Season of Snows and Sins

by Patricia Moyes

  “You do surprise me,” she said in a totally unsurprised voice. And then, “You’re frightened, aren’t you, Sylvie?”

  “Of course I am! Everything was all right…it was all over…and now this Tibbett man has to come along. At the time, the police were very—very kind to me. And you weren’t questioned at all—were you?”

  Chantal yawned. “No. Not at all. Of course, I was there in your apartment when the gendarmes came. Do you remember the one with brown eyes?”

  “Chantal,” I said, “this is serious. Please believe me, I’m not going to ask you what you did that day—”

  “But you know what I did, Sylvie.” She sounded amused.

  I went on, as though she had not spoken. “—but I am going to ask you what you’ve been telling Tibbett. Don’t you realize…?”

  Chantal propped herself up on one elbow and looked at me. “I told him that you lent me your car, and that I drove to Versailles and nearly had an accident with a lorry. I told him I was with you when the gendarmes came in the evening. I told him you were the whole day at a boring conference. Nothing else.” A little pause. “He didn’t ask me anything else.”

  I said, “He suggested to me that you could have driven down here in the Alfa, killed Robert, and driven back to Paris. I told him it wouldn’t have been possible, but—”

  “But of course it would,” said Chantal calmly.

  “He also knows,” I said, “that you have a key to my apartment in Paris.”

  “You told him, I suppose?”

  “He asked me point-blank—I couldn’t deny it, could I? Oh, my little Chantal—all I’m asking is that you should be careful. Careful. He’s not half as naïve as he looks, you know. Whatever you did, whatever you’ve said, you know that I love you and I’ll do anything to keep you out of danger. But you must be careful.”

  “Oh, Sylvie!” Suddenly she was like the little twelve-year-old I used to know, ma petite Chantal. She threw her arms around my neck and kissed me. “I will. I promise. I will be careful. You trust me, don’t you? Say you trust me!”

  “I trust you and I love you,” I assured her, stroking her silky blond hair. “And if you don’t want to tell me—”

  She lifted her head from my shoulder and gazed earnestly into my eyes. “But I’ve told you, Sylvie. I’ve told you.”

  “Then that’s all right,” I said as cheerfully as I could. “We’ll say no more about it.”

  I wish I could be sure it is all right. But it’s clear she won’t tell me any more.

  Thursday, 10 September

  This evening Giselle made an unpleasant scene. She had been down at Les Sapins all day, sitting for Jane, and she came back to dinner in an extraordinary mood. Of course, Giselle makes her own rules as she goes along, and we’re all used to the way that she just withdraws from human society, sometimes for days on end. Usually, though, she just wanders off on her own, or stays in her room smoking, or drives off somewhere in the Monteverdi and reappears several days later—and nobody dreams of asking her where she’s been. That’s just her way.

  Today, however, was different. She came back from her sitting with Jane, not withdrawn, but on the attack. That’s very rare. Her little face was hard, and her eyes were not dreamy but glinting like diamonds. She spoke to nobody, but kept looking at us, each in turn, like a small tiger waiting to pounce. It was very unnerving.

  Mario served dinner and then sat down with us, and he and Michel began talking and fooling, pretending that nothing was wrong. But of course, something was, and we all knew it—Giselle made sure of that. What made it all the more awkward was that Chantal had brought back that young man, Jean Bertrand. He had been giving her a tennis lesson—or so she said. I wish she wouldn’t…but what can you expect?

  Anyhow, Giselle just sat there, eating nothing, with her chin practically resting on her plate, glaring at us all. Then, quite suddenly, she picked up a knife and began pointing it at each of us in turn, chanting to herself, “Eeny, meeny, miny, mo”—the way children do.

  “What’s the game, Giselle?” I said, trying to make it sound as if I was lightly amused.

  She didn’t answer me, of course. Just went on pointing and chanting. Suddenly Michel couldn’t stand it any longer. He had been smoking, and he was in a nervous, violent temper. He jumped up, shouted, “Shut up, you little bitch!”—and threw his wine glass at the window. Fortunately, the plate glass is toughened and did not break, but the wine glass shattered, and the red wine spattered the pale wooden paneling.

