Dupree shook his head. ‘Murder number four, and you did nothing?’
‘What could I do?’ said Landru, a troubled look on his face.
‘I still cannot see what all his has to do with me,’ said Darrieux and lit another cigarette.
‘You will in a moment,’ said Landru calmly. ‘I published the paper, but without showing the engraving of the island, because I was planning to visit it myself. And that is where you come in, Mademoiselle ...’
‘I can’t wait.’
Landru looked at Darrieux. ‘I fully understand your frustration, Mademoiselle, but as you will see in a moment, understanding everything I told you so far – especially about Mascarino – is absolutely essential before we can talk meaningfully about why, and how, you fit into all this. In short, we must first take a step back and try to see the bigger picture here before we can assemble the pieces of this complex puzzle and make sense of it all.’
‘If you say so.’
‘After I published my Mascarino Amulet paper, and all the hype that it created had died down, I was able to plan my next move,’ continued Landru calmly.
‘What was that?’ asked Jack.
‘Isn’t it obvious? Visiting the island depicted on the amulet, of course.’
‘To look for the wreck of the San Cristobal?’ said Dupree.
‘What else? Surprisingly, because of its distinctive shape, the small island was quite easy to identify. It is a tiny, uninhabited heart-shaped island south of Cuba. Pirates used it a lot to seek shelter during storms and to get water, because there are two springs on the island. Otherwise, it is very rugged and remote. It’s known as Heart Island among the locals, and there are a number of shipwrecks on the reefs close by because the waters surrounding the island are treacherous. For that reason, it is said to have a heart of stone.’
Fascinated by Landru’s story, Bartolli was again watching him carefully.
‘You mounted a salvage expedition?’ she asked. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’
‘To call it a salvage expedition may be a little ambitious. Calling it a reconnaissance trip on a small boat would be more accurate. I wanted to go and see what the place looked like, that’s all, and make up my own mind about the Mascarino amulet story.’
‘But others like Mascarino himself, and Amaro Pargo, had been there before you to try to locate the wreck, and they found nothing,’ said Jack. ‘What made you think you could do better?’
‘A fair question. Curiosity, I suppose, would be the best way to answer this. And remember, I was obsessed with finding the Llanganates treasure. I contacted a man in Santo Domingo I had been referred to, who apparently knew these waters well and had a suitable boat to take me to the island.’
Landru looked around the room. ‘When I tell you his name, all will become clear, especially to you, Mademoiselle.’
Darrieux kept staring at Landru – a familiar feeling of dread rising up from somewhere deep within her – but she didn’t say anything.
‘The man who took me to Heart Island and helped me look for the wreck of the San Cristobal … was Armand Baudin.’
Everyone in the room digested this bombshell in silence.
‘The man who was killed in my room in New Orleans and I was accused of having murdered?’ whispered Darrieux, shocked.
‘The very same,’ continued Landru. ‘When I read Jack’s book and found out that Maurice Moreau, Estelle Montplaisir and Adrienne Darrieux were one and the same person, and then came across a newspaper article about an interview you gave in which you spoke about a precious golden Inca burial mask you sold on the black market in Paris to start a new life, well, you can imagine ...’
The person who got their head around the stunning implications of what Landru had just said faster than anyone else in the room, was Tristan. Used to strange coincidences that were difficult to explain through logic alone, he was far more receptive to accepting matters of fate and destiny than others. He locked eyes with Jack and nodded ever so slightly, the bond between them allowing communication on a level that simply eluded others.
‘If the Armand Baudin who took you to Heart Island, and the Armand Baudin killed in that brothel in New Orleans, were in fact the same person, then it follows that you would most likely know why he was on the run, what the golden mask was all about, and why he tried so desperately to hide it,’ said Darrieux, her heart beating like a drum. ‘I’ve wondered for years.’
‘I do,’ said Landru. ‘And that, my friends, is the key to it all, and the main reason we are all here.’
