by Katie Penryn
“Access first,” said Felix holding up a finger. “There doesn’t appear to be any way in except the main door from the vestibule by the kitchen and Jean-Claude has the only key. Right?” he asked looking at the poor man for confirmation.
“Right. But thinking about it… it’s just possible that someone took the key and copied it.” He held the key up for us to look at, not that we hadn’t noticed it when he’d unlocked the doors along the tunnel. “I can’t carry this great chunk of iron around with me all the time.”
“So where do you keep it?” I asked.
“I hide it in the library.”
“Do you ever give it out to family or staff?”
“Occasionally, but I always make sure I get it back when the job’s done and in reasonable time. No one would have time to take it to town and have it copied.”
I left the subject there knowing that there were other ways to copy a key.
“Speaking of chunks of iron,” said Felix, “those traps must weigh a ton.”
Jean-Claude laughed. “Maybe not a ton, but a goodly weight.”
“How could someone steal them? They’d have to have help and take them out one by one under cover of darkness,” Felix went on.
“That’s why Dubois thinks it could have been me,” said Jean-Claude. “Now, you see why I need help with this. Dubois’s keeping an open mind for the moment, but he could change at any moment.”
It was my turn to laugh. “He’ll proceed with caution. I like Dubois, but he did rush his first case, and he learned his lesson.”
We’d reached the foot of the staircase up to the living area of the château. Jean-Claude stopped in front of what appeared to be a large cupboard door, about four foot by five.
“This is the lift,” he said. “It works like a dumb waiter. We use it to carry wine and junk up and down to the cellars. Whoever stole the traps wouldn’t have had to carry them up the winding stairs.”
“He or she would still have had to be strong enough to carry the traps this far and load them, and then carry them out to their vehicle,” Felix said running his hands around the edges of the wood. “There’s no lock here that I can see or feel.”
“It locks at the top in the hallway and uses the same key. This old one,” he said holding up the key he’d used to unlock and re-lock the door behind us.
Felix took the stairs first and Jean-Claude brought up the rear ushering me before him saying he’d catch me if I missed a step.
We didn’t speak again until we reached the top. The steps were worn and steep leaving no breath for talking. Jean-Claude led us back into the kitchen which was empty at that hour of the day and sat down at the kitchen table, waving us to join him.
I asked him if he could think of anyone who could have wanted to kill Hélène. He didn’t answer. I gave him a few moments to think over my question then I prompted him. “Can you think of anyone who bore Hélène a grudge… or you for that matter?”
“Give me a moment… while I get us all a drink after that climb. What’ll you have?”
Felix and I both asked for a glass of water. When Jean-Claude placed our drinks on the table and took his seat again, he scrunched up his face and gave a quick shake of his head. Something was troubling him. He drained his glass and replaced it on the table before raising his head to look across the table at us. His eyes had that far-away look people get when they fight off unpleasant ideas.
“There is something. I didn’t want to have to tell anyone, but in the circumstances I feel I must, but please treat it as highly confidential… not to be told to anyone else.”
“I can speak for Felix when I say we’ll treat anything you tell us with the utmost discretion. As you have asked us to act for you, that goes with the territory. Your disclosures are covered by client confidentiality.”
“Ahem,” said Felix. “I have to interrupt here. We have no formal agreement that Jean-Claude is our client. If that’s the way this matter is to progress, he should pay Penzi some consideration.”
I tutted and added, “For heaven’s sake, Felix, we can’t charge Jean-Claude. We don’t need the money, and he’s something of a friend by now.”
Felix rolled his eyes at me. He was getting too old for that sort of teenage behavior.
“Penzi, you’re the lawyer. I don’t have to teach my grandmother to suck eggs. Ask the man for one Euro, but do it now.”
Jean-Claude had been watching this exchange with astonishment, but when I nodded in his direction, he pulled his change purse out of his pocket, selected a one Euro coin and slid it across the table towards me.
