“I’m glad to see that my men did not cause too much damage here.”
The comment seemed to startle Arlette, who held the pot in midair for a moment before carefully setting it down, as if she were deciding whether he was one of “them,”or something nicer. She took a sip of tea, then smiled weakly. “No, sir, not here. Just opening drawers and looking all through the piano and under the cushions.”
“But?”
“But . . . the bedrooms and M. Westerbury’s study are a mess. They tore through everything. I can fix most everything except ‘the collection.’ They poured all his rocks and things on the floor. M. Westerbury was very upset.”
“But he hasn’t stayed here to put things right?”
Arlette shook her head. “He’s been in and out. Restless. Unhappy. Yes, very unhappy,” she added, as if she was deciding that the safest course was to depict Westerbury as the grieving lover.
“I’m sorry. I know this must be a difficult time. But I must ask you some questions. I’m sure we both agree that we want to find the man who murdered your mistress.” Martin was watching her every reaction very carefully. He desperately needed to recruit Arlette to his side.
Her cup rattled ever so slightly in the saucer. She put it back on the tray.
“All you have to do is tell the truth when I ask you questions. You might even think of things I’ve left out. You loved your mistress. You can help me, can’t you?” Martin gave her some time to think while he took a sip of the hot tea. It was good.
Finally, Arlette nodded her consent, and sat back, waiting. She was biting hard on her lower lip. Martin started off as gently as possible.
“First, how long did you know Mme Vernet? And how did you meet?”
“Five years ago. She took me in.” Arlette said this with a steady voice. The past seemed to be a safer topic than the present.
“Took you in?”
“Yes. You see, she ran the hat shop she had inherited from her aunt, the Widow Charpentier. And Mme Solange took after her. Everyone in the neighborhood knew they could go to Aunt Marie—that’s what we called the Widow Charpentier—if they were desperate. And Mme Solange was the same.”
“Was Solange Vernet born in Paris, then?” This had been a small point of Westerbury’s testimony, but Martin wanted to get a sense of how honest he had been.
“No . . . no. She and Aunt Marie always used to say they ‘found each other again’ when Mme Solange was about sixteen. She came to Paris from a village on the Seine.”
“Do you know which?”
Arlette only shook her head, and fixed her eyes on the brightly colored Persian rug that covered the center of the floor.
“Please do eat something,” he urged. “You must be very hungry and tired after what you went through this morning.” As soon as he said this, he was afraid that his expressions of solicitude were coming off as false and manipulative, which to some degree they were.
But the maid reached for a sandwich and began eating. She was hungry. He also took one. Cucumber and butter.
“I understand that your husband beat you. Is that why you went to the hat shop?”
“He hit me a lot. For everything. He’s not a bad man. Only . . . only,” she swallowed hard, “poor, a drunkard. We never had enough money.”
“Children?”
“No . . . maybe that would have helped . . . I don’t know.”
“And Mme Vernet? How could she help you?”
“She stood up to him. When he learned I was staying there and tried to get in, she told him he could not and that if he hit her, she would call the police. She shook a broom at him.” The beautiful and graceful Solange Vernet with a broom, challenging a brute? It was Martin’s turn to shake his head.
“Things got easier after M. Westerbury moved in. Then we weren’t so afraid. It was good to have a man around.”
“And he was never violent.”
“No . . . never.”
Martin noted the hesitation in her voice. “When did M. Westerbury move in?”
“About three years ago. They met at his lectures.”
“So the household had three people? You, Mme Vernet, and Westerbury?”
“And five apprentices. Mme Solange did not want to leave Paris until they found a place. They were poor, like she was when she came. She was good and patient with them. Just as Aunt Marie had been with her.”
“But even if the shop was quite successful, it could not have bought all this?” When Martin had questioned Westerbury, he had asked about the finances, but now he saw how right Franc had been. They had been living like kings.
“I don’t know about that, sir,” Arlette said. “I just keep the house.” She began chewing on another soft triangle. “I think before M. Westerbury came, Mme Solange would have given everything she had when she died to charity or to a child that she took in, but he changed things.”
Could this change have caused a breach in Arlette’s admiration for her mistress, one that Martin could exploit to uncover Solange Vernet’s secrets? “How did you feel about that?”
“About what, sir?”
“The change from . . .” Martin searched for the words which would not sound disapproving, “her change from being an Aunt Marie, a benefactor for the neighborhood, to being a kind of society woman?” A bluestocking, he thought to himself.
“That’s not my place, sir. Besides,” Arlette smiled for the first time, “after they met, Mme Solange was so happy—he made her so happy. How could that be bad? She was never bad.”
Truly? Even though Solange Vernet had become someone’s mistress, Arlette spoke of the dead woman as if she were some kind of saint. Martin reached for another sandwich, this one filled with ham. He bit into it as he searched for a way to get around the maid’s loyalty.
“Let’s talk about life in Aix then,” he said. “You arrived?”
“In February.”
“Did you know any of Mme Vernet’s or Westerbury’s new friends?”
