Henry made a great performance of poring over it, and finally turned to me. “Can you remember which model Sylvie had? Was it the Mercedes or the Opel?”
“I really don’t know, Henry,” I said. “I just remember what a splendid car it was.”
“Exactly. It’s most provoking to have forgotten the make.” He turned to the receptionist. “A friend of mine, a Mme. Claudet, hired a car from you in April, and my wife and I rode in it with her. We were greatly impressed by its performance in the mountains, and I am quite determined to have the same model. Mme. Claudet—a very attractive French lady with fair hair. Surely you must remember her?”
The receptionist did her best, assuring us that all their cars were chosen for their good hill-climbing qualities—but Henry was not to be fobbed off. If he could not get exactly the model that Mme. Claudet had hired on April 14, he would not hire a car at all, but would take a train to the mountains.
I was greatly struck not only by the girl’s patience and good humor, but by the fact that she did not seem to find this exigence extraordinary. I suppose people who have to deal with the general public all day come across more eccentric and difficult characters than one ever imagines. At length, sooner than lose our business, she agreed to look up the records for April 14. We held our breath as she produced a big box file and began sorting through piles of printed forms.
“Let me see—April 14, you said?… April 12…April 13… ah, here we are.” She detached a slim batch of papers from the folder—about ten in all. “What was the name again?”
“Claudet. Mme. Claudet, from Paris. A French lady—very attractive, with fair hair…about five-foot-four…” Henry’s impersonation of a bore was so accurate as to be maddening.
The girl consulted each of the papers carefully, and finally said, “You’re sure it was April 14?”
“Of course I’m sure. It was my wife’s birthday. I’m hardly likely to forget my own wife’s birthday, am I?”
“That’s right,” I put in. “It was my birthday, and we flew over in the afternoon from London. Mme. Claudet met us in the car which she had just hired from you, and drove us to the mountains.”
The girl was still patient and unruffled. “Then I am afraid, monsieur, that you must be mistaken about the firm from which your friend hired the car. It certainly was not from us.”
“Excuse me, miss, it certainly was. She told us distinctly. The fact of the matter is that your organization does not keep proper records.” Henry appeared to be losing his temper. “It is quite disgraceful that you cannot trace a simple transaction of that sort, dating from only a few months ago. I have a good mind to complain to your head office.”
At last the girl’s smooth manner began to crack with exasperation. “I tell you, monsieur, nobody of that name hired a car on April 14!”
“And I assure you that she did. You haven’t heard the last of this!”
“All right!” The girl almost threw the sheaf of papers at Henry. “Look for yourself! Those are records of all the hirings on that day, and you can see for yourself that your friend’s name is not there. Only one of the clients was a French lady, and her name was quite different!”
Henry was riffling through the forms, and I peered over his shoulder. Mr. Johnson from London. M. Bercy from Brussels. Mr. and Mrs. Rockbeeker from. New York. At the next form, Henry suddenly stopped dead, and a curious silence descended on that small corner of the airport. The form was made out in the name of Mlle. Chantal Villeneuve from Paris. She had hired a small blue Volkswagen for one day only, and had returned it that same evening at ten minutes past six, with two hundred and thirty-two kilometers on the clock. Just the distance to Montarraz and back.
Henry’s pause was only momentary, just long enough to take in the relevant details. Then he quickly went on to inspect the rest of the papers, which he then pushed back across the desk to the receptionist, saying pettishly, “There is certainly no record of the hiring here, but that does not mean it did not take place. Your system is evidently most inefficient. However, by good luck I have remembered what car it was. It was a Volkswagen, was it not, my dear?” He appealed to me.
“That’s right! How clever of you, Henry! Yes, it was certainly a Volkswagen—a little blue one.”
The girl, understandably, could not repress a small sigh of exasperation mixed with wry amusement. To have gone through all this pantomime to end up with the smallest, most popular, and least expensive car on the list! Clearly she was convinced that Henry had never had any intention of hiring one of the more expensive cars, and had created this ridiculous diversion out of a desire to appear important. Oh, well—he wasn’t the only one. She’d had to deal with plenty like him, and worse.
