame Buemondi’s father make?’
‘Monsieur Cordeau doubled his substantial fortune, Inspector. Perhaps several hundred millions of francs, who knows? There are still those who say he was smart to have pulled out when he did; others, that he knew only too well what was going on and got out before the scandal broke. Still others say it was he who paid to have the bullet placed in Monsieur Stavisky’s brain.’
Nice … that was really nice. Louis should have heard it. ‘Did Madame Buemondi ever pawn anything else?’
The man shook his head. ‘She was very quiet, you understand. Like the terrified little mouse. She sat among the others on one of our benches and when I called out her number, she jumped but did not argue. Just snatched the money and stuffed it into her purse. I had to call her back to make her take the ticket she had left on the counter.’
‘A kaleidoscope.’
‘Yes, as I have said.’
‘Was there anyone with her?’
‘Not in the pawnshop, but when I went to call her back, I saw her meet a young girl.’
‘One of her daughters?’
The man gave him a curious look. ‘No, not a daughter, monsieur. A Basques-Francaise.’
‘The daughter of a shepherd? Of a man who knows the mountains?’
‘A mountain guide, yes.’
Verdammt! Now what were they to do? Delphane had been right. The cash had been to pay off the guide for taking the escapers into Spain. Kohler knew it, felt it in his bones, said to hell with the medicines she might have been buying. It was as good as over for that village and for the weaver and the daughters. Louis, too, and himself.
When they reached the pawnshop, they found the door locked from the inside. A note had been written on the back of one of the tags and tied to the handle. Hermann, please do not disturb me.
The room was large and all but bare. Dark wooden panels lined the walls not unlike those of a courtroom. Austerity and piety seemed everywhere. A long counter ran across the back, separating the rest of the room from the storehouse of pawned wealth in rows of shelves asleep behind padlocked wire caging.
St-Cyr stood alone among the shabby wooden benches where the poor and the not-so-poor or the wealthy sat alike with sinking hearts as each had his or her number called out. ‘Numero -, will you take thirty francs for your wedding ring? Numero -, will you take forty-five on the camera and ten on the shoes?’
Often the sum given was far less than the rumoured one-quarter of the object’s value – only fools dared to arrive in the morning. Always bitchy, never kind, the clerks behaved slightly better after a good lunch, and the wealthy often did a little preliminary research so as to bribe the waiter or the chef for just such a reason.
Photographers and artists were among the first to come as hard times approached; farmers often among the last. He remembered a ballet dancer who had had to pawn her shoes in order to pay her rent but then could not dance that very evening and was distraught. Fifty francs he’d given her and she had held him as one would a long-lost father.
He remembered an old man who, on parting with his pet finch, had wept openly and promised vehemently to return at the first opportunity but had immediately gone into a cafe and drunk the pittance away.
Everyone in the room knew the amount received by everyone else. Some could not bear the humiliation and broke down completely, only further disgracing themselves. Others were cavalier. Most tried to argue but the value offered was always firm and attested to by the arrogance of the clerks who hated with a vengeance any and all who approached that counter.
Yet from just such as this had Stavisky been able to launch his swindles.
St-Cyr drew in the musty odour of things long forgotten. He willed the memories to come. Chamonix … he urged. Chamonix. It was so far from here.
Viviane Darnot had known Jean-Paul Delphane was in Cannes looking into the murder of her former lover and companion. Her father had been taken to the cleaners by Stavisky but why, then, must she lie about things, unless still protecting someone?
Josianne-Michele? he asked. But why protect her now, knowing that the girl’s mother was dead?
He saw the mother’s eyes in death, the braided diadem with the fringe all but covering the forehead. The dark, wooden shaft of that arrow – why had the killer not used a newer bolt? If the two women had practised their archery as much as Carlo Buemondi maintained, then surely they must have had newer ones?
The weaver came to him then. He saw her in the half-light of some stairwell, the cellars perhaps? Hiding … Yes, yes … Had she come back to the villa near Chamonix to find out what was happening?
Again he reminded himself that her father had lost a fortune. Two and a half million francs – old francs then. Worth at least twelve and a half million now.
Two girls in a convent school, the older one taking the younger under her wing and into her bed.
The sound of a pistol shot – fragments of mirror flying outwards. Dark grey-blue eyes in every one of them. Slices of her face, turning … turning …
Quickly he went over to the counter and ducked through the gap. From row to row he searched among the battered valises, the pitiful lampshades and stacks of dishes. ‘Numero P-9377482,’ he said aloud, ‘will you take 35,000 francs?’ Ah Mon Dieu, so much?
The black leather box was really quite small – perhaps no more than twenty-five centimetres by fifteen in width and the same in height.
Unlocking the wire, he moved the rusty screen aside, then stood there looking down at that thing she had pawned. Though the dust must settle constantly, there was no trace of it on the leather, and he could not help but wonder why Jean-Paul had left it here for them to find.
‘A trap,’ he said. ‘It’s a trap.’
There was a tiny key and he could hear the argument that must have raged between Madame Buemondi and the clerk as to its leaving. Only at the last would she have given in and relinquished it.
Jewels? he wondered. Some sort of scientific instrument? ‘Ah, Nom de Dieu,’ he breathed. ‘A pocket telescope!’
In black velvet, the silver shone. Even in the poor light, the bright-cut engraving sparkled. Lions and tigers, elephants, giraffes and palm trees, the sickle of the moon above an oasis, the stars all out, the three wise men in their robes, their camels hobbled for the night. The crest of some wealthy family, the hallmark of its maker.
Carrying the box into the Assistant Director’s tiny office, he switched on the lamp, then stood looking down at that thing again.
The workmanship was absolutely exquisite, the faceting of the bevelled engraving almost jewel-like. He imagined the dead woman sitting at one of those benches among such shabbiness with the others all around her waiting for her number to be called, so desperate for cash she had had to pawn this. Thirty-five thousand francs but worth at least between 140,000 and 250,000, if one could find a buyer, but why had it been so valuable?
Delicately picking it up, he pointed it at the lamp, sucked in a breath, let out a little cry of delight and began at once to rotate the outermost end of the tube. Beautifully coloured and faceted platelets were thrown outwards. Reflected again and again by the simple system of mirrors, there were patterns such as he had never seen before. Ruby-reds and emerald-greens, topaz-blues and yellows, tourmaline in shades of red, green, blue, yellow and pink … diamonds … were there coloured diamonds as well?
There was a range of nearly every colour from a deepest red that absorbed to the finest of pale pinks; the yellows from that of ripened flax to that of a golden wine, the blues, the greens varying the same, and clear, transparent pieces that drew the colours of the others yet stood out themselves when turned.