by Betsy Draine
“From Guillaume?” asked Toby. “That’s what puzzles me. If he’s the murderer and wanted to silence us, he just had the perfect opportunity. He had us trapped and could have killed us all, but he didn’t. In fact, he wasn’t armed. If he’s trying to cover up a murder, it’s strange he’d confront us like that without trying to do something about us.”
“Maybe not so strange,” said David. “How would he explain the disappearance of three Americans on his property? What would he do, leave our bodies down there? Or try to haul them out by himself ? Maybe he’s smart enough to take his chances with our suspicions. I’ve seen plenty of cases fall apart that were based on nothing more than circumstantial evidence. He could be biding his time. That’s what I’d do, in his place.”
We walked along for a few minutes in silence. Then David added: “Make sure your door is locked tight, and bolt your shutters when you get in. I wouldn’t take any chances.”
We were getting ready for bed when I heard distressed voices rising from downstairs. Guillaume and Marianne. Toby was in the bathroom, so I let myself out of the room and crept down the corridor as quietly as I could to listen at the top of the staircase. Guillaume was shouting, anguished and distraught, while Marianne’s voice was low and indistinct. She was trying to placate him, to no avail. “Calme-toi,” I heard her say several times. But Guillaume was not to be assuaged. “Inutile!” he howled.
“Useless! All that we’ve done to protect our treasure for so many generations—useless! Our shrine defiled, our family trust betrayed. What will Father say? What will the others say?”
Marianne was shushing him, but he continued. “Think of it! The publicity—newspapers, television, and the government intrusion. The secret is exposed after all these centuries, and we were the guardians, the ones entrusted to keep our faith alive. We are disgraced. The family is disgraced.”
“Hush,” whispered Marianne. “They’ll hear you upstairs.”
“Will they?” said Guillaume. “It’s too late. The harm is already done. My life’s work is over. I’ve failed. We’ve failed. The family has failed.”
But Marianne was insistent, and he did lower his voice. I took a few steps down the stairs, careful to remain out of sight as I strained to overhear. There was nothing for a while, and then a series of moans and gasps, which it took me a while to recognize as the sound of Guillaume sobbing.
“It’s not too late,” I heard Marianne say. “We haven’t failed. Go to bed, Guillaume. It’s not too late. You’ll see.”
“How?” he whimpered.
“We’ll find a way. Come. Go to bed. We’ll talk in the morning. Come.”
I heard her leading him away, and I returned to our room, locking the door behind me. Toby was just emerging from the bathroom. I recounted the conversation I’d overheard.
“He’s right, you know,” said Toby. “Once this hits the news, his cult will never be the same. They depend on secret ceremonies, secret places of worship, even a secret idol. Without the secrets, it probably won’t hold together. No wonder he’s upset.”
“And now we’re in for it. I don’t know how I’m going to face Marianne in the morning.” I remembered Madame Martin had invited me to help prepare the baked eggs for breakfast. I felt obliged to appear in the kitchen, but Marianne was sure to be there, and I was dreading an encounter with her.
“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it tonight,” said Toby, yawning. “So let’s get some sleep. You did lock the door again, didn’t you?”
I tossed and turned until daylight. It took will power to get out of bed and to shower, dress, and go downstairs while Toby still slept. The claws of fear pressed into my gut when I saw that Marianne was standing outside the kitchen door, as if in wait for me. Not that I was the only one with whom she had a quarrel, but I was the one she had entrusted with the family history. So I opened with sincere regret.
“I’m so sorry, Marianne. Guillaume must have told you about last night.” I searched for the next sentence.
“I can’t tell you how hurt I am,” Marianne said, with sand in her voice. “You, of all people. You seemed to admire our family, but now I see it was all a pretense, to get information you could use to advance your career. Guillaume is right. You don’t care about our family at all.”
“That’s not true, Marianne. I do respect your family. The reason I came here is because I so admire Jenny Marie’s art.”
“And how did that require you to break into our private cave? I told you there was nothing down there that concerned you.”
