Kohler crowded into the tiny dressing room and, closing the door behind himself and Juliette, put the bolt on. ‘A few small questions. Nothing difficult.’
‘I can’t tell you anything!’ she shrieked and stamped a foot. ‘I can’t, I can’t!’ Willi, she begged. Willi, please help me.
‘I think you had better answer, mademoiselle. Postcards to tip off Madame Fillioux that …’
She gestured dismissively. ‘She was never anything to him. Just a foolish girl he had to fuck and use in other ways.’
‘Ah, no … no, mademoiselle. Though our father did not mention my mother in his journals or give her credit for helping him, I still believe he fell very much in love with her. So much so, he told your mother of the relationship and she then demanded a divorce.’
‘He killed her, didn’t he?’ snorted Danielle. ‘He cut her to ribbons. Slashed her breasts, peeled back the skin, carved her buttocks, her mons, her … Ah no, no … I did not mean to say that.’
Merde, merde … ‘I think you did, Mademoiselle Arthaud,’ breathed Kohler. ‘Tell us what she said to you in that little glade. She was expecting to meet her husband after all those years of loneliness but instead of him, you turned up, high on cocaine.’
Ah no … ‘I … I found her after it had happened. I … I was in the cave. I really was. She … she couldn’t have cried out. You must believe me. You must!’
Then why the tears of remorse, why the agitation of betrayal and a need so desperate only von Strade can help? ‘But you were there at the cave?’ he asked, to pin her down.
‘Yes.’
Kohler dragged out his little black notebook. ‘Your timing’s impeccable, mademoiselle. On the 25th of May of last year you wrote to Madame Fillioux telling her the parents Fillioux were very ill and had had no news of her. The couple needed food and money desperately. You stated very clearly that you were returning to see them that day.’
‘I … Yes. Yes, I went to see them that afternoon.’ Would he let her have a cigarette?
‘Good, because my partner and me, we’re puzzled. You see, your name and “friend” appears in the visitors’ book at Lascaux on the same day the card was posted.’
‘That … that is a lie. I … I was never there. I was in Paris, I tell you! Paris! Until we began filming, I had never visited Lascaux.’
‘But you had visited the Discovery Cave?’
She ducked her head. ‘Only during the filming at Lascaux and not before it.’
A lie of course. Inwardly she was begging von Strade to help her. Kohler was certain of it. ‘Then let’s talk about the murder of Madame Fillioux. Take it right back to your first postcard.’
Ah damn that stupid woman! ‘I … I have nothing to say to you or to anyone except that I am innocent. I only tried to help my grandparents who are old and sick and not so well-off any more since they failed to declare the contents of their safety deposit boxes and these the Occupier has confiscated as well as their bank accounts. All they have left now are two houses – oh for sure it’s lots, yes, if either was sold, but they cannot dispose of even the smallest item of the furnishings in Paris and are constantly being watched. One more mistake for them and they will lose everything.’
She was really bitter about it and not without good reason. So many had failed to declare things, the SS and the Gestapo had had a field day, but could she be trusted to remain here in her dressing room? Of course not.
Kohler dragged out his handcuffs. ‘Let’s try these on for size.’
‘And the stonekiller, Inspector?’ she shrilled. ‘Our father, what of him?’
‘These will help you to stay put so that you don’t have to worry about him.’
‘Batard!’ She snatched at something and swung. Juliette shrieked, ‘A handaxe.…’
The thing fell to the floor at their feet. Blanching, Danielle said, ‘It … it’s not what you think. I.…’
‘Save it for later, eh? Now turn around and give me your wrists. Madame, that chair with the iron back. The one at the dressing table. Turn it so that she can sit and not get too tired.’
‘He’ll kill me, don’t you see?’ pleaded Danielle. ‘I had to tell him things. I had to help him. He knows the village and has been watching us. He can come and go as he pleases.’
‘She’s right,’ said Juliette. ‘Please let me stay with her. We’ll be safe enough if you give me the Professor’s gun.’
Ah yes, madame, said Danielle to herself, the Professor, we must not forget him. A loaded revolver from Dunkirk. Why, please, did he believe it to be necessary?
‘Are you sure you can handle this?’ asked Kohler doubtfully. ‘I’ve got to find Lemieux.’
‘I’ll manage. Andre … my husband. In his lighter moments he used to stick the barrel of just such a gun into my mouth and pull the trigger. He didn’t just have a Luger, Inspector. He had one of those and others brought back not just from Russia but bought also on the black market.’
Ah merde, was she telling him Jouvet could have sold the gun to Danielle?
She saw him thinking this and nodded. She tried to smile and said, ‘When you found it in the Professor’s room, my mind was too preoccupied with other things but now I’m certain of it’
‘There are two positions, the half and the full cock.’
‘Two clicks. I remember them well.’
It was his turn to nod and he did so but reached out to brush three fingers against her cheek. ‘I’ll be back. Don’t worry.’ Louis … where the hell was Louis?
The village’s cafe had never seen business like this. Only with difficulty was it possible to push a way through to Courtet and Eisner, two very worried prehistorians whose eyes leapt at the Surete’s approach.
Courtet’s glass went over. The hand that had hit it ignored the spill. ‘Inspector, why haven’t you apprehended Henri-Georges? He hates me. He’s going to kill me. A stonekiller …’
‘Professor, please try to calm yourself.’
‘He’s killed again! This time the husband of that woman’s daughter. The throat xsxs… a savage cut. Cognac … more cognac, please,’ he gasped at Eisner, and tossed it off. ‘Merci. You see the state I’m in.’
‘Good. Now perhaps you would be so kind as to tell me why you failed to alert my partner and myself to the danger?’
Alert … alert … danger … danger, ran the whispers, electrifying the cafe into silence while Herr Eisner fastidiously tried to avoid the spill which had found its way to his edge of the table.
‘I … I did not know for sure,’ confessed Courier, his gold-rimmed spectacles winking in the naked light. ‘I worried – yes, yes, of course. Unlike that foolish Fillioux woman, I had thought him dead long ago but now the cave, the paintings, the.…’
‘These?’ asked the Surete, dangling the amulets in front of him while Herr Eisner watched at the ready perhaps, to sacrifice his fellow prehistorian.
‘That Jouvet woman stole the real one from the trunk,’ seethed Courtet. Why, please, did she do such a thing? Is she working with that father of hers? Is she, Inspector? Ah damn, you do not even know!’
The amulets were swept into a decisive fist, the accusations ignored. ‘A chair,’ said the Surete, and when one was shoved into place, he sat down firmly opposite the two of them.
Opening his fist, he made a great show of indecision. ‘They are so perfect, I cannot remember which was which. No, please, Herr Eisner, I want the Professor to choose.’
If I can, is that it? wondered Courtet acidly. Ah damn the Surete.
‘A forgery, Professor,’ said St-Cyr. ‘A few more engraved lines made with a flint stylus – yes, yes, most certainly. But why question the matter too closely when Herr Eisner here held the purse strings and the Reichsfuhrer Himmler was so determined to prove the claims of Aryan conquest extended back into the earliest of times? Fillioux did not note the presence of a swastika in his journals, Professor, though it would have been well known to him even then, nor did he indicate there were paintings in that second chamber but when the trunk became available, it was too good an opportunity for you to miss.’