The Essence of Malice

by Ashley Weaver

  That, then, had been the cause of the confused draft we had seen, the one in which Anton had been left everything.

  “I believe he must have told Anton as much,” she said with a wry smile, “for my brother was quite sure he would inherit control of Parfumes Belanger.”

  “He didn’t know about your father’s illness?” I asked.

  “Not the true extent of it,” I said. “My father wanted it that way. Besides his doctor, I was the only one who knew, though I eventually confided in Michel. We did our best to conceal his increasingly frequent memory lapses. I told Anton that our father was developing a new and highly secretive process to account for his increasing distraction and paranoia. As time went by, however, it became nearly impossible to hide his condition. One night he was very confused and Michel tried to keep him from leaving the house. My father went to bed but slipped out the next morning. We did not know where he had gone. It turned out that he went to Grasse and returned unscathed, but things were very bad after that. He did not know who he could trust, so he could no longer be trusted with the information he was receiving from his contacts. We could no longer operate effectively, not with his condition.”

  “We,” I repeated. “Then your father made you aware of his work.”

  She nodded. “I was my father’s protégée in all things.”

  “But surely there was someone you could tell, some superior?” There must have been some other way than resorting to such an extreme solution.

  She shook her head. “I’m afraid not. In the state he was in, he would not have understood. He might have let something slip, something of vital importance. It was not just a matter of his own life. There were others to be protected. Not just Michel and myself, but the many who rely on us.”

  “Michel?” I repeated. Somehow I found I was not entirely surprised to learn that Michel was a member of this secret cause. It made sense to me now, the watchfulness I had noticed that did not match his careless reputation, his wide travels, the wives of government officials he had romanced.

  “Yes, my brother is also a part of our work.” She smiled. “He cannot abide perfumery, but this other work he likes very much.”

  At the mention of perfumery, I thought of L’Ange de Mémoire. “What of the perfume?” I asked.

  “It was during the early stages of his illness that he conceived of creating L’Ange de Mémoire, the Angel of Memory. It would be his final bow, he said. His legacy. He made plans for the design of the bottle and for the ingredients he would use, many of them very rare. By the time he received many of the ingredients, he was too ill to create it.”

  “But he created the formula for you to follow?”

  She shook her head. “There wasn’t a viable perfume formula. My father tried to write it, but by then his mind was too far gone. It was senseless, unusable.”

  So the illegible copy he had brought in his attaché case to Grasse had not been one that had been substituted for the real thing, but one that Helios Belanger had believed, in his confusion, to be correct. But what of the missing copy?

  Cecile answered this question as though she had been following my train of thought. “I had the key to my father’s safe and took the duplicate copy. We didn’t want Anton to know, and I needed time to create a new one. When it was finished, Michel pretended to discover it. We had to continue as though my father had created it, for the sake of Parfumes Belanger. It will still be his legacy. I shall see to that.”

  “But what about André? Was he…?” My voice trailed off as the implications hit me.

  “Yes.” She met my gaze coolly. “André Duveau was a German spy.”

  I felt at a loss. Despite everything that I had learned, all the pieces that had seemed to connect, nothing was as I had expected. It was as though I had pieced together a puzzle, but the picture was the wrong one.

  “Are you … are you sure?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “We knew from the beginning. Last year my father had acquired a very sensitive document, the details of which I am not at liberty to share. He was to keep it until such time as the information should be made useful. It might have been a month, a year, or longer. We had been warned that an operative would be attempting to make contact to retrieve the information. When André arrived, we knew it was he. He thought he was very clever with his charm and good looks, but we were not fooled.”

  “But he was shot down, decorated, in the war.”

  “Yes. He claimed to have been shot down, but that was a ruse. He was really making contact with the Germans. Oh, he came home to a hero’s welcome and was hailed for his exploits. He was very clever at hiding what he truly was. But not clever enough.”

  “And so the past year was a long attempt to retrieve that document?”

  “Yes,” she said. “He tried at first to romance me. I thought he could perhaps prove useful to me. He thought that I would introduce him to the family, that he would have time in the house to retrieve the document. He even went so far as to express interest in perfumery to win my father’s trust and approval. When that didn’t work and I eventually broke off our relationship, he decided that his only recourse was to kill my father so that the information would never be made public.”

  “Then he didn’t realize that you knew your father’s secrets?”

  “No,” she said scathingly. “It did not seem to occur to him that I might be interested in anything other than perfume. I think he meant to kill my father and hoped the document would remain hidden away or be lost among his other papers until they were no longer of use. Then you and your husband arrived.”

  I thought of what André had told me tonight, about not knowing for whom Milo and I worked. I realized now that he had thought us spies. “He thought my husband and I were somehow involved in all of this.”

  “I thought the same at first,” she said. “But I soon began to realize that it was a different game you were playing. I just did not know what it was. It was when I saw Madame Nanette come to your hotel that I realized your connection and began to think you must be after something else. At least, I thought you were. Your husband was another matter.”

