Hélène stopped in her tracks and pushed him away. She shook her head vehemently. 'He's dead! He landed on the rocks.' She turned away from him in time to see the red sun dropping into the sea. She shuddered. 'It. . .it's terrible. He's all crushed, and there's blood everywhere.'
'Hélène, why don't you lie down and rest? I'll take care of everything.'
'No!' Her voice took on the high pitch of hysteria. 'Haven't you done enough! You've killed my husband!'
'Please, Hélène. . .' He stepped toward her.
Her eyes were wide with fear. 'Stay away from me, Hubert!' she warned. 'Don't come near me!' Suddenly she turned and ran to the terrace.
He watched her disappear into the house. He sighed heavily. Then he ran after her. At the French doors he stopped and paled. She was on the telephone.
He rushed into the living room and snatched the receiver out of her hand. Quickly he slammed it down on the cradle. 'What are you doing?' he hissed.
'I'm calling the police.'
'What are you going to tell them?'
She flashed him a nasty look and reached out for the telephone. Swiftly he blocked her way. He was almost childlike. 'Don't tell them,' he pleaded. 'Please. I'll do anything for you. Give you anything . . .'
Her voice sounded weary as she held out her hand demandingly. 'Hubert, just give me the receiver.'
'Will you listen to me for a moment!' His usually deep voice, now high-pitched and whining, sounded grotesque. 'Do you think I wanted this to happen? It was an accident!'
She flashed him a contemptuous look. 'How old are you, Hubert?'
He looked at her quizzically. 'Twenty-five.'
She gave a mirthless laugh and slapped her thigh. 'Twenty-five! To think that you fought with a man of seventy-two! A pianist whose fingers were his life, who couldn't defend himself. And you hurled him off the cliff!'
He turned away from her. 'I told you it was an accident! He lost his balance!'
'I don't believe you,' she said dully.
'All right, then don't!' He whirled around savagely, his narrowed eyes blazing. 'I wanted to kill him!' he spit out wildly. 'You're right. Ever since the day you two first met. He was too old for you! Too damned old and too damned ugly! I'm glad I killed him!'
'Do you know what you're saying?' Her words were scarcely audible.
'Of course I know what I'm saying!' he snapped angrily. 'And if you tell the police that I had any part in it, I'll deny it. I'll call you a liar! He was a frail old man.' He made a disgusted gesture. 'Even a woman could have tossed him down that cliff!'
She started to laugh and flung her arms out unbelievingly. 'I can't believe this! You would tell the police a lie like that?'
'If you tell them I did it, yes! I will even say I witnessed you doing it. That he was just standing there admiring the sunset and that you gave him a push. You had the perfect motive. After all, you married him for his money!'
'How dare you!'
'Go on—call the police.' He laughed tauntingly and started for the French doors. Halfway there, he turned around. 'Come on, let's see if you have any guts.'
She looked into his dark eyes to see if he was serious. For a moment she could see straight through them into his soul. It was a dark soul, mangled and decayed, festering with venom. She closed her eyes to wipe out the terrible sight.
He's crazy, she thought. Not just drunk; this time it went much deeper than that. Somewhere along the line, the blue blood had curdled. As much as the young Hubert de Léger had once charmed her, he now repulsed her.
'Get out of here,' she said quietly.
He left without a word.
Slowly she lifted up the telephone. Her fingers trembled as she dialed the police. They answered immediately.
She took a deep breath and fought to keep her voice under control. 'There's been an accident!' she whispered hoarsely. 'My husband is dead. Please. . .come quickly!'
While she was waiting for the police, she looked around the big airy room. There was the big black Bechstein Stanislaw had been playing, the one nearest the terrace doors. The sheet music was still leaning against it. She walked over and stared at the carefully penned score. Slowly she picked it up and leafed through it. Then she closed it. On the first page was scrawled in his precise handwriting:
CLYTEMNESTRA
An Opera by Jean Baptiste Lully
Translated and Arranged by Stanislaw Jastrow Kowalsky
And under that, newly scribbled words caught her eye:
This translation is dedicated to my darling wife, who makes me feel like a young man again.