  Giselle took absolutely no notice. She went on, monotonously, “Eeny, meeny, miny, mo…”

  Chantal remained completely unmoved—she didn’t even look up from her plate—but Jean Bertrand was sitting there gaping, with eyes like saucers. The story will be all around the village by tomorrow. Mario, as if glad of an excuse to break out of the magic circle of Giselle’s malevolence, jumped up and began clearing up the broken glass. I had expected Michel to stalk out of the room after his outburst, but to my surprise he sat down again and muttered something about being sorry.

  I said, “For heaven’s sake, Giselle, let us into the joke. What’s the idea? What are you up to?”

  At that, she stopped chanting and looked full at me. “I’m not up to anything,” she said. “I wonder, though, who was up to something, one day last April.” And she started again. “Eeny, meeny, miny, mo…catch a killer by his toe…if he’s rich enough, let him go…eeny, meeny, miny, mo…”

  I have heard people talk about their blood running cold, but I had never experienced the sensation until then. I literally felt that I was freezing, and I began to tremble—not from fear, but from cold. I tried not to look at Chantal. Giselle went on, “I say ‘him’—but it could be ‘her.’ Probably was. It would have been easier for a woman to impersonate Anne-Marie, wouldn’t it, Sylvie?” she added, directly to me.

  “What on earth are you raving about, Giselle?” I had control of myself now, and I hope I hit the right note—somewhere between impatience, incredulity, and tolerant amusement.

  “Jane did not work well this afternoon,” said Giselle, suddenly conversational, switching the subject with her usual abruptness. “She was upset, I could tell at once. I’m like that myself on the set sometimes. After an hour, I saw it was no use going on. So I told her to stop working and tell me all about it.”

  She paused. There was dead silence at the table. Giselle looked at each one of us in turn, and smiled, slowly and maliciously. “You’re interested, aren’t you? All of you.”

  “Well, for heaven’s sake, get on with it,” I said. “What did Jane have to say?”

  “Oh, she didn’t want to tell me anything—she thought it wouldn’t be ethical, or something.” Giselle was now rolling small pieces of bread into little balls and balancing them on her knife, with the concentration of a small child with a toy. “I couldn’t get the whole story out of her. But it seems that Henry Tibbett has torn a great, big, gaping hole in Jane’s evidence against Anne-Marie. He’s proved—or Jane thinks he has—that although she believed she was telling the truth at the trial, she might perfectly well have been wrong. It wasn’t necessarily Anne-Marie she saw going back to the chalet before five o’clock. It could have been anybody of about Anne-Marie’s size, wearing a blue overall.” Suddenly, very fast, she added, “Eeny, meeny, miny, mo—and out you go!” And swung so that her knife pointed at Michel.

  He gave a little ironic bow. “I am honored but not surprised,” he said. “That is, if you are implying that it could not have been me. Why not?”

  “Too tall,” said Giselle laconically. Her eyes rested briefly on Mario, who had come back to the table. “It could have been Mario, though. He’s so slim and pretty. Or Sylvie, or Chantal—”

  “Or you!” Mario spat out the words.

  “I was just going to say—or me. It’s interesting, isn’t it? I wonder who it was?”

  I didn’t dare look at Chantal, although I knew from experience that she was capable of playing
any scene with complete cool. Then I heard her voice, calm and apparently amused, saying, “Or it could have been the so-correct Mme. Weston, couldn’t it?”

  “Don’t be idiotic, Chantal.” It was Michel who spoke, sharply. “How could Mme. Weston have seen herself go past?”

  “Oh, you are silly. Supposing she didn’t see anybody? Supposing she made the phone call, and got Anne-Marie out of the way, and then went to the chalet and killed Robert? Afterward, of course, she said she had seen Anne-Marie going back. The court only had her word for it, after all—but who would doubt the word of the so-correct English lady? If Tibbett has now shown that her story might not be true—well, she has every reason to be upset. That’s all.”

  Chantal, having delivered herself of this unusually long speech, returned to her dinner. There was a moment of silence, while everyone considered the implications of what she had said. I confess, I had never thought of Jane as a murderess, of Jane as a deliberate liar. Now I suddenly found myself wondering. Had Chantal, with her absolutely unintellectual instinct, stumbled on the right answer?

  Giselle was concentrating her intense gaze on Chantal’s face, thinking hard. At last she said, “Very ingenious. Go on. Why should Jane wish to kill Robert?”