  “My husband?” I repeated.

  “Yes, he was very close to the truth, I think. He and Michel gambled together frequently, and my brother told me that he asked some pressing questions.”

  I wondered suddenly just how much Milo had known.

  “I was hoping that if I created your perfume and left town that you would return to London. When André came to my house today, however, I knew that something was amiss. I gave him the pomade as a warning, one which he clearly did not heed. I thought he might attempt something tonight, so when your husband asked Michel to meet him, I knew that he must know something. So I followed my brother.”

  Then it had been Cecile whom Milo had recognized as the figure across the street. No wonder he had been surprised. He had been expecting André.

  “When I saw you leave, I decided to follow you and was outside when André forced you into his car.”

  “But what is this place?” I asked. “Why did Michel come here last night?”

  “This flat belongs to the woman who was my father’s nurse at one time. My father had begun to think of her as a confidante. So much so that we were forced to dispense with her services. He sought her out after that, however, and even came here to see her. One night he wandered here quite late and refused to leave. I sent a car to get him the following morning.”

  So that was what Lucille the waitress had seen. The alleged mistress and the missing nurse had been one and the same.

  “I began to wonder if, perhaps, he had entrusted her with anything she should not have,” she said. “Then recently there was a death in her family, so she returned home for a time. It was the perfect opportunity to search. Luckily, Michel found nothing. The nurse is not the sentimental type, it seems,” she said, glancing around the sparsely decorated room.

  “Milo told me to go back to the hotel and to phone Madame Nanet
te to watch over the child.”

  She nodded. “I was afraid, too, that André might get desperate enough to use Seraphine as leverage. Instead, however, he gambled on your having the documents he was seeking.”

  “I can’t believe he spent a year trying to obtain that document.”

  “There is a great deal of unrest in Europe, Madame Ames,” she said. “Peace is an illusion.”

  “He even taught your father to fly,” I said, marveling at the way he had inserted himself into their lives.

  “Yes. I think he thought that he might find it a useful way to dispose of my father when he was finished with him. There are ways to cause a plane to crash. I’m sure he thought it was his poison that had done the trick that night, but it was my father’s own confusion that caused it.”

  I knew Helios Belanger had been a strong-willed man. No doubt they had been unable to keep him from doing as he desired. “He wanted to continue flying,” I said.

  “Yes. We tried to stop him, but he was a man of great determination. And there were still moments of great clarity. He was fine when he left, very much his old self. I had hoped he would make the journey without incident, but when he crash-landed I knew the time had come.”

  The time had come. And she had killed her father.

  “He was afraid from the beginning that this would happen, that he was going to say things, to reveal things that no one else could know. He told me a year ago, when he realized what was happening to him. He said, ‘I am relying on you to do what is necessary when the time comes.’ I agreed that I would, and I kept my word.”

  I said nothing. I could think of nothing to say.

  “You think me cruel, perhaps. Only a wicked woman could kill her own father.” She shrugged. “Perhaps you are right. Perhaps I am wicked, in a way. But it had to be done. The cruel thing would have been to let him suffer, to let him live in a cloud of confusion, at a risk to himself and others. He did not want to live that way. To allow him to carry that burden, that would have been the malicious thing.”

  There was movement at the door then, and I turned, startled, hoping that it was not some associate of André’s here to finish what he had started. Not that I need worry; Cecile seemed more than capable of dealing with whatever problems might arise. I had seen that streak of steel in her when we had first met, but I had not imagined how deep it ran.

  However, the figure at the door was Michel and, behind him, Milo.

  My husband came at once to my side. “Are you all right, darling?”

  “Yes,” I said with a weak smile. “Thanks to Cecile.”

  Michel walked to André’s body, looking down at him. “You took your time about it,” he said, turning back to his sister. “If it had been up to me, we would have ended him long ago.”

  “I had meant to make use of him,” she said, “but he got unmanageable. I’ll need you to clean things up for me.”

  “Of course,” he replied.

  I turned to Milo, trying to put away the horrible casualness of their conversation. “How did you know I was here?”

  “When I saw that it was Cecile who had followed Michel to the brothel and not André, I realized that André might mean to do something desperate, perhaps even kidnap the child. I spoke with Michel and we hurried back to the hotel to meet you, but the concierge told me you had gone out with a man and I knew what had happened. I might not have thought to come here, but Emile told me.”

  “So he managed it,” I said.

  “Yes. When I arrived back at the hotel, he gave me this.” From inside his shirt pocket, he removed a cigarette. I could see where I had scrawled on it “flat” before dropping it into the couch cushion. I had hoped Emile, having frequently seen Milo smoking, would give it to him when he returned. It had been a ridiculous plan and quite unnerving to have one’s fate resting in the paws of a monkey, but it seemed that it had worked.