She stared at the words, and then she pressed the paper against her breast. The heat of her tears burned her eyes. It was at this moment that the true tragedy sank in. The numbness wore off; the pain began. Quickly she replaced the score on the piano, but that didn't alleviate the anguish she felt.
Snap! A noise startled her in the silence. She jumped and spun around, her eyes darting from door to door. Then she glanced over at the table on the other side of the piano. The tape recorder had just turned itself off; a piece of the flesh-colored tape was still fluttering against the big machine as the reels did a few last spins. She let out a breath of relief. It was only the tape recorder. Funny how a little noise like that could set you off when you were all wound up. She hadn't even realized that it had been running all this time.
She caught her breath. No, not only running. Recording. Stanislaw had been making a tape of Clytemnestra when her screams had interrupted him.
Suddenly the enormity of this discovery flashed through her mind. Momentarily it even isolated the pain in a small, unimportant corner of her body. On that tape was not only Clytemnestra but also Hubert's incriminating confession. She had enough evidence to incriminate Hubert de Léger for the murder of her husband, regardless of what tales he'd tell the police. Stanislaw had inadvertently trapped his own killer by leaving the machine running.
Hélène's mind began to race. With this confession, she could put Hubert behind bars. There was only one problem. The de Légers were powerful. They had connections. Exactly how far-flung these connections were she could not know. But as a de Léger, Hubert would probably get off with a light sentence. Perhaps even a mere slap on the wrist. After all, his family was one of the ten most powerful in France. One didn't just throw a de Léger into a jail packed with hoodlums, common thieves, and butchers.
She took the reel off the machine and tapped it in the palm of her hand. It did not weigh much, but somehow it felt very heavy. And no wonder. As long as it was in her possession, she would be in a position to punish Hubert. For as long as he lived, she could make his life miserable. For a moment she hesitated. Wasn't this called blackmail? Who was she to dispense justice? She pursed her lips thoughtfully and came to a swift decision. Better she than no one.
She thrust the spool into the box labeled 'Clytemnestra' and put it in a drawer of the bureau.
Then the police arrived.
Inspector Reme found her sitting on one of the soft beige couches in the living room, her lips compressed into a thin twisted line, her face chalk white. One of the lights under the palm pots threw the shadow of a knifelike frond across her face. She was a beautiful woman, he thought to himself, but like most beautiful women, grief did not agree with her. In his thirty-one years on the force, Inspector Reme had learned to tell when grief was genuine. But grief itself proved nothing. He knew of several cold-blooded women who had thought nothing of killing their husbands; afterward they had been genuinely grief-stricken for having done it.
'Inspector. . .' Her voice was barely a whisper as she began to tell him about the accident.
9
Hubert stood at the bedroom window looking out at the sea. The wind was brisk and the waves were capped with foam. He tapped his foot impatiently. What was the matter? He'd finally been able to trace her to the Grand Hotel. Why wasn't she answering?
Finally he heard a click and her voice came on the line. It sounded small
and weary. 'Hello?'
'Hélène? It's Hubert.'
'Yes, Hubert. What do you want?'
'How are you?'
For a moment she was silent. When she spoke, it was as if every word were frozen. 'My husband is dead and I've been questioned by the police. I don't think they believed my story. How do you think I am?'
'What did you tell them?' he asked curiously.
'I don't think this is the time to discuss that,' she snapped, and then he heard a click.
He stared dumbly at the receiver. She had hung up on him. Angrily he banged it down and cursed. The worst thing was, she wouldn't even tell him what she'd told the police. If they came to question him, how was he to be sure that their stories matched?
But they hadn't come to see him, he thought suddenly. That at least indicated that she'd been wise enough not to mention him.
The press had a field day. As soon as the news of Stanislaw Kowalsky's death leaked out, reporters descended on Cap Ferrat in swarms. Most of them were from sensational journals like Ici Paris; a few even came from as far away as Germany, Italy, and England. Stanislaw Kowalsky was news. In death as much as in life.
Jacques didn't bother with trains. He hopped on the first Air-Inter flight to Nice. There he hired a car to take him to the isolated, exclusive Grand Hotel du Cap-Ferrat. Hélène was in a suite consisting of two connecting bedrooms, each with its own door out into the corridor. That way, if any reporters managed to slip past the alert staff downstairs, Jacques would at least be able to come and go from his room without being harassed.