“So you will take a Volkswagen, monsieur?”
“Yes,” said Henry pompously. “A blue one, if possible.”
The girl smiled with real amusement. “Certainly, monsieur, if we have a blue one available. Now, if you will just give me the details…” She had a virgin form on the desk in front of her, which she proceeded to fill up, as Henry spelled out his name, home address, type of insurance cover required, and so on. The girl then consulted a list, and announced that a blue Volkswagen was available. Henry scrawled his name at the bottom of the form, and the girl took a set of keys from a board behind her. I managed to glimpse the registration number on the tag. I recognized it. We were to have the identical car in which Chantal Villeneuve had driven up to Montarraz to murder Robert Drivaz.
Before we actually took possession of the car, Henry announced abruptly that he had a telephone call to make. He suggested pointedly that I might like to avail myself of the facilities of the ladies’ cloakroom. I know Henry well enough to take a hint, so I made myself scarce. When I got back to the car-hire desk, some ten minutes later, Henry was waiting for me. He did not volunteer any information about his telephone call, so I was careful not to ask him.
Of course, there was nothing in the least sinister about the little car. If it had ever contained clues in the form of bloodstains or carelessly dropped handkerchiefs, all had been thoroughly cleaned and cleared away months ago. Numerous other drivers had occupied the driving seat since that April afternoon. Even more than a hotel room, a hired car is utterly anonymous, until its temporary proprietor has had time to impose his own characteristic clutter of maps and baggage on it. All the same, it was an eerie feeling, as Henry took the wheel and headed the car for the Lausanne autoroute—the same road that Chantal must have taken five months ago.
I said, “In a funny way, I’m not surprised. I mean, I find it quite easy to imagine Chantal as a killer. What does baffle me is—why? What was Robert to her, or she to Robert?”
“I daresay we shall find out,” said Henry.
“She must have left Sylvie’s car at Orly Airport and taken a plane down here,” I said. “I suppose she thought she might not have time to drive the whole way.”
“If she had any sense,” said Henry, “she would never have contemplated driving down.”
“But if she’d driven,” I pointed out, “we’d never have found out. I mean, there’s no trace at the Customs posts when one comes and goes by car. She wouldn’t have had to show her driving license and fill in that form.”
“Agreed,” said Henry, “but just think for a moment. Sylvie’s car is very distinctive, and it’s well known in Montarraz. More than likely, somebody would have spotted it, with its red upholstery and French number plates and all. As it was, she arrived in Montarraz in a completely inconspicuous vehicle. I daresay there are a hundred blue Volkswagens in and around the village. No—the Alfa would have been too big a risk.”
“I suppose so,” I said. And then, “But Henry—why? I suppose it really was Chantal?”
“My dear Emmy,” Henry said, “she had to produce her passport and her driving license—and French driving licenses have photographs on them. As to why—nobody knows what Robert Drivaz got up to when he was in Paris. We know nothing about Chantal, come to that, except that she’s
an orphan, Sylvie’s goddaughter, and a very tough little character indeed.”
“So what do we do now?”
For several moments Henry concentrated on the white ribbon of road ahead, frowning. Then he said, “I really don’t know. It all depends what we find in Montarraz.”
The church clock was chiming eleven as we drove through the village. We went first to Panoralpes. Everything was quiet and serene in the sunshine. Jane’s little chalet and studio were apparently deserted. There were no cars in the driveway outside the block of flats. In the marble foyer, Lucia, the concierge, was on her hands and knees, scrubbing energetically. She scrambled to her feet as we came in.
“Oh! Signore…Mme. Weston did not say…I did not know…” She was obviously dismayed to see us.
Henry said reassuringly, “Don’t worry, Lucia. We weren’t expected back.”
“But…there is nobody here. Mme. Weston is out, and Mme. Claudet’s apartment is all shut up.”
“But you have a key, haven’t you?” said Henry. “You go in to do the cleaning.”
