“And you probably think that there is some poor, sobbing mother out there looking for him?”
“Yes, that too.”
“Well, I doubt it. I’ve spent enough time around beggars and whores to know that they don’t give a damn. They’re probably relieved not to have another mouth to feed.”
“Even so.” Martin bit his tongue, although he was confounded by Franc’s callous, nonchalant attitude. Not only was the boy’s identity crucial to the entire investigation, but the poor child himself had been the victim of a heinous crime. These were things a police inspector should care about.
Neither man had moved during the last few moments. They were still perched on the same two steps of the great staircase, as if poised for battle. “Even so,” Franc finally conceded, “so me and one of my men get to spend another night searching among the riffraff.”
“It might be important,” Martin said quietly. He had no intention of escalating their conflict. He just did not want to be the first to back down.
After another uncomfortable silence, Franc said, “I’ll get the Englishman.” With a bitter glance toward Martin, he started down the stairs.
Martin waited until the inspector reached the main floor before asking about Merckx.
“Franc?” The name reverberated throughout the empty atrium.
“Yes.” Franc turned to look up at him.
“Yesterday I was so taken aback to see my old friend on the table that I didn’t ask you about the circumstances. Were you there when he was shot?”
“Yes, sir. We don’t take deserters lightly.”
Martin had to swallow hard before getting the next question out. “Did you order the shooting?”
“What else could I do? Let him escape?”
“No, I suppose not.” Whether in the line of duty or not, Franc had killed Jean-Jacques.
“And his body?”
“Buried. You identified him. We took a photograph to send to the army. We had to get rid of all three of them as soon as possible. Riquel’s worried about the cholera.”
Just like that. Merckx, Solange Vernet, and the boy. Banished. Buried in unmarked ground.
“Do you know where, in case someone comes forward for the boy?”
“Yes.” Even in the shadows of the great hall, Martin could see the inspector pursing his lips as if irritated by the excessive delicacy of his superior. “Just in case.”
“Very well.” There was nothing more to say. Martin had made Westerbury powerless to bury his lover by throwing him in prison. Arlette, the devoted maid, had been born, and would forever remain, powerless. So all three bodies lay in a potter’s field. It wasn’t right. Not for Solange Vernet, with her medal and her saints. Nor for the boy. If his parents came forward, if Westerbury desired it, they could mark their graves later. Martin would do all in his power—if he still had any—to help them.
The inspector was still waiting. “Thank you, Franc. I will see you in a moment.” Then Martin headed up the stairs. When he reached his floor, he saw that the door to his chambers was open, and remembered that Franc said he had left the note on his desk. When and how had he gotten in?
“Oh, M. Martin, I heard your footsteps.” Old Joseph stepped out to greet him.
Martin pushed past his clerk to get to his desk. The quarry message sat folded on top of one of Martin’s notebooks. The message read, “I love you more than ever. Please meet me at the quarry. C.” Just as Westerbury had said, in printed block letters.
“M. Franc brought that in, sir.”
“When?”
“About two hours ago.”
“You let him in?”
“I. . . .” Joseph’s chin, with its few wispy white hairs, began to tremble.
Would the greffier of a more experienced, better connected judge have opened his office to an inspector? Martin doubted it.
“I wanted to open your office to give you some air when you came in. And I didn’t know when you were going to get here. I . . . I didn’t think. . . .”
“That’s right, you did not think.” Martin knew it was useless and cruel to be angry with the quivering old man, but he couldn’t help himself.
“Sir, I’m so sorry, so sorry. But M. Franc told me to. He assured me it would be all right.”
“Did he do anything while he was in the office?”
“No, sir. Just left that piece of paper. And sat on your chair, staring out at the square, waiting for you.” Joseph was wringing his hands, as he backed away from Martin. “I was here the whole time. Nothing happened. Why should it?”
Why should it indeed? Martin looked at his chair. It had been rather presumptuous of his inspector to take over his chambers. What had Franc been thinking while he was sitting there? That he had Martin over a barrel? That the case was his and his alone? Martin wished to God that he knew what game Franc was playing. And who was helping him. Martin turned his attention back to his clerk. He had observed him talking his way through his timidity on innumerable occasions. He could only imagine what Joseph might have blurted out to Franc. Martin sighed. He needed to state the obvious. “We must be extremely cautious, you know. This is a murder. Two murders. We may be accusing a member of an important family. We must make sure the evidence and our notes are protected at all times. You understand that?”
Joseph nodded meekly.
“And you must not talk to anyone, even Franc, about what has happened in our interrogations. I am planning to give all my findings over to the Proc as soon as he returns. It is very important that no information get out. This is a very delicate matter.”
The old relic was staring straight at the floor. He might as well have just come out and said it. He had been talking to Franc.
“Even if you have already—”
“Oh no, sir!”
“Even if you’ve been discussing the case with Franc or others,” Martin continued, “from now on, especially because I will be bringing Cézanne in again, we have to be particularly careful. And, above all, I don’t want anyone in this office unless I am here.” Martin hoped this little scolding would be enough to protect the letter. He didn’t really give a damn about the artist and his family.
“Yes, sir, yes.” Joseph shuffled back a few more steps.