The bellboy put down his suitcase and thanked him profusely for the tip. Jacques grinned good-naturedly and looked around the room. When he heard the door close, his face grew serious. 'Hélène?' he called out softly.
She opened the connecting door a crack, peered out suspiciously, and then flung it open. She rushed into his arms. For a moment he held her tightly. Her small voice was muffled in his chest. 'Thanks for coming, Jacques. You don't know how much I appreciate it.' She looked up at him and tried to smile.
He leaned down and kissed her cheek. Then he looked at her silently for a moment, shocked by her appearance. Her face was white and drawn, her eyes lackluster. He felt helpless. All he could do was try to comfort her. And that he did, as they talked long into the night. Finally he convinced her to try to rest. The hotel doctor had given her some pills, but she hadn't taken any, not wanting to miss Jacques's arrival. Now, as Jacques handed them to her, she accepted them gratefully. After a few minutes she did what she had believed to be the impossible. She slept.
Whether it was the pills, the tiredness, or the emotional strain, something knocked her out completely. She even slept through the jangling of the phone. Finally Jacques shook her awake. She looked at him groggily.
He held his hand over the receiver. 'It's Inspector What's-his-name,' he said. 'He wants to talk to you right away.'
She moaned and struggled up. What was it with the police? Didn't they sleep like normal human beings? Or did somebody wind them up with a key like one of those mechanical toys?
She glanced at the alarm clock on the nightstand. It was still light out, but the clock said eleven-thirty. She sat up straight. Was it possible that she'd slept fifteen hours straight through? She shook her head to clear it of the fog and took the receiver.
'Madame Kowalsky? This is Inspector Reme. I hope I'm not disturbing you.'
'No, not at all,' she lied. 'If I sound a little groggy, it's because of the pills the doctor prescribed. What can I do for you?'
Jacques stood there looking at her questioningly. She caught his look. 'Coffee,' she mouthed soundlessly. He nodded and quickly slipped out of the room.
'I'm all right, Inspector,' she said into the phone. 'Please, go ahead.'
'Perhaps you will feel better once I tell you what we've discovered,'
Inspector Reme said. 'A witness who saw the accident take place has just come forward.'
She felt a sudden chill and drew the sheet higher around her neck. So someone had seen Stanislaw and Hubert fighting, she thought with dismay. How could that have been? Had someone across the bay accidentally focused binoculars their way? Had a sailboat been going by, and a member of the crew looked up as the body fell? It could have been any of a dozen things. A hundred things.
'Yes. . .?' she said cautiously.
'It seems that the villa next to yours was rented to a certain Hubert de Léger.'
Whatever sleep was still in her body shot out of her like a bullet. 'I see,' she said. She had to fight to keep her voice calm.
'Monsieur de Léger was in his garden, also admiring the sunset, when your husband lost his balance. He said that he saw you rushing toward him, trying to save his life.'
'I didn't succeed, Inspector.'
'But you tried.' He paused for a moment. 'I've called to let you know that you're free to leave Cap Ferrat whenever you like. The case is closed.'
She forced herself not to show her relief in her voice. 'Thank you, Inspector. Do you have any idea why this person did not come forward sooner?'
'It seems that he is from a prominent family and didn't want its name involved. He said he came forward after much deliberation because it was his duty as a citizen.'
'I see,' she said dryly.
'If you need any help leaving,' Inspector Reme said, 'I am glad to be of service. I can have my men try to get you past the reporters. Also, your husband's body is still in the morgue in Nice. Do you wish to have it shipped to Paris?'
'Please.'
'I will be happy to arrange it.'
'Thank you, Inspector. Au revoir.'
Slowly she replaced the receiver. For the first time she noticed the persistent ticking of the alarm clock. Almost angrily she snatched it off the nightstand and buried it under the pillows. It didn't do any good. She could still hear the tick-tick-tock, tick-tick-tock. But at least it wasn't so loud that she couldn't think. Her eyes were thoughtful. Trust Hubert to be a slippery fish. He had managed to squirm out of this mess nicely, even clearing her in the process. He would probably expect her to be eternally grateful.
