The husband had vanished to his frying pan. ‘All right, then, the omelette too.’ He was in God’s hands.
So, thought the woman sharply, Ernestine, she has picked her harvest a little differently this time and the detective, he is only too aware of this and is squeamish. It could only mean she had intended to kill her son-in-law.
‘Our mushrooms are not poisonous, monsieur,’ she said sweetly.
They exchanged a look so knowing he winced. ‘Tell me about Madame Fillioux. What was she like?’
Suspiciously she looked at him. ‘As facteur, shop owner and innkeeper?’ she asked.
‘As a girl, madame. One of sixteen or seventeen.’
The chest swelled. The lips were compressed. ‘Far too ambitious for a little place like this. That father of hers should not have been tempted by the few miserly francs her future “husband” offered for her … her services. Letting her stay at the farm of a relative nearby the cave so that those two could spend every waking moment without supervision? Pah! what did the imbecile think he was doing but putting the teat into the lamb’s mouth?’
‘Had she no friends in the village?’ Everyone was listening.
‘Not after throwing herself away like that and being so stubborn and proud. Paris … an intellectual, a student-assistant to some professor at the Sorbonne. It only goes to show what schooling like that does to a young man. Handsome … oh yes, Inspector. Henri-Georges Fillioux was very handsome.’
Several of the regulars nodded agreement.
‘Already married, if you ask me,’ she went on tartly, ‘and keeping that choice little bonbon to himself. This hotel was too expensive for the likes of him. Hah! he was only after something else and had an eye for it.’
‘The trunk.’
‘Those old stones, yes, and whatever her little capital was worth to him.’ Her virginity. ‘She … she used to be my dearest friend, Inspector. We shared our every confidence until that one came along and now … now she has been murdered!’
Everyone in the place could hear Madame weeping as she went into the kitchens. Giving a futile but apologetic shrug to the other diners, St-Cyr took to fussing with his napkin and to self-consciously rearranging the cutlery. These little villages … one had always to be so careful.
When the stoneware jug of wine was thumped down, a little of it spilled out to stain the cloth. ‘All right, then,’ said the patron fiercely. What has really happened to Ernestine, eh? For years I have had to put up with those two not speaking a word unless necessary and now, suddenly, we may all have to launch a boat to escape the flood.’
‘Dead of multiple stab wounds from a flint handaxe and repeated slashes with a flint knife or some other such tool. Disembowelled and left to rot in the little glade where love was first consummated.’
Ah nom de Dieu, how terrible! ‘He’s come back then, has he, that “husband” of hers?’ stormed the patron. ‘A coward, if you ask me. “No soldier,” she said and meant it too. “Amnesia,” she would say. Amnesia! Shell-shocked, eh, and wandering about for nearly thirty years? A deserter! A weakling who crumpled under the first barrage!’ He thumped the table, sloshing more of the wine. ‘She waited only for his return. She always swore he would come back. She was very pretty, monsieur, but far too intelligent and ambitious for her own good – he did that to her. “He frees my mind,” she used to say.’ A hand was tossed, the puffy eyelids were narrowed fiercely and then widened with sincerity. ‘But the interest she had in those old things, ah let me tell you, never have I heard one speak of them so convincingly and with such passion. And speak we did, at times.’
‘Antoine, get in here!’
‘Marie, she’s gone! Can you not find it in your heart to forget and forgive what I once felt for her?’
Ah merde, a full public disclosure with more tears and a scorched omelette!
The patron hunkered down over the table. ‘No one came through the village on that Sunday, Inspector, but I will ask around just to be certain. Perhaps one of the children saw something. Perhaps whoever murdered Monsieur Auger knew only too well the places where one can pass unseen. Nothing has changed much in these past thirty years. Nothing.’
Henri-Georges Fillioux did it, so okay, we’ve got that firmly, said St-Cyr to himself. ‘Did no one question the sous-facteur’s absence?’
A shrug was given. ‘Several of us tried to find him but without success. It was not a pleasant feeling. The incoming mail was piling up. We were all very alarmed, especially when Ernestine did not return from her little holiday. Two days, three at the most were usual, never more.’
‘And the PTT, why was it left locked up for a week? No telephone, no mail service?’
‘We were afraid to break in. Ernestine.…’
St-Cyr gave an audible sigh. ‘She would have pressed charges.’
Ah, trust the Surete! ‘Her hatred was only the result of our blaming her for something that, had the young man been from these parts, would have soon been taken care of and forgotten.’
‘But Fillioux was from Paris and of good family. One of the little aristocracy.’
‘He made us feel inferior, Inspector. When Ernestine got pregnant, we rejoiced, to our shame. She was a good woman in spite of what everyone thinks.’
‘And her daughter?’
The large brown eyes filled with moisture. ‘Blamed for everything though it was no fault of hers, poor thing. It was wrong, though, of Ernestine to force that girl into a marriage Juliette did not want. My son, he was killed in the Ardennes, in the invasion of 1940, but Juliette and he, they were always in love. Even after she went to Domme to teach, they would write to each other in secret at least once a week, and when she and her children came home for the summer holidays, they would walk along the river bank with the children. Nothing … nothing ever happened to stain their relationship. Nothing. It was pure.’
A nod would be best to indicate he understood. ‘Was there anything to suggest that this most recent trip of Madame Fillioux’s was any different than all the others?’
‘Nothing. Ernestine kept to herself about such things. Her private life was her fortress.’
‘But you have said the two of you spoke of the past?’
‘Years ago and never of her private life.’
‘Then was there anything unusual about last year’s visit?’
‘Last year’s …? But … but she made two visits, Inspector. One at the usual time and the other in mid-October, the 15th, I think.’
The visit with Courtet. The payment of 10,000 francs.
‘Did Juliette know of this second visit?’ asked St-Cyr calmly.
The shoulders were shrugged. The patron simply didn’t know.
‘And the visit of 17th June of last year?’ The day the trunk had turned up in an antique shop in Saint-Ouen.
‘For several days after her visit Ernestine was preoccupied and forgetting things she would not normally have forgotten. Little things, you understand. It was as if she had either done or seen something she regretted, something she could tell no one, not even Juliette.’
When, please, did the husband leave for Russia?’
‘Ah! not until September of last year. Ernestine was so happy when she heard the news, she forgot the past and tried to mend all fences. “It is a gift from Heaven,” she said. “He won’t come back. They will kill him for us.”’
‘And when did he come back?’
‘In the third week of March.’
The rushes were being shown in the grand salon of the chateau where magnificent crystal chandeliers, gilded mirrors and deep blue velvet drapes rose to elegantly formal soft blue swirls and cream mouldings of plasterwork. Louis XIV sofas, settees and armchairs were lined up together with much-used wooden and canvas folding chairs. Several of the cast and crew sat up front on the Aubusson carpet or to the sides on the harpsichord, on the grand piano, and the tables with their fantastic marquetry and clutter of porcelain figurines and clocks. Some smoked cigarettes or small cigars, others sipped wine, nibbled pastry or, arriving late and still in work clothes and boots, dined on huge sandwiches crammed with pate and roast goose. The youngest of the cast ran rampant, a game of hide-and-seek. The older teenagers browsed, looked bored, held hands or slipped away to explore each other.