  Chantal shrugged. She was perfectly self-possessed. “How should I know? Perhaps she was in love with him herself.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I said quickly. I mean, it obviously was. “But Jane was very fond of Anne-Marie, and I know she… she rather blamed herself for the break-up of the marriage.” I carefully did not look at Giselle. “I mean, she was instrumental in getting Anne-Marie the job at Panoralpes, talking the widow Drivaz into consenting, and…and all that…” I ended lamely.

  “And so it didn’t work out, and so Mme. Weston goes and stabs Robert Drivaz with a carving knife, and carefully frames her protégee, Anne-Marie, and gives damning evidence against her. Really, Sylvie, you’ll have to think again.” It was Michel who spoke, and there was a nasty, malicious note in his voice.

  Giselle was looking at Michel, long and hard. “Oh, so interesting,” she said. “Eeny, meeny, miny, mo…out goes Michel, so he can afford to be oh, so objective. But Michel had good reason to hate Robert Drivaz…didn’t you, chéri? The great Michel Veron wouldn’t stain his hands with blood, of course—but he could arrange for his friend Mario to do the dirty work.”

  Michel was on his feet. “How dare you…?”

  “I’m not saying that’s what happened, chéri.” Giselle was leaning back now, smiling. “I’m just pointing things out. All quite untrue—but supposing the press got hold of them. Let’s go around the table, shall we? I’ve just pointed out why Michel might have wanted to kill Robert, and how easily Mario could have done it for him.” She pointed the knife at Chantal next, and the candlelight glinted wickedly on its blade. “Now we come to Mlle. Chantal. Our innocent little girl, who amuses herself in such strange ways when she comes to the mountains. As M. Bertrand can tell us.” She was speaking very softly, and poor Jean Bertrand jumped as if he had been bitten when the knife suddenly swung to point at his heart. “Nobody knows what may have gone on between our little Chantal and Robert Drivaz.”

  “I was in Paris, Giselle. Ask Sylvie.” Chantal sounded gently amused.

  “We will see. So many things are possible.” The knife moved again, and I realized that it was pointing at me. “And Sylvie. Kind Sylvie, who paid for Anne-Marie’s defense. I wonder why she did that? Sweet Sylvie, who is Caesar’s wife. The police were so very delicate with her. No awkward questions. Supposing this Tibbett starts asking them? What will Sylvie do then?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Giselle.” I was really angry. “Apart from the fact that everybody knows I was at that benighted conference in Paris—”

  “Michel could have operated through Mario,” said Giselle thoughtfully. “Sylvie could have operated through Chantal.” She looked around the table and smiled brightly. “Hands up,” she said like a cheerful schoolmistress, “anybody here who was not heartily delighted when Robert Drivaz died.”

  This really was too much. I said, “If you are determined to be offensive, Giselle, I think it should be pointed out that you had more motive and better opportunity than anybody else for killing Robert. You know perfectly well that you were bored with him, and that he had turned up in Paris and made a nuisance of himself. You told me yourself—”

  “I was making it up,” said Giselle, perfectly calmly. “I was a bit high. I never saw Robert in Paris. I was out when he came around, and Mario sent him packing. Isn’t that so, Mario?”

  Mario was looking at her with cynical amusement. “If madame says so, it is the truth,” he said, deliberately exaggerating his Italian accent.

  “So if you ask me,” Giselle went on thoughtfully, “I would say that it would be better for all of us if we decided that Mme. Weston herself killed Robert—unless Anne-Marie did, of course.” She looked slowly around the table, at each of us in turn. “Well?”

  Horribly conscious of Jean Bertrand’s goggling presence, I said as lightly as I could, “I think this silly game has gone on long enough. Everybody knows that poor Anne-Marie had a terrible time, and nobody really blames her for what she did—but there’s no doubt that she did it. The main thing now is to see that she and the baby are well cared for. I’ve arranged for baby clothes and flowers to be sent to the hospital, and Pierre is going to see that she is looked after financially. I hope the rest of you are going to do something constructive for the poor girl, instead of amusing yourselves by pretending that she didn’t kill Robert, which is about the cruelest thing you could do to her at this moment in time.”