She smiled grimly. But he had done her one favor without even knowing it. He'd left himself wide open to be punished for his crime. By her.
She reached for the telephone and waited for the hotel operator to come on. 'Bonjour, madame.'
'Bonjour,' she replied. 'Connect me with the desk, please.'
'Right away.' There was a clicking sound; then the unctuous voice of the head desk clerk came on.
'Please prepare my bill,' she said. 'I'm checking out. Also, reserve two seats on the next flight to Paris.' She tossed down the receiver and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She pulled on her robe. Then she got her suitcase and threw it on the bed and began to pack.
'What's the hurry?' Jacques looked at her questioningly as he came in with a steaming cup of black coffee.'
'Pack your things,' she said without looking up. 'We're leaving.'
He stared at her incredulously and slowly put the cup down. 'What! Leaving! Where to?'
'Back to Paris, of course.'
At the airport in Nice, they passed a newsstand in the lobby. Hélène stopped in her tracks. A grayish color came over her skin as she stared speechlessly at a tabloid on display.
Jacques looked over at it too. He winced. It was one of the weekly scandal rags. It was enough to knot your stomach. The bold red banner read: 'LUCKLESS MARRIAGE ENDS ON THE ROCKS.' There was a big black-and- white paparazzo shot of Stanislaw and a half-page blowup of Hélène. It was the 'smoking-gun' photo. The one from L'Officiel.
'Jacques, it's your photo!' she said in a tight voice. She furrowed her brow. 'You didn't. . .give them permission to use it?'
He caught the look in her eyes. 'No, of course I didn't. They must have pirated it from L'Officiel. Le Monde Internationale is always pulling stunts like that,' he said angrily.
'But it's so. . .so out of context,' she whispered.
'Forget it. There's nothing you or I can do about it. More important personalities than you have tried to stop them. LMI always wins. Your best bet is to forget about it. Let it die a quiet death. Don't even demand a retraction.'
She felt a terrible surge of anger because she knew that he was right. But it wasn't fair. A person shouldn't have to take such slander. It wasn't right to have to feel so impotent. Then she had a sudden brainstorm. 'Can't L'Officiel sue them for ripping off the photo?'
He nodded. 'But it would cost them a fortune and could take forever. Years, maybe. Even then, there's no way to be sure of the outcome. Le Monde Internationale could get just a slap on the wrist. Listen, take my advice and forget you ever saw it.'
She stared at him. 'But how can I? 'Marriage Ends on the Rocks.' That's despicable!'
'Keep busy for a while,' he advised her gently. 'Stay out of the public eye. Do nothing, say nothing. In a few weeks, you'll be yesterday's news. In a month, no one will even remember who you are or what you look like.'
But Jacques was wrong. For the rest of her life, the reporters would always be there to haunt her. She would not only be in the news. She would create constant news.
Stanislaw Kowalsky was buried on the silent slopes of the Pere-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. The grave was off the Avenue Transversale Number Three, a few graves away from Modigliani's. It was a short, private ceremony. Besides Hélène and Jacques, the only other friend of Stanislaw there was the Vicomtesse de Sevigne. She sniffed ceremoniously into a lace-edged handkerchief, her huge black picture hat with the big black satin bow flapping perilously in the wind. The Vicomtesse was a very elegant mourner, Hélène thought, but a genuine one. The eyes that had seen so much were red-rimmed and puffy from crying.
Also at the grave were Ada and Herbert, Stanislaw's estranged children. Neither had come from New York for the wedding, but both had turned up for the funeral. Before the service, Hélène had tried to speak to them, but they had turned away. They made it clear that they did not regard her as a member of the family, and that even the Vicomtesse was a barely tolerated friend of their father's. During the service, Hélène looked over at them. They stood together at the far side of the grave, Ada with her face hidden behind the thick veil of what looked like a black beekeeper's bonnet. Her long black skirt reached almost to her swollen ankles, which were encased in black nylon stockings. Herbert, pear-shaped and wearing heavy glasses, studiously kept his eyes on the grave like an engineer studying a blueprint.
Sins Page 45
