‘I’ve nothing to hide, Inspector. This,’ Meunier indicated the displays, ‘is but a living. Were I to have shut up the shop of my great-grandfather and gone south into the Free Zone, I would simply have forfeited everything. Is that not so?’
It was, for the Germans would have taken over and sold what they could or rented the shop to someone else and pocketed the rent, since that had been one of the first ordinances of the Occupier. Get back to work or else.
Meunier had been bent over his desk patiently working on a copper plate, with an array of wooden-handled engraving tools before him and a jeweller’s glass to one eye. Now he reached for his jacket and, putting it on, buttoned it up over a grey vest and waited. The shop was warm, a rarity in these days of so little coal. A bad sign, since it implied outright collaboration.
The son tried to continue to operate a small hand-press. A notice in heavy bond for the Kommandantur perhaps, or the SS over on the avenue Foch since it was the holiday season.
‘A small matter, monsieur,’ said St-Cyr. ‘Did either of you see this girl on Thursday last at about 1.20 p.m?’
The engraver didn’t even look at the snapshot.
‘Is it about the house of Monsieur Verges, Inspector?’
‘Monsieur Verges?’
‘Yes. Directly across from us. The girl studied the house for some time, then entered the shop to ask whose it was. Monsieur Verges hasn’t been back since the exodus of June 1940. I told the girl there couldn’t possibly be anyone there and that she must have the wrong address.’
To offer information so readily was just not usual, especially not in these desperate times. ‘And how did she react to what you said?’ asked St-Cyr cautiously.
‘Distressed. Flustered. At first certain that I hadn’t told her the truth, then casting anxious looks through the windows towards the house. This … this morning when Paul arrived to open the shop, he … he noticed the curtains had been removed. Has something …?’
‘Ah yes, the curtains. The house is empty.’
‘Empty, but …’
‘But what, m’sieur?’
‘But … but Monsieur Verges can’t have sold it, Inspector? The house has been in his family for generations. He swore he would never do so even though his only son is one of the droolers and was never allowed to show his face here.’
One of the droolers … les baveux. A special branch of the gueules cassees, the broken mugs of World War I whose faces had been horribly mutilated by shrapnel and the bullets of snipers and machine guns.
Without a lower jaw, or only a part of it and often no lips, one drooled constantly and wore always a towel around the neck to catch the saliva.
‘Surely Paris and the garden could have been allowed the son, monsieur?’
The detective had obviously been a soldier himself.
Reading the engraver’s mind was easy. ‘A sergeant in the Signals Corps,’ said St-Cyr guardedly. ‘I’ve seen so many of them, monsieur. Begging in the streets. Shut up because … ah because one’s family and friends soon became so ashamed of the gah-gahing, they turned their backs on those heroes and loved ones in revulsion.’
And you’re still bitter about it, thought Meunier, warning himself to go carefully. ‘Monsieur Verges is the kindest of men, Inspector. The boy was to have been married but when his fiancee saw what had happened to his face, she screamed in terror and ran from him, refusing absolutely to have anything more to do with him.’
A quite common response and quite understandable though regrettable. ‘So, let us proceed to the matter of the house and the girl in this snapshot. Did she stay with you long?’
Meunier hesitated, but immediately regretted doing so and was flustered. ‘Ah, not long, Inspector. She asked again about the owner of the house and left in a hurry.’
‘But … but she thought she was being followed?’
‘Followed? Pardon?’
Was it such a catastrophe?
Swiftly Meunier went to close the door to the workshop and shut out his son. Then he came back to stand on the other side of the counter. ‘She said nothing of being followed, Inspector. Nothing!’ he hissed.
‘And did you not sense this?’
‘No, I did not. I saw a girl who didn’t belong in a place like this and had obviously been given an incorrect address, a girl who couldn’t understand that such a mistake had been made. When I told her the owner wasn’t there, she showed me a letter she had received in answer to an advertisement she had found in Le Matin.’
So, the fish is fresh, thought St-Cyr. Now for the sauce. ‘And what did the letter say? Come, come, monsieur, an answer is required.’
‘That … that she was indeed to go to that address. This I cannot understand, Inspector, but at the time, I said there still must be some mistake as I hadn’t seen Monsieur Verges in over two-and-a-half years.’
‘And do you think she went to the house?’
As if the confrontation were over, Meunier began to relax. ‘Of that I have no idea. She left without thanking me and I paid not the slightest attention until …’
‘Ah yes. Until your son told you the curtains had been taken down.’
‘Yes, not until then,’ came the testy reply.
‘And were the curtains there yesterday?’ asked St-Cyr cautiously.
‘It was Sunday, Inspector. Though we’re very busy, the Lord’s Day is sacred.’
‘Saturday then?’
What has happened in that house? wondered Meunier. ‘Yes, the curtains were there on Saturday. I myself saw them and can swear to this.’
Then there’s no need for me to speak to your son, is that it? thought St-Cyr. ‘Tell me about this Monsieur Verges, monsieur. Where does he live?’
‘Near Provins. He has a house there which has been in his family for over two hundred years.’
‘A house. A chateau?’
Meunier thought a pause would be best. He would draw himself up. ‘I really wouldn’t know, Inspector. One never asks.’
‘Come, come, m’sieur. Monsieur Verges would have used your services on a number of occasions, especially to announce the engagement of a son.’
Ah damn the Surete and their meddling! ‘Le Chateau des belles fleurs bleues.’ The Chateau of the Beautiful Blue Flowers.
Lupins probably, or violets along the wooded banks of the Seine. ‘And the name of the fiancee who ran away?’
‘Angelique Desthieux, but surely that business happened so long ago, it’s of no consequence?’
It would be best to give the engraver a moment and then to quietly tell him, ‘In crime everything is of consequence. The announcement, please. You will still have a copy of it.’
Desthieux … It rang no bells until Meunier just happened to say, ‘She was a mannequin for one of the top fashion houses. Freelance also.’
A mannequin … Starded, the detective threw him a look of savage puzzlement. ‘She was what?’ he demanded.
Unsettled, Meunier thought to shrug the matter off. ‘Oh, she was from before that other war, Inspector. Very beautiful, very elegant. Tall and slender, with long chestnut hair and large dark brown eyes … Monsieur Verges’s son was very much in love with her. I used to see them strolling in the garden from time to time. It was the young Monsieur Gaetan who, at his father’s wish, asked us to do the announcement.’
A drooler … a girl with long chestnut hair and deep brown eyes … ‘May I keep this for a little?’ asked St-Cyr of the gilded announcement. ‘Please, I’ll take good care of it.’
‘Certainly. I have two others. We always keep three or four and always I seem to be thinking I ought to throw them out but can never bring myself to do so.’
‘Bon. Now, please, m’sieur, a word with your son for I greatly fear you have tried to mislead me and that he’s the one who really let the girl into the shop and spoke with her.’
Crestfallen that the information he had sacrificed had not accomplished what he had intended, the engraver sadly nodded in defeat. ‘He’s a good boy. Lonely-aren’t all such boys lonely when everyone says he should have done his duty and he can’t find the will to forgive a father’s love? He’s the only son I have, Inspector. No one else can carry on the name.’