‘Abelard …’
‘Jeannot, these two have no place here. Hasn’t the Hoherer SS and Polizeifuhrer Oberg explained things to them?’
‘Monday, Abelard. I haven’t yet had a chance to inform them.’
‘Then do so.’
‘Inspectors, we’ve set up a meeting at …’
‘Later,’ said Kohler, his gaze taking in this Jeannot Raymond. ‘I want this opened now. Whose desk is it and where’s the key?’
‘It’s my desk but that drawer has been tightly jammed for months.’
M. Quevillon had said that. Suzette knew he was lying.
A dancer’s candy-striped warm-up stocking was dangled over the desk’s blotting pad to be slowly lowered to coil in on itself.
‘Open it, Hubert,’ said M. Jeannot Raymond.
‘I can’t. I left the key at home.’
St-Cyr knew that if Hermann and himself forced the issue, the agency would rightly conclude that the desk had indeed already been burgled. They would then threaten to use the photo of the boys, yet if no objections were raised and the matter meekly left, they’d believe it anyway. ‘Put in a call to Walter, Hermann. Tell him we’ve run into a stone wall.’
‘Now wait, Inspectors,’ managed Delaroche. ‘From time to time it’s necessary for Hubert and Flavien to produce certain pieces of evidence. Things are constantly being gathered. Clients do, at times, need convincing.’
‘Just like I do, eh?’
‘Hermann, perhaps we should all sit down. Perhaps the restaurant could …’
‘Colonel,’ said Suzette, ‘would you like me to ring through for coffee and …’
‘A few sandwiches …’ prompted the prompter.
A sigh was given. ‘Very well. The ham that I had at noon, Mademoiselle Dunand.’
‘With mustard,’ went on Louis. ‘The Dijon melange cremeux if possible, mademoiselle. A few olives also and please forgive me for having upset you earlier and for deceiving you. I’m not usually like that and am ashamed of myself.’
The creamy mustard, but Louis had meant it too, and was bound to do something about what had happened to her as a result. Flustered, though, and glad to escape the others if only for a moment, the girl turned away and was at the phone when they reached the outer office.
‘Yours, I think, Colonel,’ said Hermann, indicating its totally locked door. ‘If you’ve a bottle of cognac in there, we could all use a drink.’
‘Hubert, find what the inspector was looking for and bring it to my office.’
Check that desk of yours to see if anything is missing or has been disturbed.
As the door to this inner sanctum sanctorum was unlocked and opened, Louis simply said, ‘After you, Colonel,’ but then he stopped in the doorway as if struck.
The painting was absolutely magnificent. Automatically it drew the gaze away from the ample leather-topped, carved French oak desk that faced out from a far corner through a scattering of armchairs. It was seen in the half-mirrored doors of an open Louis XIV Boulle armoire, was seen also in a late Renaissance Spanish mirror, the two throwing the painting’s image back and forth but allowing varied perspectives of prospective clients should the colonel feel the need.
Apart from a bank of filing cabinets panelled in that same oak, the office was all but a salon in the old style. The beautifully flowered Aubusson would smother sounds. Louis XIV fauteuils and settees were strategically placed for quiet tete-a-tetes. There were bronzes-a superb copy of Boizot’s Nymph, another of Chinard’s Apollo …
‘Inspectors,’ said Delaroche, indicating the chairs in front of his desk, the room lighted by a rock-crystal chandelier-how had he acquired it, wondered St-Cyr, this colonel who didn’t stint himself and had such an obvious passion for the finer things in life?
‘This is a sixteenth-century portrait of the Magdalen as a young girl of substance, Colonel. It’s breathtaking.’
Though one didn’t want to dwell on it, one had best be gracious. ‘Please take a closer look while I find us a little something to drink. I’d value your opinion.’
And if that wasn’t pleasant, what was? The painting was worth at least 250,000 old francs. Perhaps this red-haired girl who wore a turban of the softest gold and beige had been fifteen. Penitently the eyes were downcast, she reading an illuminated breviary, a corner of whose spine rested on the smallest of beautifully carved desks before her, and hadn’t the colonel found exactly the same sort of desk-not a prie-dieu-and positioned it just a little to one side so that the viewer saw the one then automatically was drawn to divert the gaze and thoughts to a similarly velum-bound breviary beside which lay an identical pomander to the one in the painting and the same gold rings whose modest cabochons of bloodstone were similar to those worn on each of her forefingers. There were no other rings in the painting.
‘Droplets of the blood of Christ,’ said St-Cyr, throwing the words over a shoulder. ‘That’s what the people of those times believed that type of stone must hold. The jewellery and garments are of the very middle of the High Renaissance, Colonel. Perhaps the year 1500, or very close to it. I commend your taste. One sees at once the sharp contrasts of colour that so delighted and intrigued with their unspoken messages. The under-sleeves are crimson and juxtaposed with the kirtle’s cocoa-brown silk, whose folds have an almost metallic sheen and whose trim …’ He would point it all out as if a buyer in a gallery or patron of the Louvre.
‘Propriety is total, Colonel, modesty complete, the reformation of the fallen absolute, even of one so wealthy, but the hints of what helped to cause the trouble are definitely there all the same. Vanity, n’est-ce pas?’
Bob would be disobedient, cursed Delaroche silently. Bob would let him down at a time like this and sit at Kohler’s feet. ‘Your cognac, Inspector.’
‘Merci. Two gold chains are about her neck. The shortest of them is beaded and that, too, would have had meaning, and from it hangs an emerald and gold pendant whose droplet pearls shed the tears that are to remind her and all who view her that when chastity or the vows of marriage are broken, the reward can only be disgrace, no matter how enjoyable or profitable the moment.’
And on and on, was that it, eh? ‘It’s by Adriaen Isenbrant, of the Flemish School.’
‘Also given as Ysenbrant, a pupil of Gerard David. One sees the master’s influence but this is definitely a major work in its own right. She reminds me of the madrigal singer and costume designer whose murder in the Palais des Papes we unfortunately had to investigate.’
In Avignon during the last week of January. ‘You and Kohler never seem to stay long in one place, do you?’
‘That way we never get bored. Hermann and myself need answers and it’s time we had them.’
‘You have only to ask. We’re here to help.’
They walked in silence. M. Jeannot Raymond said nothing. Did he count off the lampposts as she always did and reach out to touch them? wondered Suzette. He had no need of the pocket torch she knew he never left the agency without, had gone into his office and then that of Hubert Quevillon to see if anything had been disturbed, had stayed in there several minutes and then had come back to escort her home after first having spoken quietly with the colonel.
Everywhere along the rue de Ponthieu the blackout was complete, except for the occasional glow of a cigarette or the sudden on-and-off of a blue-shaded torch in an uncertain hand. A velo-taxi went by, the dimness of its taillight receding.
‘It’s this way,’ she heard herself saying, the voice overly sharp but frail on the cold, damp air. Had she doubts about the Agence Vidocq? he must be wondering. Fears? she asked herself. Hubert Quevillon had not apologized and this, too, was making her nervous and when they started to cross the rue Paul Baudry, there was no hesitation on M. Raymond’s part. He simply took her by the hand.