‘And the other visits?’
‘Have more brandy. You’re still looking too pale. Last summer, in early August, from the 4th until the 7th, an extensive visit, again spending hours alone sketching the paintings. This time on tracing paper. “A scientific study,” she said. “Research for her husband.”’
‘Her husband?’
‘Ah yes, that is what the owner has told me. “I remember her well,” he has said. “Her sketches, they were magnificent. That one has a real feel for those times.”’
Merde … ‘And the third visit?’
‘Mid-November, after she and Professor Courtet had paid the Discovery Cave a visit. A few hours was all she could spare. Sous-facteur Auger would have known of the three visits but did Juliette? The first visit, yes most certainly but the others … ah, that might not be so.
‘And Herr Oelmann, does he know of the visits?’
The sous-prefet reached across the table for the top of his thermos and drained it. ‘He was at Lascaux during the filming and will have looked through the guestbook the owner keeps. When one visits, one prints their name and address and gives the signature, then later adds a comment on leaving. If I can look, so could he. Besides, because of the Occupation, not many have visited that cave.’
‘Then you would have seen if Juliette had paid it a visit?’
‘So as to duplicate the paintings, eh? Ah merde, you’re serious!’ Deveaux pinched his nose in thought. ‘Perhaps it is that Juliette has used another’s name. For me she’s not that kind of woman but.…’ He paused. ‘But I have to tell myself that no checks are ever made of any visitor’s identity card.’
‘Who else visited Lascaux?’
They had come to the crux of it at last. ‘Danielle Arthaud “and friend.” 25 May 1941, a Sunday, and not quite three weeks before Madame Fillioux’s annual visit to the Discovery Cave.’
‘Would our victim have read through the names?’
‘Most probably since the entry was on the same page as her visit in August.’
‘And Courtet?’
‘The Professor? Ah! I have forgotten. Six visits at various times, some in the company of other prehistorians – one with Hen-Eisner, of course, and two visits all by himself. “A most welcome guest.” Hen Eisner has also paid visits without Courtet.’
‘So, we are left with Danielle Arthaud “and friend.”’
‘A stonekiller.’
The initial postcard from Danielle Arthaud to Ernestine Fillioux was dated Sunday, 25 May 1941, the very same day Danielle “and friend” had been at Lascaux, a worry to be sure. Ah nom de Dieu, what was this?
Alone at last in a room at the hotel in Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne, St-Cyr had set the four bundles of cards before him on the bed. In keeping with the law, since the 30th of September 1940 until the end of 1941, only those cards with printed messages had been in use. One filled in the blank spaces, a word for each, and crossed out the others where necessary. Making sense of a tragedy or some urgent problem was all but impossible but one did not stray from the printed words and spaces. If one did, the card was simply torn in half but not destroyed, ah no, they did not do things like that, the Gestapo and the French Gestapo or the Vichy police of the postal system. The card was saved, the sender questioned and then the recipient, who might not know a thing, was forced to give a very thorough account of themselves or else.
From among the others he chose the first card from the smallest bundle. It was dated 10 October 1941.
Hermann … Hermann, he said and, reaching for his pipe and tobacco pouch, threw everything back into the carpet-bag. Deveaux would have to give him a lift. Death caps and fly agaric.… No wonder Madame Fillioux had picked her mushrooms and hidden the postcards. Danielle Arthaud’s ‘friend’ must be Henri-Georges.
Juliette Jouvet had not yet rejoined him, a worry to be sure, thought Kohler, and one from which the Baroness constantly sought to divert him. It was as if she could not let him leave but had to lead him down a path of her own, ah merde.…
The screen was filled with colour. The girl with the dog and the pigtails was long-legged, purposeful and spunky to say nothing of her eyes, her lips and voice.
‘I like it,’ he said, grinning appreciatively in spite of his worrying. The film was being shown in the chateau’s Salon Bleu, a sumptuously gorgeous room whose mirrors and chandeliers added touches of psychedelic wonder to the young, the not-so-young and old alike. The one hundred or so gathered were spellbound. Since the dialogue was in English few could understand, cue cards were being held up over on the far side of the screen but few cared to read them. As Willi von Strade had said, keep the story simple. A tin woodman, a scarecrow and a lion were with the girl and her dog on a yellow brick road through a forest whose celluloid leaves trembled whenever the girl sang, and sing she could.
There was a witch, of course. One had to have that. ‘The British Board of Censors have ruled the film suitable only for adults,’ snorted the Baroness. ‘Apparently those antiquated octogenarians feel it is not good to show a young virgin all alone in a forest with three men.’
‘But that lion … he looks like a Neanderthal who has just awakened from his cave.’
‘A Neanderthal. Who’s to say what they really looked like?’ she said, searching the crowd for her Toto. ‘The British Censors also ruled Snow White forbidden to the under-sixteens. Again it was a young virgin in a forest but in that film she was asleep on a bed of leaves, having been discovered by seven lonely dwarfs who longed to awaken her when only her prince could do so.’
The sudden kiss was fiercely warm, wet and hungry. Pressed against the wall and trapped, Kohler had to succumb. Through half-shut eyes he saw Toto Lemieux sitting between two teenagers, pretty things with bright, shining eyes and soft lips. The nearest girl had her hand secretively on something she shouldn’t have but watched the film so raptly no one would have guessed.
‘More,’ grated the Baroness. ‘Let that bastard see that I have taken a new lover, yes? It’s good for my ego. Besides, Toto has to be taught a lesson.’
‘Just like Danielle?’
She pulled away to pout and stare across the audience at her dog. She pressed her seat against his hand and, catching it fiercely, held it to her thigh. ‘Toto can sustain an erection for nearly forty minutes if I give him just enough. Did you know that such a thing was possible? Neanderthal’s bones were massive – far thicker and heavier than our own – but what about the rest of him? Perhaps they died out long ago without a trace, as most prehistorians think. Perhaps, though, as Courtet and Herr Eisner now believe, thanks to the work of Henri-Georges Fillioux, they inter-mated with the Cro-Magnons and we are the result of both. That would have been the case, wouldn’t it, if our cave goes right back to the beginnings of time? But no matter. I like to think that just as they were so very strong, they, too, could sustain themselves and bring joy to their women.’
Ah merde again.… ‘Look, I’ve got to find Madame Jouvet. She might.…’
‘Need you? Is it that you fear for her safety in our Danielle’s hands?’
‘You tell me.’ He had no interest at all in her or in why Toto could sustain an erection for so long and yet not climax.
‘Go and find her then. See if I care.’
So Lemieux was also on cocaine, but as an aphrodisiac. ‘Look, I’ve got a job to do.’
‘And so have I.’
He left her then, but watched through one of the french doors as she, too, slipped away. When he reached the wine cellar, there was no sign of her, yet he swore she had led him to it.
Mould and cobwebs were everywhere and the racks of bottles yielded up the ages on labels, some almost too stained to read. Mercier … Bollinger … Krug and Heidsieck … Moet-et-Chandon, ah Gott im Himmel.