No hidden paintings, true enough, but Marianne hadn’t been completely honest with me, either. Of course she knew about the statue. But it was awkward enough having this conversation without accusing her of duplicity.
“I’m truly sorry. These murders have us terrified, and they’ve made us all suspicious. I agree we had no right to enter the cave, but you see …” I had nowhere comfortable to go with my explanation.
“What have those crimes got to do with us or with your behavior? Did your husband really accuse my brother of committing a murder?”
Two murders, actually, but I bit my tongue.
“I’m extremely disappointed in you, Nora. Such accusations are absurd and completely baseless.”
“Of course,” I stammered, unconvincingly.
We both heard Lily walking in from the hall.
“Good morning, Marianne. I know about the trouble last night. I don’t know what to say.”
“So stop. Nothing you can say would help. I’ve come to a decision. Breakfast will be served on the terrace as usual, but after that, I would like you all to leave. I’ll look after Roz myself.”
“She’s had a terrible shock,” said Lily cautiously. “Is there anything we can do for her? Wouldn’t she like one of us to keep her company?”
“Madame Martin will take breakfast up to her, and after you all are served, I’ll stay with her. The last thing she needs right now is the attention of strangers.” That was meant to sting.
“All right, Marianne,” I agreed. “We’ll leave. And Lily and I will let the others know about breakfast. But may I go into the kitchen to apologize to Madame Martin for not helping her prepare the eggs? Yesterday she invited me to help her this morning.”
“So she told me. I have already told Agnes not to expect you. You’ll excuse me.” And with that, she opened the door to the kitchen and closed it firmly behind her.
Lily and I looked at each other with chagrin. Without speaking, we headed back through the hall. At the foot of the staircase, I stopped. I wanted to somehow explain things to her. “We may have made a big mistake, Lily. I feel awful about what we did. But if Guillaume is the murderer, then all our intrusions were justified. I don’t know what to think.”
“David told me all about it,” she replied quietly. “He’s called the police. I’ll go let him know about breakfast, and about getting out of here fast. Would you tell Toby and Patrick?”
I said I would. When I went back to our room, Toby was just getting ready to come out.
“Would you knock on Patrick’s door and let him know we’ll be having breakfast soon on the terrace?” I asked. It struck me as more seemly to have a man knock on a man’s door at this early hour. Toby went out to convey the message. When he came back, I told him the situation.
Within minutes, our group, minus two members, was assembled at the French doors leading to the terrace. The tables had been set again for three. Patrick, having been brought up to speed about last night’s adventure, looked askance at the rest of us, as if sizing us up a second time. He probably was asking himself if we were intrepid adventurers or complete fools. Lily touched my elbow and indicated that she wanted me to join David at their table. Toby and Patrick were left to form a table with an empty chair. Guillaume wasn’t there, and I hoped he wouldn’t appear.
While David sheepishly kept his head down, Lily turned to me with an expression of concern. “We’re really sorry to have led you into this fi
asco, Nora,” she whispered. “Sometimes David just doesn’t know when to stop.” David focused his concentration on the bit of toast and jam he’d just taken. “For him, the moral stakes are so high they justify actions that would otherwise be unconscionable. This time he seems to have overreached himself.”
His head tilted up. “We don’t know that, Lily.”
“What? You think playing detective in a foreign country in the middle of the night won’t get you in trouble?”
“Yes, but …”
Marianne came through the doorway carrying a round covered baking dish. She carefully put the hot dish down on a table between ours and Toby and Patrick’s. “Good morning,” she said icily through clenched lips. “I don’t want any more talk about last night. In spite of what’s happened, Madame Martin has prepared her breakfast specialty for you—oeufs sur le plat. As you see here, that means eggs in a baking dish. It’s a special way of baking eggs so the yolk remains liquid.” I sat there amazed as she continued: “That is important, because it allows the cook to add fresh herbs or truffles or mushrooms to the yolk, and they cook there, blending their flavor into the yolk.”