  “Oh, bravo,” said Giselle. “Oh, well done, Sylvie.” But she was not smiling. “We will drown Anne-Marie in red roses and hand-knitted matinée jackets. We will stop her mouth with hundred-franc notes and lull her to sleep with champagne. We will sing her a sweet lullaby of charitable care, and she will quite forget that she has been convicted of murder and must give away her child. That’s the most constructive thing we can do, isn’t it?”

  And with that she got up and stalked out of the room, leaving her dinner untasted. From what I know of her, I don’t imagine we’ll see her again for several days.

  Oh, Chantal…

  Friday, 11 September

  All last night I lay awake trying to decide what to do for the best. I didn’t come to any definite conclusion, except that I must talk to Henry Tibbett again. So this morning I went to Panoralpes. My excuse was to tell Jane that Giselle was ill and couldn’t sit for her. Actually, of course, she’s locked in her room, smoking.

  But when I got to Panoralpes, I found nobody there except the little Italian girl, Lucia. She told me that Jane was working in the studio, and that Henry and Emmy Tibbett had left. Yes, it was unexpected, she said. No, she didn’t know whether or not they were coming back. Mme. Weston had not said. They went off on the evening train yesterday, she thought.

  So I went over to the studio, where Jane was working on the clay prototype of Giselle’s head. I told her Giselle was ill, and she simply said in an offhand way that it didn’t matter, as she didn’t need her for the moment. When I asked about the Tibbetts, she just said shortly that they had gone back to England.

  I wonder if that’s true. If only I knew what I should do…

  Emmy

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  HENRY WAS VERY thoughtful when we got back from the raclette picnic. I’m afraid it wasn’t much of a success. Sylvie put up a brave show of enjoying herself, but I don’t think she really did—anyway, who ever heard of wearing white silk pants to make a campfire? I suppose she throws them away as soon as they get dirty, like she buys a new Alfa when the ashtrays are full. Oh dear, now I’m being bitchy. Let’s face it, I’m jealous. I try not to be, but it’s hard. They say that money doesn’t bring happiness, but I just wish I had the chance to find out. Actually, come to think of it, Sylvie hasn’t been very chirpy these last couple of days. I suppose ev
en she has her worries.

  As for Giselle, I simply can’t make her out. She changes from moment to moment, like the pattern in a kaleidoscope. It’s fascinating to watch, but it makes one a bit dizzy. The really astonishing thing is that somebody like me should be calling a film star by her Christian name—but I can’t think of her as a star any more. Next time I see her on the screen, I’ll be saying to myself, “But it’s only Giselle.”

  Then there’s Jane. Jane has changed, and I don’t like it. At first I thought it was just this frantic concentration on her work, and then she seemed to snap out of it and become her old self again, but since Henry showed her that she could have been mistaken about Anne-Marie, she’s been behaving very oddly. I suppose it’s natural for her to be upset if she thinks her evidence might have been wrong…but you’d think she’d be only too eager to help Henry, and to find out who it was she actually saw. But she isn’t. That’s what’s so odd. She shies away from the subject, and she’s as nervous as a kitten. I wonder. I wonder whether—now that Henry has put the idea in her head—she fancies that she knows who it was. Oh dear, what a mess it all is.

  I had just written that when Henry came in to the sitting room, looking very grim.

  “You’d better go and pack,” he said. “We’re leaving.”

  “Leaving? What on earth do you mean?”

  “We’re taking the evening train to Paris.”

  “Does Jane know?” I asked.

  “She does,” said Henry in a hard voice.

  “Oh, Henry—you haven’t quarreled with Jane, have you?”

  “No. No, it’s not that.” He gave me a worried smile. “It’s just, that Jane has been…indiscreet.”

  “What has she done?”

  He sighed. “I’ve just been up to the studio,” he said. “I found Jane there, alone and in tears.”

  “Good heavens. What on earth had happened?”

  “Apparently Giselle noticed that she was nervous and overwrought, and suggested abandoning the sitting and having a chat instead. She doesn’t miss much, our Giselle. She then proceeded to wheedle out of Jane just what was upsetting her. Jane had the rudimentary good sense to realize she ought not to talk about it—but Giselle can twist her around her little finger. Before she knew it, Jane was telling her all about the snow limit and the umbrella, and how she wasn’t certain any longer who it was she had seen. Apparently, it had an extraordinary effect on Giselle.”