Lucia blushed scarlet: “Si, signore…but I have instructions from M. Claudet…nobody is to be allowed into the apartment without his express permission…”
“These are new instructions, are they?” Henry asked.
“Si, signore… M. Claudet was here yesterday evening, and he told me himself…of course, he did not know that you would be coming back, but his instructions were most definite, and I don’t like to—”
“Of course, Lucia. We quite understand. M. Claudet has left again, then?”
“Oh, he did not stay long, signore. He just came and knocked on my door—it must have been about eleven o’clock in the evening—and gave me these orders. Of course, I thought that he would want the apartment made ready and the beds prepared, but he said no, he was not staying. He and madame drove away again in the white motor car. I do not know where they went, signore.”
“And Mme. Weston?”
“Oh, she will be coming back quite soon. She has gone to the carrière outside Charonne, to select a piece of marble. For Mlle. Arnay’s statue, so she told me.”
“You also have a key to her chalet?”
“Si, signore.”
“And no new instructions?”
Lucia smiled. “No, signore. Mme. Weston always tells me to admit any visitors who come if she is not there. Do you want to go into Les Sapins, signore?”
“No, no, I just want to leave a note for Mme. Weston. If I write it now, will you leave it on the kitchen table in Les Sapins, where she can’t miss it?”
“Of course, signore.”
Henry tore a page out of his notebook and scribbled rapidly on it, holding the paper against the pink marble wall. When he had finished, he handed it to me to read.
Dear Jane,
We are back, after an instructive visit to Paris. We are now going to the Chalet Perce-neige, where I think we will find all the characters in this drama. You must do whatever you think is best, but if you do not hear from Emmy or myself by three o’clock this afternoon, I most earnestly ask you to go to the police and tell them all you know. Believe me, this will be for everybody’s good. Think of Anne-Marie, dear Jane, and I know that you will come to the only possible decision.
Henry
P.S. It is kind of you to be so hospitable to unexpected visitors. We do appreciate it.
I read the note, and then said to Henry, “You think Jane knows the truth?”
“I’m reasonably sure she does.”
“Has she known all along?”
“Darling,” said Henry, “I’m not a mind reader. I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter.” He folded the paper, wrote Jane’s name on the outside, and handed it to Lucia.
“I will put it in the kitchen at once, signore,” said Lucia. “Will you be coming back this evening, signore?”
“I wish,” said Henry, “that I knew, Lucia.”
As we drove up the hill toward the Chalet Perce-neige, Henry said, “I wish I didn’t have to involve you in this, darling.”
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “I’m involved, and that’s all there is to it. Nothing to do with you. These people are my friends.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Henry sounded unusually serious. “This is going to be the showdown, and it may be dangerous. What I’d really like to do would be to park you safely in the Hotel Mirabelle for lunch, and come back to collect you when it’s all over.”
“Just you try,” I said.
Henry did not seem to hear me. “The trouble is,” he said, “that I need you there. I need you as a cover, I need you as a witness, and I may even need you as an escape route.”
Suddenly I felt cold.
“They could quite easily dispose of me,” Henry went on, as though talking to himself, “but two of us makes it more difficult. With two, we have a hope against them.”
“What do you mean—them?” I said. “Surely it’s only Chantal—”
Henry said, “The trouble is, we haven’t a shred of real evidence.”
“What do you mean? The umbrella—the hired car—”
“Look,” said Henry, “the fact that I’ve shown it might not have been Anne-Marie whom Jane saw doesn’t prove that it wasn’t her. She was just as capable as anybody else of hiding her face under an umbrella. As for the hired car, Chantal can simply deny it. I daresay there’s more than one Chantal Villeneuve in Paris, and it’s a very long shot that the receptionist would recognize her again—she probably took care to wear her hair differently and put on dark glasses. And even if the girl thought she remembered her—just try proving it in a court of law.”
“She had to sign the hire form,” I said.