‘Can you enlighten us?’ asked Bartolli, barely able to hide her excitement.
‘Do you believe in destiny?’
‘I think in our own way, all of us here do,’ replied Bartolli.
Landru nodded. ‘Not surprisingly, our little expedition to Heart Island did not lead us to the wreck of the San Cristobal,’ he continued. ‘Others had tried before us, and failed. While quite small – you can walk around the entire island in a couple of hours – it’s very rugged, with a number of caves and massive coral reefs surrounding it on all sides, except for a narrow entry into a small, sheltered bay. After two days on the island, we returned to Santo Domingo and I flew back to Paris, understandably disappointed. But then about a month later, I received a phone call from a very excited Baudin, which changed everything.’
Landru paused, collecting his thoughts as he watched a fly crawl slowly up a windowpane.
‘During a storm, Baudin, who was working on a fishing trawler at the time, took shelter on Heart Island with the crew, and spent the night in one of the caves I mentioned. That’s when he found it.’
‘Found what?’ asked Jack.
‘The morning after the storm, he found something extraordinary, partially buried in the sand not far from the cave. It was an artefact of solid gold. An ancient Inca burial mask. It must have washed up on the beach during the storm the night before.’
‘And?’ prompted Dupree, leaning forward.
‘Realising what this could mean, Baudin decided not to tell the others about the find, and concealed the mask. But before he did that, he did something remarkable.’
‘What did he do?’
‘Because he had nothing else he could use, he scratched some landmarks identifying the location of the find into the back part of the mask with the tip of his knife, before he walked back to the cave and joined the others.’
Again, silence.
‘Are you suggesting that there’s some kind of map engraved on the back of the mask showing where it was found, and Baudin did that because this could help locate the wreck?’
‘Yes, exactly. The reasoning behind this was simple enough: a heavy gold object like this could not have travelled a long distance, and had most likely been dragged to the surface by a strong swell during the storm from somewhere on the ocean floor not far away.’
‘Makes sense,’ said Dupree, impressed.
‘I still don’t understand,’ said Darrieux. ‘How did Baudin and the mask end up in my room in New Orleans a few months later?’
Landru looked at her sadly. ‘That, Mademoiselle, has to do with one of the biggest mistakes of my life. I reported the phone call, and what it meant to—’
Tristan could see at once where this was heading. ‘The man in the shadows, and he decided to take matters into his own hands,’ he said, completing Landru’s sentence.
‘Sadly, yes. I thought – quite naively as it turned out – that I could now join forces with Baudin and mount another search for the wreck. I even told him that this was what I would like to do as soon as I could get away. He was very enthusiastic about that and agreed. Then a few weeks later, I received another call from him. This time he sounded scared, desperate. Someone had broken into his house and pulled it apart, obviously looking for something. He guessed at once what it was. Then, before he could make it to his boat, he was attacked by two men, who began to question him about the golden mask. Fortuitously, the attack was interrupted whe
n a group of his friends came along and rescued him. The attackers fled. Baudin managed to get on his boat, where the mask was hidden, and took off—’
‘He sailed to New Orleans, didn’t he?’ interrupted Tristan.
‘Yes,’ said Landru, his voice barely audible, ‘and became a desperate man on the run. You know the rest.’
Just then, someone knocked on the front door. Dupree got up to see who it was. It was François, the butler.
‘Apologies for the interruption, but this has just been delivered by a motorcycle courier,’ he said and handed a small parcel to Dupree. ‘It’s addressed to Monsieur Landru.’
Dupree walked back into the room and handed the parcel to Landru. ‘Just been delivered. It’s for you,’ he said.
‘For me? Delivered by whom?’ asked Landru.
‘A courier; express delivery.’
Holding his breath, Landru began to unwrap the parcel, his hands shaking. Inside, he found a cardboard box the size of a Paris telephone book.