Arlette took a few sips of tea and thought for a moment. “I saw them when they came on Thursday evenings, but never outside of that. Some of them left cards. The inspector took them.”
Martin remembered a little table and umbrella stand outside the door. More accoutrements of social ambition, having visiting days, receiving calling cards.
“I don’t suppose you know what went on during Mme Vernet’s Thursdays.”
“Oh yes, sir. I did. Not that I understood. But see that?” She pointed toward a narrow wooden chair near the door. “Mme Solange couldn’t make me come all the way in. But she hated the idea of ringing for me. She said as long as I was going to serve things, I should be allowed to listen, too.”
This was more surprising than the maid serving herself tea. Had he walked into a den of anarchists? Or just a trio of parvenus, plotting to climb the social ladder?
“Where did Mme Vernet sit?”
“Over there.”Arlette pointed to a green chair by the east window, a place from which a gracious hostess could easily rise to greet newcomers, but not a chair from which one held forth.
“And M. Westerbury?” He followed her finger to a large brown chair with an ottoman, which took the central position at the western end of the salon, well suited to speechifying. “Who played the piano?”
“No one, yet. But Mme Solange was looking forward to having musical evenings.”
“She didn’t play?”
Arlette shook her head.
Westerbury had said Solange Vernet had taught herself to read and write. If she did not play an instrument or sing, it was indeed true that she had not had a formal education. “What did the others think of her?” Martin asked.
“Excuse me?”
That had come out crudely. “M. Westerbury told me who the guests were, and they came from a very different place in society than Mme Vernet. Did they hold that against her? Did they treat her well?”
“Oh yes, sir, yes. Everyone liked Mme Solange.”
“But . . . d
id they know her background, that—”
“She didn’t talk about that, sir, no. Mostly it was M. Westerbury who did the talking. He is very learned. He told them about all the great English geologists he had studied. He even helped my mistress with little things, like how she should act, what we should serve—”
“Like the tea?”
“Yes, sir, just like that, the tea and things, so, as he liked to say, ‘we could offer something different.’ He was sure we could get around ‘social prejudice,’ as he liked to say, if we showed how polite and learned we were.”
Really? Did the maid also believe this? “And Paul Cézanne, the painter, where did he sit?”
Arlette chewed more slowly. Then she shrugged. “Anywhere. He only came a few times anyway.” This show of nonchalance came off as just that—a show, an attempt to avoid a dangerous topic.
“I was noticing the paintings,” Martin said. “That one,” he pointed toward the west wall, “seems to be missing. Do you know where it is?”
“M. Westerbury took it down.” The chewing had stopped.
“Why? Was it by Paul Cézanne?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t know about that, sir.” Her fingers pressed into the bread, squeezing out little bits of butter. Martin was quite sure she did indeed know about that.
“Was it new?”
Another shrug.
“Look here, Arlette. If you do not tell me the truth about everything, I will have to arrest you as an accomplice to murder. The murder of someone you claim to love. Someone who saved you.”
“But I don’t know who killed her.” Arlette put her sandwich back on the tray.
“What you mean to say,” he could sense that this was not the moment to let up, “what you really mean, is that you are not sure if Westerbury did it. Isn’t that right?”
“No, no, no, no.” Arlette shook her head. “No!”
“Are you afraid of him?”
“No!”
“We could protect you.”
“No!”
Her denials came out in sobs, her face contorted. Did she suspect that the Englishman had killed her mistress? That she was living with a murderer?
“Then you must know that the only way to prove M. Westerbury’s innocence is to tell me all you know. You understand that, don’t you?”
Arlette nodded and took a handkerchief out of her apron pocket to blow her nose.
“Now, tell me about the picture on the wall. Was it a portrait?”
“No, only a mountain,” her voice more hushed than ever.
“A mountain?”
“You know, the big mountain. Sainte-Victoire.”
“Then how could it offend anyone?”
The maid sat very still. He set his tea cup down and leaned toward her.
“It was by Paul Cézanne, wasn’t it?”
She shrugged again, without conviction.
“You had better tell me. I have ways of finding out, you know.” Although he could not begin to imagine what those ways would be, especially since everyone kept lying.
Finally, she nodded. “Yes.”
“Did they quarrel over the painting?”
“Yes . . . no . . . I don’t know.”
“But surely you do. Did Mme Vernet and Westerbury quarrel often?”
“No.”
“But they did quarrel right before she died?”
The maid sat very still, hardly breathing. The great salon was silent, except for the muted sounds of the traffic echoing up from the Cours. Martin sipped his tea and waited, to no avail. “If you loved your Mme Solange, if you truly loved her, you must tell me the truth about what happened, or you could go to jail.” He paused to let this sink in. “Did they quarrel about Cézanne? Or about something else?”
Arlette twisted the handkerchief in her lap. Martin kept his eyes fixed on her, giving her no escape.
Finally, she began to speak. “It happened right after we returned from the procession on the Virgin’s feast. He had found the letters. Mme Solange should have destroyed them when she got them, but . . . but she told me that she needed them in case Cézanne returned, to help her figure out what to say to him. That’s what she told me later, when it was over.”
