Until he had given up the chase, sixteen years earlier, Adamsberg’s accusations had sufficiently worried the Trident to make him leave the region after a murder, thus slipping through the policeman’s fingers. Adamsberg wondered whether, even after his death, the judge had retained this prudent reflex. The various residences Adamsberg had known about previously had all been grand and isolated mansions. The judge had acquired a considerable private fortune, and had usually bought his new lodgings rather than rented, since Fulgence preferred not to have a landlord spying on him.
Adamsberg could easily guess how he had acquired his wealth. Fulgence’s remarkable talents, his penetrating analysis of the law, his exceptional skill and memory for precedents, all accompanied by his striking and charismatic looks, had brought him fame and popularity. He had the reputation of being ‘the man who knows everything’, rather like St Louis sitting under his oak tree dispensing justice. And he was as well-known to the general public as to his colleagues, who were outflanked or irritated by his excessive influence. As a respectable magistrate, he never formally overstepped the boundaries of the law or the professional code of conduct. But if he so chose during a trial, it took only a subtle expression or gesture on his part for it to be known what he thought, and the rumour would quickly circulate, so that juries followed him unanimously. Adamsberg imagined that the families of many a suspect, or even other magistrates, might have made it worth the judge’s while for the rumour to go one way or the other.
He had been doggedly telephoning estate agents for over four hours without any positive sighting. Until his forty-second call, when a young man told him he had handled a gentleman’s residence, set in parkland, deep in the country between Haguenau and Brumath.
‘How far is it from Strasbourg?’
‘About twenty-three kilometres to the north as the crow flies.’
The buyer, a Monsieur Maxime Leclerc, had bought the property, known as Das Schloss, the Castle, about four years earlier, but he had put it on the market only twenty-four hours ago, for urgent health reasons. He had moved out very quickly and the agency had just picked up the keys.
‘Did he give them to you himself? Did you see him?’
‘He got the cleaning woman to leave them with us. Nobody at the agency has ever clapped eyes on him. The sale was carried out by his lawyer, by correspondence, and by sending the ID papers and signatures to and fro by post. M. Leclerc was unable to do it in person, as he was recovering from an operation.’
‘Ah,’ said Adamsberg, simply.
‘It’s quite legal, commissaire. If the papers are certified in order by the police.’
‘And the cleaning lady, do you have her name and address?’
‘Madame Coutellier in Brumath. I’ll get her number for you.’
Denise Coutellier had to shout into her phone to rise above the sound of children playing.
‘Madame Coutellier, can you describe your employer for me?’ asked Adamsberg, also at the top of his voice, in unconscious imitation.
‘Well, you see, commissaire,’ she said, ‘I never used to see the gentleman face to face. I would go in for three hours on Mondays and again on Thursdays, same time as the gardener. I left a meal all ready for him and I got in groceries for the other days. He told me he would be away a lot, he had business to see to. He was something to do with the trade tribunal.’
Of course, thought Adamsberg. A spectre is invisible.
‘Were there any books in the house?’
‘Plenty of them, commissaire. What they were I couldn’t say.’
‘Newspapers?’
‘He had them delivered, a daily paper and the Nouvelles d’Alsace.’
‘Did he get much mail?’
‘I couldn’t say, sir, and his desk was kept locked. I expect with the tribunal papers and all that, it had to be. I was surprised when he left so suddenly. He left me a very nice letter saying thank you and good wishes, with all kinds of instructions and a generous final payment.’
‘What instructions?’
‘I was to come back this Saturday and do a thorough clean of the house, however long it took, because the Schloss was going to be sold. Then I had to take the keys to the agency. I’ve just got back from there now.’
‘Was this note handwritten?’
‘Oh no. Monsieur Leclerc always typed his messages, I suppose because he’d do that in his job.’
Adamsberg was about to hang up when the woman went on:
‘It’s not easy to describe him, because I only ever saw him the once, and then not for long. And that was about four years ago.’
‘When he moved in, you mean? You saw him then?’
‘Of course. You can’t work for someone you’ve never seen, can you?’
‘Madame Coutellier,’ said Adamsberg, quickening his voice, ‘can you be as precise as possible?’
‘Has he done something wrong?’
‘On the contrary.’
‘I was going to say, that would surprise me. Such a nice careful gentleman, so particular. It’s a pity his health has let him down. Let me see, as far as I remember, he was about sixty. He was, well, just normal-looking.’
‘Try, all the same. Height, weight, colour of hair.’
‘Just a minute, commissaire.’ Denise Coutellier hushed the children and came back to the telephone.
‘Not all that tall, rather plump, with a good colour. His hair, oh I think it was grey, going a bit bald on top. He was wearing a brown corduroy suit and a tie, I always remember what people wear.’
‘Hang on, I’m just noting all this down.’
‘But you know, now you ask me, I’m not all that sure,’ cried the woman, who was having to shout again. ‘Memory can play tricks on you, can’t it? I said just now he wasn’t very tall, but I may have got that wrong. Because his suits were bigger than I remembered him. Let’s say they would fit a man of about one metre eighty, not seventy. Perhaps it was because he was plump, so I thought he was smaller. And I said he had grey hair, but when I was cleaning the bathroom or doing the laundry, I only found white hairs. But then of course he probably turned whiter over the four years, old age comes on quickly, doesn’t it? So that’s why I’m saying my memory may be playing me false.’
‘Madame Coutellier, are there any outbuildings in the chateau?’
‘There’s the old stables, a barn, and a summer house. But that was empty and I didn’t have to go there. He kept his car in the stables and the gardener used the barn for his tools.’
‘Can you tell me the colour or the make of his car?’
‘No, I never saw it, commissaire, because the gentleman was always out when I was working there, and I didn’t have any keys for any of the outbuildings.’
‘In the house itself, madame,’ said Adamsberg, thinking of his precious trident, ‘did you have access to all the rooms?’
‘Yes, except for the attic which was kept locked. M. Leclerc said it wasn’t worth wasting my time up there in all the dust.’
Bluebeard’s lair, Trabelmann would have said. The locked room, the chamber of horrors.
Adamsberg looked at his watch. Or rather at his watches. The one he had bought himself about two years before, and the second one which Camille had given him in Lisbon, a man’s watch that she had won at a street fair. He had wanted to put it on, to celebrate their finding each other again, and yet a day later, he had left her. Since then, curiously, he had not removed this second watch, a sporty waterproof model, with all sorts of buttons, chronometers and dials that Adamsberg couldn’t work. One of them apparently told you how long it would take after the flash before you were struck by lightning. Very handy, Adamsberg thought. But he hadn’t abandoned his own watch, which had a worn leather strap and joggled against the second one. So for a year now, he had had two watches on his wrist. All his colleagues had pointed this out, and he had informed them that he too had noticed. He had kept his two watches on the go, without really knowing why, which meant a bit of extra fiddling at bedtime and in the morning, taking them off and putting them back on.