Tristan locked eyes with Jack again and nodded ever so slightly, as a familiar feeling of foreboding began to wash over him. It was a sickening feeling he encountered every time he came across true evil, which made his stomach churn and the hairs on the back of his neck prickle.
Slowly, Landru opened the lid, looked inside and gasped. His own death mask was staring back at him. Peaceful and serene, yet terrifying at the same time, like a glimpse into an uncertain afterlife.
There was also a note: Nothing’s changed, it said. You know the rules. Scribbled in the margin was an encrypted phone number Landru knew well.
Part IV
The Return of the Golden Mask
‘The dead cannot cry out for justice; it is a duty of the living to do so for them.’
Lois McMaster Bujold
44
Kuragin chateau: 2 November
Jack sat in the gazebo by the pond – a favourite place where he did most of his writing in summer, weather permitting. His little notebook was open and he was going over his notations from the day before. Enjoying the sunshine, he was feeding the ducks with one of the leftover breakfast croissants, when Darrieux walked up to him. Wearing a stunning traditional Japanese silk kimono complete with belt and backband, she looked like an ageing geisha taking a morning stroll through a Kyoto palace garden after a long night of playing the shamisen.
‘Wow! Coffee?’ said Jack and pointed to the plunger in front of him.
‘Champagne would be better, especially after what Dupree told us yesterday, but coffee will do, thanks.’
‘You look like Go-Sakuramachi.’
‘Who on earth is that?’
‘The last reigning empress of Japan. She abdicated in favour of her nephew in 1771.’
Darrieux shook her head. ‘The things you come up with. I certainly don’t feel like an empress.’
Jack raised an eyebrow. ‘A dazzling kimono this early in the morning? A little overdressed, perhaps?’ he teased.
Darrieux shrugged. ‘I don’t often get to stay in a chateau like this. So I thought, why not? I rarely get to wear this stuff these days. My young admirers used to take me to posh places all the time ... not anymore. I now wear it as a dressing gown. Merde!’
‘Come on ...’
‘You don’t know what it’s like being a middle-aged, single woman in Paris. In many ways you become invisible to men, and resented by women.’
Jack began to laugh, which scared the ducks. They took off and returned to the safety of the pond.
‘One could call you many things, Adrienne, but invisible isn’t one of them.’
‘You think so?’ said Darrieux. She gave Jack a coquettish look and adjusted her hair. ‘I hardly slept a wink last night. The things Landru told us. You do wonder, don’t you?’
‘At least now you know where you fit into all this.’
‘Sure do, but he did leave a lot of questions unanswered, didn’t he? A bit scary, don’t you think? Tristan would call it destiny, and then this death mask business on top of it all. Shocked everyone.’
‘Weird, for sure, but good news in the circumstances.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I just spoke with Cesaria in Florence and told her about Landru’s decision.’
‘To go along with it all?’
‘Yes. I also told her about the death mask. She was in Grimaldi’s office with Clara. Something like the delivery of the mask was exactly what they were hoping for.’
‘In what way?’
‘The man in the shadows we’re after has made contact. That’s what it means, and it happened sooner and in a more dramatic way than we could have imagined.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘And what does that tell you? Someone’s watching everything Landru is doing, and that is what we were counting on. You can’t be the bait if no-one’s fishing, right?’
‘No, you can’t.’
Jack pointed to his notebook on the table. ‘I have a few questions about yesterday. Do you mind?’
Darrieux shook her head and watched the ducks – forever hopeful – circling nearby.
‘Let’s go back to the beginning. Landru reads my latest book – The Lost Symphony – in jail and learns about your “coming out” with Isis at Shakespeare and Company. From the newspaper clippings you handed to the press on that day and all that frenzied publicity that followed, he finds out about you and Armand Baudin and the trial. That’s how it all started, right?’
Darrieux nodded.
‘According to Landru, this put a thought process in train that allowed him to crack that mysterious cipher code. I have no idea exactly how, but it really doesn’t matter.’
‘I still don’t understand how all that fits together,’ said Darrieux, sipping her coffee.