Marianne seemed determined to assert control by going through her final cooking lesson. Her face was grim. She turned to Patrick. “Would you lift the cover, please?” On the round platter were six perfect eggs. “Can you tell me, Patrick, whether the mushrooms are truffles, girolles, or cèpes?” She duly slipped each of us what looked like a perfectly poached egg, with finely diced, black specks sprinkled over the yolk.
“Well, they aren’t girolles,” Patrick speculated. “Those would be more golden. These are dark. It’s between truffles and cèpes, I would say.” He raised his fork in the air and was poised to plunge it into the golden yolk, when Madame Martin came running through the doorway, with a cupped hand held out in front of her.
“Stop! Marianne, you’ve made a mistake! Those mushrooms aren’t edible, they’re poison!”
“What? I chopped those mushrooms myself. They’re girolles.”
“No, they’re not.” She pushed her hand forward. “Here are some you didn’t chop. See? They’re trumpet-shaped. They look like girolles, but these are pitch-black. Mother used to call them ‘trumpets of death’! They’re absolutely deadly!”
“Agnes, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Go back to the kitchen.”
“Marianne! What are you doing? You know your mushrooms as well as I do.”
“That’s enough, Agnes!”
“No, Madame! I just came down to the kitchen to get some honey for Madame Belnord’s tea, and I saw these mushrooms on the cutting board. I tell you, they’re poison!”
We all had dropped our forks by now. Toby pulled his chair back from the table. “Maybe we’d better wait until we can sort this out,” he said in his most matter-of-fact way. “Is it possible someone’s made a mistake?”
Just then, Guillaume came through the door. “What’s going on?” he asked, addressing Marianne. “I heard shouting out here.”
“We are disputing the safety of my mushrooms,” Marianne replied tersely. “Our guests seem to fear we have poisoned them.”
“No, it was I who raised the alarm,” corrected Madame Martin. “I’m sorry, Monsieur Guillaume. But I’m sure there’s been an error. Marianne has mistaken black trumpets for girolles.”
Guillaume looked angrily at Madame Martin, as if resenting her impertinence. But then he looked closely at the mushrooms, and with a shocked expression, he turned to Marianne. “You wouldn’t—”
“Guillaume, let me handle this.” She looked straight at Toby. “Let me show you, Monsieur, that the eggs are perfectly fine.” From next to his coffee cup, she snatched his spoon, then pivoted toward the serving platter and dunked the spoon into the center of the one egg remaining there. But Guillaume was swifter than she was. Before she could lift the spoon to her mouth, he had her arm twisted behind her.
“What are you doing?” cried Guillaume. “You could poison yourself !”
“Let me go, Guillaume!” she spat in exasperation. “Let me go! It’s better this way. I’d rather die than spend the rest of my life in prison!”
“Prison? What are you talking about? Were you really trying to poison these people?”
She seemed to slump in his arms. “It’s over, Guillaume. Finished. Everything is finished. But believe me, what I did, I did for you.”
“Did what? I never asked you to do such a thing!”
“No, you couldn’t ask me, could you? You were too weak, dear brother.” There was sarcasm in her words. “I was always the stronger.”
We looked on in disbelief, and then a familiar voice spoke from the other side of the French doors. “Keep your grip on her, please, Monsieur. My man will take her from you.” In lumbered Inspector Daglan. Jackie followed, with handcuffs ready. “Those won’t be necessary, will they?” asked Daglan.
Marianne shook her head, almost defiantly, as if keeping her pride even in defeat. Her hands dropped to her sides. Guillaume was still standing, and I don’t know how he kept steady on his feet. His face bore grief, and his body collapsed in stages. First his chest went concave. Then his head fell to his knees, and his hands pulled at his cheeks. His words were muffled, incomprehensible.
The inspector picked up one of the mushrooms and held it up to the light, turning it slowly from side to side. “Marianne de Cazelle,” he said, “I arrest you on suspicion of the murders of Michel Malbert and Dorothy Dexter, and for the attempted murder of your guests.” Turning to Guillaume, he added: “Monsieur, you will come with us for questioning as well.” To the rest of us, who sat stunned, he said simply, “Remain here, if you please.” And to his subordinate, almost as an after-thought: “Jackie, collect these mushrooms and bring them to the station, will you?”