Felix clapped his hands. “Bravo, now Penzi is legally representing you and your secrets are safe as long as they don’t imperil human life or the nation.”
That made Jean-Claude laugh. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said rising from the table and making for the door. “I’ll tell you what I mean when I return. Why don’t you take this chance to visit Juno and see how she’s getting on? You’ll find her on the veranda through the door outside the kitchen,” he said pointing to the door in question.
Chapter 15
Juno lay in a dog basket at the far end of the veranda with Jupiter hovering anxiously about her. She lifted her head to greet Felix with a soft whine when he knelt down and offered her his hand to sniff. She wagged her tail.
“See,” said Jupiter. “She recognizes you as the person who saved her life even though she was semi-conscious at the time.”
Juno jerked her head up and eyed Felix and me.
“You can talk with us?” she asked her ears going back at the scary thought.
Felix stroked her below the cone the poor dog was wearing and ran his hands down her spine.
“We’re both supernaturals so, yes, we can. I’m a shape shifter and Penzi is a white witch.”
I crouched down beside Felix and stroked Juno’s chest, giving her a doggy massage to relieve her anxiety. She licked my arm and said, “Thank you for rescuing me.”
“That was my duty and my wish,” I replied continuing to stroke her. “Do you feel up to answering some questions… and you, too, Jupiter?”
They exchanged a glance. “Will it help to find out who did this?” Jupiter asked moving closer to his sister to show his support.
I nodded. “But first, how’s the paw coming along.”
Juno bent her head towards her foot but, of course, she couldn’t reach it because of the cone around her neck.
“The vet said he was pleased with the progress. He told our dad it looks as if he’s managed to save my paw. They’re giving me pills to stop the pain but even so, I can’t walk on it yet.”
Felix stood up and pulled a couple of veranda chairs over towards Juno’s basket. He sat down and pushed one towards me. I followed his example.
“It’ll be better before you know it,” Felix said. “Now, about the questions.”
“Well,” said Juno lifting her head and resting the cone on the side of her basket. “I can’t remember everything. Jupiter will have to help.”
Jupiter wagged his tail and sat down on his haunches.
I decided to find out what Juno could tell us about the incident, thinking her memory would work better if we didn’t prompt her or interrupt. “Why don’t you give us the story as you remember it first of all, starting from when you all reached the end of the row of vines?”
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
“We were about thirty yards away from the end of the row when something stirred the bushes at the foot of the rocks,” Juno began.
Jupiter lifted his head. “She’s always out in front. Thinks she’s the alpha dog. Doesn’t know her place as my sister, so she dashed off well ahead of me. She ran in front of Toto’s legs, startling him. He reared up in fright and our mum went sailing off his back into the row of vines. Fortunately, she held onto the leashes that go round the horse’s neck or he’d have bolted.”
Juno gave a little yelp. “I thought I was telling this
story.”
“You don’t know what happened behind your back. You were so busy tearing off to fight the enemy.”
“True,” said Juno and subsided leaving her brother to give his side of the story.
“Anyway,” he said, “it was chaotic for a moment. The mistress bounced off the plants and landed hard on her bottom. I made a quick decision to stay with her instead of running off after Juno. I love Juno dearly but our mum comes first, you understand?”
We both nodded.
“I ran over to her and licked her face to show her I was there for her. She was breathing hard. She must have hit her chest against the wires. I cast a look behind me to where Juno had disappeared into the brush. The shrubs and bushes waved above her as she made progress through the undergrowth. Our mum picked herself up and looped the horse’s leashes over the post. Toto was still disturbed and pulled against this, but our mum quietened him down. No sooner had he stopped snorting and pawing the ground than a terrible howl reached us from over in the scrubland.”
“I guess that was you, Juno?” I said.
“You have no idea what it was like,” she answered. “The branches bent over high above me and were so thick I couldn’t see where I was going but I could scent something, some creature.”
