Despite that tantalising announcement, Charles Bilenski stood up, bade farewell to his friends and Dr. Twist, and shuffled slowly out of the room. Hardly had he left when Twist observed: “Your friend seems to be down in the dumps.”
“Yes,” agreed Felder. “He’s always like that. But he’s a decent chap, believe me. Now, if you could have seen him during the war… he had a swagger, as you can tell from that photograph behind the bar. He was the star, a brilliant hero covered in glory, whom all the ladies longed for at the dances. He ended up marrying the prettiest girl on the base, a girl so pretty she became a model, and that’s when things started to go downhill. His fall was as rapid as his rise had been, as if his Spitfire, having reached its zenith, suddenly nosedived and crashed. Return to civil life was hard, and he soon found that he was just one fellow amongst all the others, and he had to work damned hard to earn a living. He turned his hand to several jobs with no success. His wife left him, he turned to drink, and the vicious circle started. On top of all that, he had no family to speak of. He’d brought his parents over from Czechoslovakia to flee the Nazis, but they perished in one of the early Luftwaffe raids. I found him by accident one night two years after the war ended standing in front of their bombed-out home. He was drunk, but sufficiently conscious to be crying. So I suggested he come back to this place with me.”
“Felder’s a good man, too,” declared Rene Baron, smiling at Twist. “He helped me pick myself up, too. The longed-for peace turned out to be as brutal a shock as the start of war. After all those years of anguish, the permanent state of alert, the sudden warnings, and the murderous aerial combats, peacetime seemed lifeless and insipid. One never becomes used to danger, but one can become dependent on it. I was heading in the same direction as Charles when I too met Mike again. And thanks to him I’ve regained my grip on life.”
“You’re all decent types,” said Dr. Twist with a touch of emotion in his voice. “Those of us who’ve lived through terrible nights during the Blitz owe you all a great debt. That’s why I’m determined not to reveal your little secret.”
After a moment of silence Felder repeated, in astonishment: “Our little secret?”
The detective looked him straight in the eye. “Yes, your secret: I mean the trick you played on that troublemaker Evans who threatened to destroy the peace and quiet of your village. You, the firebrands, who had found life again by realising that simple things — the peaceful existence of daily routine — are just as satisfying and infinitely more durable than living at a hundred miles an hour, drunk with danger.”
There was another silence, after which Felder replied, imperturbably: “Do you have any proof to support your statement?”
“Oh, I can’t prove you were all in it together, but I’m sure the trickster was one of you.”
“I must insist,” continued Felder, “have you identified him?”
“Yes.”
“And determined the method?”
The detective nodded his head in assent, smiling the while, then turned to the innkeeper. “Have you any pastis, Mr. Baron?”
“Pastis?” exclaimed the owner, wide-eyed. “What for?”
“Why, to drink, of course! It’s so long since I’ve tasted any.”
“Well, yes, I do have a bottle, but after the whisky and the beer, I’m not sure it’s advisable.”
“The whisky,” replied Twist mischievously, “was to warm me up. The beer was to quench my thirst…”
“And the pastis?”
“For intellectual stimulation.”
Baron brought the visitor’s drink over.
“But you forgot the ice, Mr. Baron,” said Twist in astonishment, taking the glass and the pitcher of water.
“Of course,” replied the owner, scuttling away. “What was I thinking?”
“In fact,” declared the detective, after having tasted the drink at the desired temperature, “I didn’t really want it, but it was necessary for my demonstration, and it was that above all that tipped me off by reminding me of one of my own youthful escapades. You’ll understand shortly when I explain it to you. Now, since I don’t believe in flying carpets, I had to retrace my steps. The solution, in the present case, is actually both earthbound and airborne.
“But let’s start from the beginning: How would one spread weed-killer in an area so inaccessible? Answer: by throwing it as a compacted object like a ball.”
“Throwing it over a high yew hedge?” said Rene Baron. “That would seem to be rather difficult.”
“True, but there was also the gap in the hedge the size of a small door which was, if I’ve understood correctly, astride the path leading to the gate.”
“The gate which was locked and guarded.”
“Certainly, but at night our trickster wouldn’t have been noticed, particularly if he’d taken advantage of the dogs’ barking; he might even have provoked them.”
“In short,” observed Felder, “someone could have thrown a block of dried powder twenty yards from behind the gate.”
“It was feasible, given that the guards made their rounds around the wall, so our man had intervals of time in which to act.”
“Right. But it’s the actual throwing that seems too risky. A block of dried powder could be blown off course by the slightest wind, not to mention the precision necessary in the first place. At one time or another, it would have landed in the wrong place. And how would the powder have been spread evenly across the grave?”
“With the help of the rain.”
“We have more than our share of it around here, agreed, but still it doesn’t rain every night. And someone would be bound to notice the next morning.”
“You’re right,” agreed Twist. “We have to find another method.” His eye fell on the bowl of ice brought over by the innkeeper. “What if our man had thrown a large block of ice made with a heavy dose of weed-killer? It would have had time to melt during the night and spread evenly in a pool over the grave.”
“There’s still the question of accuracy,” observed Felder.
A mischievous look glinted behind the detective’s pince-nez.
“But suppose the large block of ice was in the form of a ball, like, say, an orange? It would be almost the same weight as a boule as you call it.” He turned towards the photos behind the bar. “Any boule player worth his salt can deliver a series of strikes placed close together; I shouldn’t have to explain that to a professional like yourself, Mr. Baron. The boule would go over the gate, roll along the path, and go through the gap in the hedge to reach the grave. With half a dozen throws of carefully prepared ice projectiles, there would be no trace left in the morning except some moisture which would be attributed to the early morning dew. No need to do it every night, just after each fresh load of earth.”
The smile seemed to be frozen on the face of the man from Marseilles. Pointing to the photograph over the bar, he asked: “Is that how you tumbled to it?”
“Let’s say it helped.”
“Then congratulations for the deduction, monsieur,” said Rene Baron, bowing slightly. “But you know, nobody in the village wanted a huge hotel blocking their view. And all I did was help destiny along a bit. Before Evans appeared, neither I nor anyone else had ever acted that way.”
“I don’t pretend to have solved the whole mystery, gentlemen,” said Twist solemnly.
“So I think it’s just as well if we forget the whole thing,” said Felder, draining his beer.
“I agree,” said the detective. “I know how to hold my tongue, particularly since I had to use a similar scheme myself once. That’s why it wasn’t too difficult to work out what happened here. There was a neighbour of mine once who used to chase away the local cats with a pitchfork. I was angry and told him that if he didn’t cease his barbaric habits, lightning would strike his house and the lawn which he tended so lovingly. He had brought in an especially rich, red-coloured soil from another county just for the lawn.”