“Yes—with some sort of scrawl which she could disclaim afterward. Didn’t you notice, when we hired the car—the girl compared the signature on my driving license most carefully with the one on my passport, to make sure that it was really me. But she didn’t even glance at the one on the form. In fact, I deliberately made it quite different. In any case, even if we could prove beyond all doubt that Chantal hired that car, where would that get us? Chantal never lied to the police, for the good reason that they never asked her any questions. She might have had all sorts of reasons for slipping down to Geneva and keeping quiet about it. Don’t you see—if we could have produced this evidence before Anne-Marie’s trial, it might just have weakened the prosecution’s case, but now, as far as the police are concerned, the matter is closed. Anne-Marie has been tried, found guilty, and sentenced. Quite apart from anything else, no policeman likes to have to admit in public that he was wrong. I know, believe me. I’m one myself. No—it takes really stunning proof to get a case reopened and retried.”
“Then what on earth are we going to do?” I asked.
“We are going to try,” said Henry, “a colossal bluff.” Suddenly he sounded more cheerful. “Now, listen carefully. When we get, there, this is what I want you to do…”
A few minutes later we were nosing the little blue car up the lane which led to the iron gate in the forbidding fence enclosing the Chalet Perce-neige. Henry parked the car some way from the house, having turned it to face downhill toward the village. He switched off the engine and put the ignition key into the unlocked glove compartment. Then we both got out, leaving the car doors unlocked, and walked toward the gate. We could see through its stout iron railings that three cars were parked outside the chalet’s front door. The Claudets’ white Alfa, Giselle’s stunning yellow Monteverdi, and an inconspicuous beige Mini.
Henry took my hand and gave it a quick squeeze. “It seems,” he said, “as if we have a full house. So much the better. Come on.”
I had half-expected the iron gate to be locked, but it was not. A solid-looking padlock hung from it, but the gate swung easily and noiselessly open as Henry pushed it. The next moment we were standing under the porch, and the chime of cowbells rang out as Henry pressed the bell push.
Everything was quiet. Had it not been fo
r the cars, one would have imagined that the house was deserted, and I realized again how isolated it was, how bleak and forbidding when viewed from the road. For a moment nothing happened. Then the small door behind the eye-level iron grille was opened from the inside, and we found ourselves looking into the surprised face of Mario.
Before he could react, however, he was pushed aside, the front door flew open, and there stood Giselle, as tiny and lovely as ever. Surprisingly, she was formally dressed, in trousers and a long tunic made of some soft, silvery silk material. Her face broke into that enchanting, world-renowned smile.
“Henri! Emmie! We thought you had deserted us! Oh, this is good to see you! Come in!”
Come into my parlor. Well, there was no turning back by then. We stepped into the pine-scented hallway. As we did so, Mario slipped past us and out to the front gate. I just had time to hear the padlock clicking firmly shut before the front door closed behind us.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE SPIDER’S WEB was as attractive as ever, but the sinister image lingered in my mind as we followed Giselle out onto the sunny lawn, where the two arms of the house encircled the brilliant focal point which was the swimming pool. Around the pool the people whom Henry had described as the characters in the drama were grouped in apparently carefree ease, but Henry’s simile had been apt. Not only did the whole scene look theatrical and contrived, but the very atmosphere was like that on a stage, in those first few moments of the play before the suspension of the audience’s disbelief.
“See, everybody! Henri and Emmie have come back to us!” Giselle stepped aside, with an upstage gesture. We made our entrance.
Pierre and Sylvie Claudet were sitting side by side on the blue canvas swing seat. Each of them held a tall, flute-shaped glass full of pale golden liquid, and a champagne bottle stood in an ice bucket at Pierre’s feet. Sylvie was wearing yet another of her beautiful Pucci trouser suits, but Pierre Claudet looked incongruous in very formal dark gray. Both of them were tense and nervous.
Michel Veron was sitting astride a rustic bench, which had been artfully contrived out of a vertical slice of tree, bark and all. His guitar was slung around his neck, and he was strumming it idly but expertly, providing just the background music that a good metteur en scène would have arranged. He looked angry rather than worried.
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