  “I was very worried, Milo…”

  “There, there, darling,” he said, draping an arm around me and pulling me close. “There will be time to talk about that later. Right now, I think we had better leave Michel and Cecile to take care of all of this.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at the body on the floor. I still could not believe that she had done it, and with such very accurate aim. I shivered.

  “We will not meet again soon,” Cecile said. “I will be gone before the night is out. Your perfume, however, will be sent to you when it is finished. Anton will see to that.”

  “Does Anton know…?” I asked.

  “No,” she replied. “Anton is weak. He has always been weak. My father knew it. He will do his best with Parfumes Belanger, but the … other matters are best left to Michel and me.”

  Michel turned to us. “It has been very nice to meet you, Madame Ames. My only regret was that I could not pry you from your husband’s arms.” He shrugged. “Alas, one cannot have everything.”

  “Good-bye, Monsieur Belanger,” I said.

  He winked at me, and Milo took my arm and we walked to the door.

  Cecile’s voice stopped me before I reached it. “Madame Ames.”

  I turned.

  “Your perfume. I have decided to call it La Perception.”

  Perception. “I like that very much,” I said.

  She smiled. “I thought you might.”

  She turned then, to help her brother with the body on the floor, and I allowed Milo to lead me out into the night.

  29

  WE ARRIVED BACK at our hotel, and I tried to shake the feeling that this entire evening had been some very strange dream. I could not believe that the truth had been so unlikely.

  “I never would have imagined,” I told Milo. “I never suspected even for a moment that they might be spies. It’s too incredible.”

  I noticed he had said nothing, and I thought of what Cecile had said about his being close to the truth. It all made sense, the secrecy, the trips into the night. He had known it was something like this, and he had been trying to work from that angle while discouraging me from continuing to pursue it.

  “You knew,” I said suddenly.

  “Yes,” he admitted.

  “For how long?”

  “Almost from the start,” he said. “I had heard rumors about André Duveau, things that made me suspect there was more to him than met the eye. When I learned that he was involved with the Belanger family, that confirmed it.”

  “You knew about the Belangers?”

  “I became acquainted with Michel Belanger shortly after the war. He had a wild, reckless reputation and was known for his temper, which got him into trouble more than once. He and his father were constantly at odds, as you know. As time went by, however, I began to realize that he was possessed of a second, more careful nature. Then one night, something went wrong, and we were very nearly ambushed.”

  “Ambushed?” I repeated.

  “Thanks to his quick thinking, we averted injury,” he said, brushing aside the encounter. “Michel, however, was forced to reveal at least a little of the truth to me.”

  “Then he is not what he seems?” I asked.

  “Oh, he is most definitely what he seems,” Milo replied with a smile. “Perhaps time has tamed his temper a bit, but he has a reputation to maintain and he greatly enjoys maintaining it.”

  “So, knowing what you did about the Belangers, you came to Paris knowing that there was some secret information involved.”

  “I didn’t know anything,” he said. “I suspected. After all, Duveau had been in Como with us at the time of Belanger’s death. I encouraged our involvement initially because I thought it was just possible that his death was simply a family matter. However, I began to conduct inquiries on my own. When it began to be clear that this went beyond murder for profit, I tried to convince Madame Nanette to leave Paris and to convince you that it hadn’t been a murder at all.”

  “Why didn’t you just tell me the truth?” I asked softly. I wanted to be angry, but I was suddenly weary and my words lacked
the bite I had intended.

  “I was trying to protect you,” he said, his expression rueful. “Fine job I did of it.”

  “What about the nurse in Beauvais?”

  “That wasn’t quite the dead end I made it out to be,” he said. “After a good deal of trouble, I was able to locate her and, though she didn’t tell me anything specific, I began to get the idea that Helios Belanger’s sickness had affected his mind.”

  “And you drew the conclusion that his information might be in danger.”

  He nodded. “That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. I knew you would only want to pursue it further. When you mentioned the nurse that night I came back from Beauvais, I was certain you had found me out. When it became apparent that you hadn’t, I knew I couldn’t let you learn what I had discovered. Even when you confronted me, I could give you no good answers.”

  “Your lies only strengthened my resolve to discover the truth,” I said.

  “Yes, I might have known it’s no good to lie to you,” he replied.

  “It would do you well to remember that,” I said. “Did you know it was her flat that night when we followed Michel?”

  “Yes. That made things much more complicated. You were getting too close. I had hoped to get the matter settled tonight. I lost my temper with you this evening in part for your relentlessness. You’re very difficult to keep out of trouble, you know.”

  “And what about the other person who followed Michel last night?”

  “I was fairly sure that it was André. I arranged a meeting with Michel to see if we could draw him out.”

  “At the brothel.”

  “Yes, though that particular brothel also happens to double as a meeting place for intelligence agents.”

  I shook my head in disbelief, marveling at the scope of it all. “Did Michel know what you knew?” I asked.

  “Not until tonight. I was reasonably certain I could trust him, but I wanted to be sure. When I realized that André had not followed him tonight and was likely to resort to something else, we joined forces, so to speak.”