‘It’s confusing, I know, but bear with me.’ Jack picked up his notebook.
‘It’s all about who Armand Baudin was, and why he was on the run. That’s the key here, and it’s all connected to that golden Inca burial mask.’
‘As far as I was concerned, he was just another punter who walked into that miserable bordello on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, looking for sex.’
‘Perhaps, but as we now know, he was much more than that: he was a desperate man on the run, trying to hide.’
‘I couldn’t possibly have known that, could I?’
‘Of course not.’
Jack turned over a page in his notebook. ‘You said he was just paying you, when there was some shouting outside and someone banging on the door of your room?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And that’s when Baudin took something out of his backpack wrapped in a cloth and asked you to hide it quickly?’ continued Jack.
‘Yes. He looked terrified. And I did what he asked.’
‘Just before the door was broken down and two men burst into the room and told you to get lost?’
‘Correct again. I ran. In that place you didn’t ask any questions, and violence wasn’t uncommon.’
‘But murder?’
‘Well, that was something quite different. And, of course, there was more – much more.’
‘Let me get this right: A short time after you left the room, someone found Baudin – your client – in your ransacked room, stabbed to death. The police came, you were arrested and charged with his murder.’
‘That’s what happened.’
‘There was a trial and you were acquitted. Insufficient evidence.’
‘Yes. I had no idea who Baudin was, or why someone was after him. I was just a young prostitute caught up in all this. Doing tricks in a cheap bordello.’
‘After the trial, you went back to your old room and retrieved the item you had hidden just before Baudin was killed.’
‘That’s right. I had a secret hiding place that no-one knew about, under the bed, behind a loose brick in the wall; it was where I kept my money. That’s when I discovered that fabulous golden mask Landru was talking about. I had no idea what i
t was, or that some important information was engraved on the back of it, as Landru was telling us. It looked valuable, that’s all. Solid gold. Obviously, that’s what the intruders had been after. I had no idea why, or who they were. None of this came out in the trial, you see.’
‘Landru seemed quite rattled by the death mask delivery,’ said Jack, changing direction.
‘Can you blame him? It’s not every day someone sends you your own death mask, obviously as some kind of warning? How was it made, anyway? Last time I looked, Landru was still very much alive,’ said Darrieux.
Jack shrugged. ‘Some form of digital printing, most likely. Tell me again, what did you do with the golden mask?’
‘As you can imagine, after the trial I was desperate. I kept it and several years later, after I made my way to Paris and when I thought it was safe to do so, I sold it on the black market to a fence I met in Montmartre. As it turned out, it was worth a fortune. It was my ticket to a new life.’
‘I understand,’ said Jack. ‘And as far as you were concerned, that was where the story ended, but in many ways – as far as Landru correctly pointed out yesterday – it was just the beginning. The violence continued, because a few weeks after the fence sold the mask to an unknown buyer, he was murdered, and his death mask was left on the steps of the Sacré-Coeur Basilica overlooking Paris.’
‘You’re right. And that was Death Mask Murder number five, and by no means the end of this remarkable story.’
‘No, because the golden mask surfaced again years later in rather dramatic circumstances; twice in fact,’ said Jack. ‘And the dark forces in the background were watching.’
‘Correct. And after the Baudin murder in New Orleans, Landru’s nemesis took over the reins completely.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Jack.
‘Well, let’s have a closer look. Landru’s discoveries were no longer needed. All that mattered now, was to find that last, vital missing link: the golden mask, right?’ said Darrieux. ‘The murders all had to do with only one thing: finding the Llanganates treasure. First, the fence in Montmartre I sold the mask to in 2005. Then came the murder of that prominent art dealer in Paris in 2011. The golden mask was about to be auctioned. The day before the auction, the art dealer was killed in his shop. According to Landru, his plaster death mask was found in front of an open safe that had been broken into. Neither his body nor the murderer have been found.’
The Death Mask Murders Page 27