“A man or an animal?” Felix asked.
“I wasn’t sure. It could have been both. A horrible smell like something decaying. It was so dark in there, I couldn’t see where I was placing my feet and I was pelting along. I was moving faster than I could see ahead of me. Suddenly, there was the most excruciating pain, and I was thrown backwards by the force of the attack.”
I leaned forwards and stroked her to encourage her to continue with her tale. “You’d stepped in the trap?”
She nodded. “I didn’t know what had happened. The pain took away all my sense of reason. I thrashed about trying to get free until I grew so exhausted I collapsed, wondering what was taking Jupiter and the mistress so long to follow me. Why did you take so long?” she suddenly asked Jupiter.
“As I’ve said, I had to wait until our mum got the horse back under control. Then we both ran towards your howling, with me tracking your trail and the mistress running alongside me. We burst into the clearing close to where you were and before I knew what had happened, the mistress let out a scream and fell to the ground.”
“I heard that scream,” said Juno. “You weren’t far from me when that happened.”
“Our mum told me to look for you first.”
“You found me and I told you to go back and look after her.”
“You said you’d try to get out of the iron jaws. I couldn’t be with both you at the same time so I returned to our mistress. By this time, she was sitting up with her leg trapped in another set of even bigger jaws and was searching in her pocket. Oh no, I’ve dropped it. Find my phone, she said. Find my phone, Jupiter. She held her hand up to her ear to show me what she meant. I didn’t want to leave her because the wicked iron teeth were biting into her ankle and she was bleeding all over the ground. Go, Jupiter, she said. So, I raced back to where she’d fallen off her horse.”
“But you didn’t find the speaking thing, did you, Jupiter?” said Juno.
Jupiter got to his feet. He snarled baring his teeth. “No, I didn’t. When the mistress really needed me I let her down. Don’t think, I don’t know, Juno.”
“So, you went back to your mistress?” I asked him.
“I did. She’d given up trying to free her leg and fallen back on the ground with her eyes closed. I licked her face to show her I was there for her. I couldn’t speak to her, but she saw I didn’t have the speaking thing she called her phone. She let out a deep sigh and pushed herself into a sitting position again. She kept pointing to the iron monster and punching up and down with her hands. So I jumped in the air and landed on my front paws like when I’m hunting for a mouse or a squirrel. Yes, yes, she said. I didn’t understand what she wanted me to do. On the trap, she said putting her other leg on the iron thing. I tried and tried but I couldn’t get it right and she grew weaker and weaker until she flopped back on the ground. She became still and her spirit left her.”
Juno had become distressed as she heard Jupiter’s side of the story. I stroked her again and rubbed her chest to still her shivering.
“Did you see or hear anything while you lay there, Juno?” I asked her.
“Not a thing until a car arrived. That was you.”
“Jupiter?”
“No, nothing. No more rustlings. No more branches waving. Whatever we’d seen in the beginning had gone.”
I stood up and walked up and down the veranda while I weighed up what they’d told us. Felix joined me and stopped me from pacing.
“Any ideas, Penzi?” he asked me.
“Their stories aren’t very helpful, that’s true, but we can be sure of one thing: there was definitely something or someone there. If it was an animal, it would have been natural for it to run off, but it must have been a large animal to move the bushes so much. If it was a human being why didn’t they show themselves? They had to be up to no good. It’s one more proof that this was not an unfortunate accident.”
“Something else. It couldn’t have been Jean-Claude. He was with us in the car. So either he’s innocent of Dubois’s suspicions or he had an accomplice.”
Felix chuckled. “That’s taking things a bit far, don’t you think?”
“I’m not ruling anything out for the moment.”
As we walked back to the dogs to say goodbye, I took hold of Felix’s arm and halted him while I spoke. “Wouldn’t it be terrible if we proved our first official client was guilty of the crime we’d been hired to solve?”
“Heaven forbid,” said Felix.
