‘You hate me now.’
‘I don’t! I want you to think!’
‘Then let me tell you exactly what I think!’
‘Look, I’m sorry I slapped you.’
But are you really, wondered Christiane. ‘Mireille was a Libra, the House of Balance; Dédou was of the Archer, a Sagittarius.’
‘And Adrienne?’ demanded Genèvieve.
‘A Virgo. Carnelian and jade are the stones of her sign. Mine, unless you have forgotten, are agate, the moss variety especially, and chrysoprase, the more golden green the better.’
A Gemini …‘And I’m a Pisces, the sign of two back-to-back fishes and the wearer of amethyst. You will never have forgotten that.’
‘But Mireille didn’t wear her costume when she came to practise with us on Monday afternoon, did she?’
‘She needed time to get ready … She had hours until the audition.’
‘Oh bien sûr, chérie, but also she wouldn’t have wanted us to see the rebus. It was her insurance the truth would be told should anything untoward happen to her.’
They touched hands. Momentarily they came together to hold each other, then Genèvieve hesitantly said, ‘After practice, she presented me with a tiny chrysoprase. I … I thought nothing of it. Why should I have? The thing was chipped and ancient, a pale and dirty greyish green cameo she had found last summer while rooting around in the garden of that family house she lives in. I didn’t want it and told her so.’
‘But she made you take it?’
‘You saw me do so. Why, then, do you ask?’
And I’ve wounded you now, haven’t I, thought Christiane, but said, ‘Because it meant something.’
‘What, damn you!’
There were tears now misting those blue eyes that could be, and often were, so warm and compassionate. Tears of anguish and of uncertainty. Of fear. To shrug would only infuriate her, yet the impulse was there and had to be controlled.
‘What, please!’
‘I don’t know yet, except to say that it was thought of as a stone neither a Pisces nor a Virgo should ever wear, since it tended to bring misfortune.’
When Genèvieve didn’t say anything, but turned quickly away in despair, Christiane wanted desperately to reach out to her but hesitated. ‘It’s over, isn’t it, for all of us? We’re finished.’
Torn from her silence, Genèvieve said harshly, ‘César … We’re going to have to talk to him. It can’t be avoided. Not now.’
‘They’ll kill the detectives, won’t they? The Hooded Ones will have to protect themselves. They can’t …’
Struck twice and then again and again, Christiane fell to her knees to quickly press her face against Genèvieve’s bare feet and grip her by the ankles. ‘I’m sorry, so sorry,’ she wept.
‘Then don’t you ever say that again! We don’t know anything about those people. We’re not supposed to know.’
La Cagoule …
‘Ispettore, da quando siete quaggiú?’ asked Simondi warily. How long have you been down here?’
‘Long enough,’ said St-Cyr tensely.
‘But what brings you here, amico mio? Old bottles? A love of history?’
‘Absinthe, I think.’
‘Ah! L’assenzio.’ Simondi tossed a hand. ‘La moglie … Scusate, Ispettore, I constantly forget myself even after more than thirty-five years in Provence. The wife. L’absinthisme is a disease not seen these days. I understand your concern entirely. It’s terrible, isn’t it? An intelligent, once beautiful woman … But amico mio, what is this? You should have come to me. I would have told you everything. To search a man’s house without a magistrate’s warrant? To wander about in his cellars without permission? Non siete autorizzato.’ He wagged a reproving finger as he came closer. ‘You’re not authorized to do that.’
He was right, of course, and unfortunately the bills of lading were now much closer to him and he knew it too.
Simondi unbuttoned the camelhair overcoat with its wide thirties lapels and, finding matches and a cigar, set his torch aside, and took time out to light them. The broad brimmed fedora was of a soft beige velour, the white silk scarf that of a Puccini.
‘La sala delle statue, Ispettore, the salon of the statues, or better still, let me show you one of my greatest joys. The library. When Marceline and I discovered this house it was in such a state. Old books … scattered manuscripts and papers — priceless letters dating from the very days of the cardinals when this and other houses like it were their livrées.’
Their palaces, but built on land that had been dedicated to the poor, the servants. Hence the name of livrée, and so much for the popular notion that its other meaning of the livery, or stables, applied, thought St-Cyr. ‘When, exactly, did you “acquire” the house?’
‘I will switch off my torch to conserve the batteries, Ispettore, but, really, why don’t we go upstairs? It’s too cold down here. The flu … One has always to watch the health, isn’t that so?’
Last winter’s flu had been terrible. Too many had died of it in Paris alone, but had the reference to health been a warning? Of course it had! ‘The date, please.’
Bastardo, non mi prendere in giro! Don’t mess about with me! ‘These old houses, Inspector. So few could afford them, but there was always the dream. Marceline had inherited a little money from an uncle she had favoured years ago. Nothing much, you understand, but enough to make the small downpayment its owner was willing to accept.’
‘After the house was ransacked?’
‘A small matter. A disagreement of some sort. Transients perhaps.’
Hired hoodlums, then.
‘The late autumn of 1940,’ said Simondi, watching him closely through cigar smoke and Sûreté torchlight. ‘Things were in great turmoil, as you will remember. The war had been lost; the country suddenly divided into free and occupied zones. All manner of people flooded into Provence to take refuge from what was going on in the north. We never found out who had caused the trouble.’
‘But its owner felt it best to sell up and leave.’
‘No, no, it wasn’t like that at all. The owner and his family had left the country before the Defeat and decided to remain abroad. America … New York, I think. Alberto was handling things for them; small matters of upkeep, taxes, household bills, the wages of a caretaker, gardener, chauffeur, cook and housemaids. He-’
‘He cabled them that an offer had been made, and the owner, feeling it prudent, agreed.’
‘Yes, yes, that’s it exactly.’
Jewish, then, and lucky to have escaped with their lives, thought St-Cyr sadly. ‘So, tell me about the disease.’
Ah bravo, caro Ispettore, you have come back to what I wanted you to ask! But I must remove the cigar to consider it and give an expression of concern. ‘Ever since she came here to live, my wife has yearned to return to the Paris she loves. Surely you can understand such a thing, you who are known to love Paris and to miss it constantly? I did what I could. A little trip now and then, the shopping, the restaurants, but the pressures of work … One simply can’t give up everything, and increasingly there was what we say in Italian, le esigenze del successo, the demands of success.’
‘And when the supply of what the former owner had left, and the hoodlums who ransacked the house had missed, had finally run out?’
‘I ordered it in from the only place I could.’
‘You have friends.’
St-Cyr had already looked at the bills of lading. ‘Of course I have “friends.” Without them life would be very dull.’