Kohler felt her relax. Every muscle seemed to let go all at once. Then she said, ‘Couchez avec moi,’ and he heard her catch a breath. ‘You can if you want. I’m naked below the waist. Naked, monsieur. Just give me a little. Please, I beg it of you.’
When he refused, she spat at him and hissed, ‘Had I had it, nothing would have stopped me. Nothing!’
Continentale’s doctor finished putting the last of the sutures in Juliette’s brow then ran a thumb over the wound. Using the Surete as interpreter, he said, ‘A scar is inevitable, madame, but you’ve no concussion. Your eyes are clear, the pupils good. Give it five or six days and come back to see me, yes? I would like to take the sutures out then and check you over once again just to be sure.’
The doctor had insisted on Juliette’s hands being freed. He had as much as cursed the Sonderkommando for their rough handling. A silent but conscientious objector, he had found refuge under von Strade’s wing yet appeared untainted by it. ‘I’ve warned you, Baron,’ he said. ‘Release them. Those handcuffs are cutting into the detective’s wrists.’
‘Ah, Ernst, my good man, it’s just not possible yet but a deal has been struck with Herr Oelmann and his associates and I have it on record that their freedom has been guaranteed. You’ve no need to worry.’
Von Strade gave the doctor’s arm a fatherly pat. ‘When Danielle arrives, take care of her for me. A little something just to sooth her nerves and give her back that confidence we like so much to see. You know how she is. She’s like a Stradi-varius with a string that might break right in the middle of a magnificent concert. We wouldn’t want that to happen, now would we?’
Or else the Russian Front, thought St-Cyr grimly. Ah merde, what was the deal?
The doctor threw Juliette a frantic look and in that one gesture, St-Cyr saw only too clearly it was the end for them.
Courtet had reluctantly come into the cafe to morosely nurse a mug of cafe noir and smoke a cigarette down to its very last. There was still no sign of Toto Lemieux. No one seemed to know where he was. The Baroness was still shooting the trunk scenes in the attic but Courtet was not needed since Herr Eisner could handle everything.
All others, unless directly concerned with the murders or the Sonderkommando, had been excluded.
A deal … Exactly what had they in mind? Odilon fidgeted uncomfortably. Caught in the middle, he worried about his pension, fussed over duty and knew he ought to say something.
A forgery. Could they not have been more discreet? This, too, was written all over the sous-prefet because now he, too, was involved and yet he was not sure if his fate had been included in the deal.
‘Cocaine.’ said von Strade, lost in thought to the grandjean he had taken from a pocket. ‘The favourite stimulant of the avant-garde, the artist, actor and writer. In small doses it produces intense well-being and great self-confidence, a sense of invincibility, of never getting caught. Inhibitions decrease. Sexual drive is often enhanced as a result, and in a young and vibrant woman like Danielle, her need often leads her to do anything to get more.’
He put the grandjean down on the table between them and looked to Juliette as if to say, Don’t ever try it, madame. ‘Had I known the addiction would lead to such vicious murders, Inspector, I would most certainly have been far more temperate in my judgement. Please be reasonable. We’re both men of the world. Let us finish Moment of Discovery, then make whatever arrests you deem necessary.’
So Danielle was the killer, was that it, eh? Was it that simple? ‘And the forgery, Baron?’ he asked.
‘Forget about it. Don’t be troublesome.’
‘But isn’t forgery a crime?’
‘Jean-Louis.…’
‘Odilon, please let me handle this.’
‘Then don’t be so foolish, Inspector,’ snapped von Strade angrily. ‘Do you think I don’t know what’s been going on?’
‘Good! It is just as I have thought, Baron. Danielle’s addiction forced her to tell you everything. That makes you an accessory to murder and I welcome the opportunity to see that you are charged!’
‘You fool, do you think you can say that to me?’
‘I say it even if my wrists are shackled, Baron! You knew and so did the Baroness!’
A purist, Deveaux had said of St-Cyr, a stickler for the truth. ‘Then take the platform you so desire, Inspector. Let me see how well you do. Audition, please. Don’t stint yourself.’
‘A cigarette … My pipe.…’
‘Nothing. Such things are impossible.’
So be it then. All anger must be suppressed, the impassive faces and weapons of the Sonderkommando ignored. ‘At the end, Madame Fillioux had to be stopped, Baron. Certainly she let the Professor think she would go along with things but she had her own reasons, her own plans. A forgery, a betrayal and denial of all she had struggled so hard to protect.’
‘She would kill my father and then my husband,’ said Juliette sadly. ‘She would expose the forgery for what it was. A monstrosity.’
St-Cyr let sympathy register as he looked at her. ‘But he did not come back, madame. Though we will never be certain of its location, he probably lies in an unmarked grave along the Marne like so many others.’
‘Not alive …?’ she blurted. ‘Dead, Inspector? But … but.…’
‘Please, it is a shock, yes, and were I able to comfort you, I would. As in film, madame, so, too, in murder, illusion is so often necessary. Your mother had to believe emphatically that your father had returned, otherwise she would not have kept silent for a whole year the knowledge that the paintings were a forgery. Remember, please, that she was unsettled after last year’s visit. Things were happening then. The cave, it was not right’
‘The postcards had been arriving from my grandparents and then later from Danielle and … and then from the Professor and … and at last from my father.’
He turned to von Strade. ‘Juliette did not help her father as the postcards from him claimed but … ah, but his words must have struck fear into your mother, madame, and doubly she resisted telling you anything.’
‘It was clever … so clever. Had I known, I would have done something to help her,’ said Juliette. ‘She must have thought I was involved even when she asked me to visit the cave and get the things for her. Even then she wanted to keep me out of it.’
Courtet was staring sourly at the dregs of his cafe noir. ‘It was necessary also,’ went on the Surete, ‘that everyone else believe Fillioux had returned, and so successful was the illusion, even my partner and I believed it for a time. But … ah but he never showed up. Two killings, so vastly different, the one as if in a demented frenzy, the other simply a crushing of the skull. The Baroness had no fear of him, Baron, though it was she who discovered the body of Jouvet in Herr Oelmann’s car. She led my partner to your wine cellar – two bottles of the Moet-et-Chandon were missing. We had found them in the stream. After I had viewed the rushes, she told me Danielle was the one I wanted. A postcard was mailed from the Marais in Paris by Fillioux. Mademoiselle Arthaud was daring to the point of foolishness. She even had one mailed from there while at Lascaux with her “friend”, knowing full well that Madame Fillioux would see the entry in the visitors’ book.’
‘So, no Fillioux, Inspector, and two murders,’ said von Strade, signalling for a glass and bottle of wine. ‘If Fillioux could not have done it, who could our stonekiller possibly be?’
‘Baron, never mock the Surete. It is not wise.’
How close the room was, how still. ‘The Professor, Inspector?’ asked von Strade.
Courtet leapt. ‘I had nothing to do with the forgery. Nothing, do you hear? I only found the paintings.’
Dregs of cafe noir shot across the flagstone floor as the mug shattered.