Chapter 16
The door onto the veranda opened behind us, and Jean-Claude called out, “I’m ready for you.”
We gave both dogs a ruffle and joined Jean-Claude in the library. We retook our seats and waited for his revelation.
He lifted a pretty box about ten by ten inches from the chair beside him and placed it on the table. Flowered paper covered the box and a broad pink ribbon ran around its sides ending in a large floppy bow.
“I found this last week when I was going through Hélène’s clothes to find an outfit to give the funeral people so they could dress her for her coffin.” He took a deep breath and stifled back a sob. “I never dreamed I’d find something like this.”
A label on the side of the box indicated that it contained tablets of honeysuckle perfumed Marseilles bath soap. I didn’t understand why it had thrown Jean-Claude so. What was wrong with soap? Felix and I waited for him to tell us in his own time.
“I hesitated a long time over whether I should show this to you or not. It seems disloyal in some way, and, of course, it’s hurtful to me, but it could be useful to your inquiries.”
He slowly removed the lid. Inside lay two piles of envelopes of the best bond addressed by hand to Madame Hélène de Portemorency. The top two had no postal stamps.
“Are they all like that?” I asked him. “Delivered by hand?”
He nodded. “None of them was posted, but they weren’t necessarily delivered by hand. They could have been left in a drop box, you know.”
“And you consider them significant?” I asked.
“Absolutely.”
Felix reached out to take the top one out of the box but I slapped his hand away quickly.
“No, put your gloves on. We don’t know how important these letters are yet, but if Jean-Claude thinks they are, we may want them dusted for fingerprints so we can find out who wrote them.”
Jean-Claude sighed. “Unfortunately, they’re all signed so I know who they’re from.”
“Don’t touch the letters again without gloves, Jean-Claude, just in case,” I advised him.
Felix fished his ever-present latex gloves out of his pocket and donned them. Jean-Claude nudged the box toward Felix with his knuckle. Felix took the top one out of t
he box and removed it from its envelope.
He scanned it quickly, his eyes growing wider as he worked his way down to the bottom of the page.
“May I read it out aloud to Penzi? She can’t read it herself because she’s dyslexic.”
Jean-Claude jerked back in his seat ready to refuse. Then he pushed his chair out and made for the door. “I’ll wait on the veranda with the dogs while you go through them. It would be too much for me to hear them read aloud.”
Felix waited until the door closed behind him and began to read the first letter.
Hélène darling…, it began. It continued in an amorous tone, referring to their heartfelt love for each other and slating Jean-Claude as a monster who wouldn’t set Hélène free to be with the man she loved–the writer. It was signed Until we can be together, your one and only, Gilbert.
On to the next letter… and the next, right through the box. The content grew steamier. No wonder Jean-Claude hadn’t wanted to hear them read aloud.
Felix refolded the last letter, tucked it back into the envelope and laid it down in the box.
“What do you make of that, Penzi?”
“Nowhere does he mention receiving a letter or a phone call from Hélène, does he?”
Felix shrugged. “So?”
“The letters give no proof that Hélène returned the writer’s passion.”
“Why did she keep them if they meant nothing to her?”
“Maybe in case she needed to show them to Jean-Claude or the police at some point.”
Felix reached for a piece of paper and a pen from the desk and wrote the man’s name down.
“A lot of guesses. This man goes on our list of suspects for interviewing. Call Jean-Claude back in, boss, and we’ll ask him about this love affair, as improbable as it may seem to us as outsiders.”
I fetched Jean-Claude. As soon as he was seated again, I asked him about the writer.
“Gilbert Clancy? We’ve both known him for years. I had no idea he was sneaking around behind my back writing love-letters to my wife. We were at university together here in Bordeaux. Hélène was a year behind us. He took up with her when she was in her first year but the relationship didn’t last long. Later when we were going out together, I asked Hélène what caused the break up, but she wouldn’t tell me.”