Jackie nodded and began gathering the mushrooms in a basket. As he followed Guillaume and Marianne through the door, the inspector said over his shoulder, “Don’t eat any.”
15
WAITING FOR INSPECTOR DAGLAN’S RETURN, we shifted aimlessly like kids whose mother has been whisked away to the hospital. No one was in charge. No one knew precisely what had happened. In the first hour, Lily and I sat in the dining room with Madame Martin. Her mind ricocheted between the horror of discovering the mushrooms were poison and the shock of suspecting Marianne knew what they were. First she would lecture Lily and me about the distinctive color and size of the poison trumpets of death. Then she would fall into confused denials of Marianne’s culpability. “She couldn’t have known! Why would she want to poison her first group of students? The cooking school was her refuge. After so much sadness, she was doing something for herself, something she was good at.”
We listened and comforted her until, finally, Madame Martin declared she must now tend to Madame Belnord. She stood, used her hands to iron her apron to her body, and headed upstairs.
Jackie had declared the kitchen off limits, using just a chair to bar the door. There would be no lunch coming through that door today. We’d been told not to return to the terrace, either. So Lily and I kept our seats at the dining table and took advantage of the chance to talk.
“I feel awful,” I confessed. Our escapade last night nearly led to us all getting killed. It pushed Marianne right over the edge.”
“It looks that way. But how were you to know Marianne was capable of murder? None of us had any idea.”
“That’s not the point. We might have been better off if we had listened to you last night.”
Lily gave me a look of chagrin. “And then a murderer would have been no closer to being uncovered.”
“Maybe so. But we could have reported our suspicions to Inspector Daglan and let his team inspect the cave in the morning.”
“You did what your instinct told you was right. Maybe I need to respect David’s instincts more than I do. I was pretty hard on him about what you did last night.”
“It works both ways. That’s what marriage is about—living
by your own lights, but learning to see by your partner’s lights too. Toby and I have been at this long enough that we now have a common way of seeing most things. But it wasn’t always so.”
“Really?”
And with that, Lily drew me into relating a disagreement Toby and I once had about a consigner of old paintings who charmed Toby but set my teeth on edge. When it turned out the man had falsely attributed a painting (and supplied it with a fake signature), I managed to hold my tongue, and since then Toby has always checked with me on consignments. Of course, it has worked the other way too. Toby has taught me to have more patience with colleagues I might have soured on because of the petty disagreements that often occur in department meetings. Over the years, I’ve become more tolerant, and he’s become more cautious, and that’s worked out well for both of us. As she listened, Lily nodded her assent.
Soon Madame Martin was back in the dining room, looking grim but composed. She sent us up to visit Roz, whom we found dressed in black and sitting despondently in a chair by the window. She rose and gave us both a hug. “Tell me what’s happened,” she insisted. “I can’t believe what Madame Martin has been saying.”
It took several rounds of explanation. First I described the breakfast incident. Then Lily explained about David’s mission to find looted art at the château. Finally, I told Roz about my research on Jenny Marie, my eavesdropping on the ritual in the chapel, and our attempt to locate and explore the cave. Each part of the story seemed to strike another blow.
“Do you have a perspective on all this?” I asked Roz.
She sighed, and her eyes watered. “I’ve been worried about Marianne, but I never dreamed it could get this bad. I should have spoken up long ago.”
“Why do you say that? Did you suspect she had anything to do with the murders?”
“Oh, no. Nothing like that. But I sensed, soon after her husband died, that Marianne wasn’t grieving well. Instead of talking about Ben or trying to adjust to her life as a widow, she kept going on about her home in the Dordogne, especially about her brother. She kept saying that only he could understand her loss, that only being back home with him could make her whole again. I thought it was strange at the time, and when she announced she was coming back to Cazelle, I thought of telling her she was leaning too much on the idea that her brother could mend her heart. But I didn’t say anything. When Marianne wrote me that she had decided to start a cooking school in the castle, I thought I’d been wrong all along.”