“M. Westerbury was very angry, then.”
She nodded. “He kept shouting and shouting. Just like Jacques—my husband, Jacques.” Her chest began to heave. “I ran into the kitchen and covered my ears. I couldn’t stand it. They had never quarreled before. Not like that.”
“Did you hear anything of what they said?”
“At first I was too afraid. But they just got louder and louder. My mistress had protected me. I couldn’t just sit there and be a coward. If he raised his hand to her, I had to help her. So I ran back. He had the picture from the wall. He had it over his knee. He cracked it open and tore up the canvas. Threw it into the fireplace. The letters were already there. Torn up into little pieces. Mme Solange began laughing. But not like I had ever heard her laugh before.
“She kept telling him that he was a fool. Men were fools. I remember that. And I remember the last words she said before she ran to her room and locked the door. ‘Only two men could fight over a mountain.’”
“What did she mean by that?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“And Westerbury? What did he do?”
“He kept stoking the fire until everything was all burned up. Then he shouted at me to have his things sent to the Hôtel de la Gare—where we stayed when we first arrived in Aix. Finally, he left.” The maid sank back into her chair, as if relieved that the worst was over.
So at first Westerbury had merely taken out his rage on Cézanne’s homages to his lover, not on her person. In the two days between the quarrel and the murder, had this rage simmered inside him and finally boiled over? Or had Cézanne returned? Martin glanced at Arlette.
“Do you think Mme Vernet had any reason to fear Cézanne?”
The question seemed to surprise her.
“I don’t think so. He always scared me a little. The two times he came to the salon, he sat there all silent and gloomy, and then he’d burst out with something, disagreeing with someone. He always sounded angry. I think Solange felt sorry for him.” Arlette paused for a moment. “Around her he was always gentle as a lamb. I don’t think she was afraid of him. I don’t think she was afraid of anything.”
“Did Cézanne ever come here when M. Westerbury was not around?”
“Only a few times.”
Only a few, spoken like a loyal servant.
“Did your mistress ever go to meet him somewhere else?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
“You don’t? Really?”
She shook her head. “She never said anything to me.”
And if she had, would Arlette tell? Martin was becoming more and more convinced that she would betray Westerbury, Cézanne, any man, rather than Solange Vernet, and would go to great lengths to protect her memory. Still, he was learning a great deal. He had verified the fact that Westerbury was jealous of Cézanne, and that the Englishman had been less than truthful about the last days of Solange Vernet’s life.
“Now, let’s return to what you do know. What happened after Westerbury left?”
“Mme Solange cried for hours and hours. I thought she would never stop. She kept saying things like ‘I thought Charles was different’ and ‘What things we women have to suffer.’ She had so many plans. She wanted to adopt a poor child. She had been so happy.” The maid sniffled and wiped her dripping nose with her handkerchief. Martin pressed her to tell him more about the sequel to the quarrel.
That’s when the little maid unwittingly rattled Martin to his very core. Mme Solange, she told him, had spent most of the next day and evening at her desk writing. On Sunday night she had asked Arlette to take a large envelope to the Hôtel de la Gare.
Martin could hardly believe his ears. “A letter? To Westerbury?” Not to the post.
Arlette nodded.
That bastard. That lying bastard. Martin felt the blood rushing to his face. He put his head down and closed his eyes. Franc was right again. He should have let the Englishman rot in jail.
When Martin looked up, Arlette was staring at him, afraid.
“And M. Westerbury,” he asked, suppressing a shout, “did you see him at the hotel?”
She shook her head, still staring. Frightened.
“Why not?” His head was pounding.
“He wasn’t there. They said he was out. But they took the envelope for him.”
“So you don’t know what happened to the letter?” Martin could barely get the question out.
“No, no, sir. And I didn’t see M. Westerbury again until . . . until right before the police came. When I told him Mme Solange had left the afternoon before, he got frantic. He was about to go searching for her when the police came to take him away.”
“Was he drinking?” Martin remembered the strong scent of alcohol.
She kept shrinking away from Martin as she answered. “Yes, M. Westerbury was very upset. He poured something into his coffee.”
“How was he before you told him Mme Vernet was missing?”
Had she been thinking about that herself? Did she have her own suspicions about Westerbury? Martin’s ears were ringing. He wanted to shake her. Why didn’t she just answer his questions? Finally she said, “Upset, I think. But, then, they had never quarreled before.” He picked up his notebook. His hand was shaking. “Just a few more things,” he said, as much to himself as to Arlette. He glanced down at his notes and saw the words “the boy” and “the message.”
“Do you know why Mme Vernet decided to go to the quarry?”
Arlette stared at him as if he was trying to trick her. How many times had she already been asked that question? Finally she sighed and said, “She got a message to go.”
“From whom?”
She shrugged.
“Who brought it?” he said more emphatically.
“A boy.”
“Tell me about the boy. Did you know him? Can you describe him?”
Cezanne's Quarry Page 8