“Good.” Martin picked up the quarry message. “I need you to copy this into your report,” he said as he handed it to the clerk, “then I want you to write an order for Westerbury’s release.”
Joseph’s watery yellowed eyes opened with surprise, but he didn’t say anything. He did not dare. He took the quarry message and maneuvered himself around Martin to get to his desk in the alcove.
As soon as his clerk’s back was to him, Martin unlocked the cabinet and took out the box containing the material evidence. He picked up Solange Vernet’s green and white striped dress. After a quick glance toward the alcove to make sure Joseph was occupied, Martin pulled the letter from his frock coat and folded it into the heavy, thick cotton. Then he quietly shut the cabinet door.
Martin did not have to wait long before Franc knocked on the door and pushed the sorry Englishman into his office. “Still not talking, at least to me,” Franc said, as he gave Westerbury a final shove into one of the chairs in front of Martin’s desk.
“We’ll see about that.” Martin did not look at Westerbury, although he could feel the Englishman eying him, wanting to know if he had found the letter. First, Martin had to get rid of his inspector, who, after a cursory exchange, left the office shaking his head in exasperation.
“Did you find it?” Westerbury exploded in English. He was not a man accustomed to isolation and deprivation.
“Mr. Westerbury, we will conduct the interrogation in French,” Martin murmured. For all he knew, his talkative clerk had picked up a smattering of English somewhere. He raised his voice to ask Joseph if he had the order ready.
“Yes sir, yes.” The clerk rose and brought the document authorizing the release of the Englishman to Martin’s desk.
“Wha
t’s that?” Westerbury cried out, again in English, as he stood up. Did he imagine that Martin was ordering the construction of a guillotine? He must truly be at his wits’ end.
“Mr. Westerbury, if you do not sit down, I will have to call a gendarme,” Martin said as he wrote his signature.
Westerbury resumed his seat, nervously rubbing his thighs. His beard and hair were a matted mess. His clothes, stiffened by days and nights of fearful sweat, no longer conformed to his body. He looked and smelled like a wretch who had been begging on street corners for weeks on end.
“Joseph,” Martin gave the paper back to his clerk, “please take this down to the prison immediately and retrieve any of Mr. Westerbury’s things that they may be holding there. Then wait outside on the bench with them. I’ll call you when I need you.”
“Yes, sir.” The clerk did not even blink. Martin’s lecture had had its effect.
Martin waited until he heard the door close before he addressed the Englishman. “That was an order for your release.”
“Thank God!” Then in French, “So you found it. And you know. You know that Cézanne killed her.”
“I know no such thing.”
“Who else could it be?” Westerbury was on his feet again. “It wasn’t some vagabond hiding in the quarry. Someone sent her that note. And someone wanted to implicate me.”
“All this is true.” Martin looked steadily at the Englishman. “Sit down.”
“So what are you going to do about it?” Westerbury said, as he fell back into his chair.
Martin could not believe that the Englishman thought he had any right to make demands.
“That’s actually none of your business. Indeed, the entire investigation is not your business. It is mine. And if I hear that you are going around making trouble, you will be right back in your cell.”
“Oh,” Westerbury waved his hand, “here we go again. Monsieur le juge, so smart, so in charge. But what have you done? Where would you be without me?”
When Martin did not respond, the Englishman continued, “Did you read it? Did you actually read it? Do you understand what I have been going through?”
“What the woman you claimed to love went through. That is what this case is about. Not about what you went through.” Martin delivered this pronouncement loudly and distinctly. It was meant to be hurtful, and it struck the mark.
“I know, I know. My poor dear girl.”
“You betrayed her,” Martin said more softly. “You should have gone to her.”
Westerbury’s head yanked up and down in emphatic agreement. “I know. I know.” He ran a dirty sleeve across his face. “Do you think I will ever forgive myself? I should have seen it. I should have known there was something she was not telling me. I told her everything about myself. She knew about my doubts. She knew what an egotist I could be. What an ass, sometimes.” He looked up at Martin. “She thought me kind, you know. Very kind. That’s what she always said. Of course it was easy for me to be kind to Solange. I adored her.”
Of course. This much had become clear to Martin.
“You know it wasn’t the money. Ever. It was her. A woman of mind, of substance, of spirit. Someone willing to go against the tide, to find her own way. She was stronger than me, always. More steady. She risked everything for me, poor fool that I am. And I was so unworthy. In the end, I was not man enough for her.”
Westerbury could not stop talking. And this time Martin had no desire to stop him.
“You know, I did ask her questions about her past. But whenever I got too close, she would laugh and tell me it wasn’t interesting, or wasn’t important. I should have listened better. I should have seen. I should have known. How can you tell when you really know a person, when you really see them?”
The question, coming from Westerbury who, by his own repeated declarations, had experienced deep and passionate love, was of course rhetorical. It made him stop short, as if remembering all the accusations of callowness that he had made against Martin.
“I hope some day you will know what this is like,” the Englishman continued quietly. “Not only the pain, but also the happiness.”
This sudden solicitude was unexpected. This time it was Westerbury who had hit the mark. Martin realized that he did long for the happiness and the passion. Even the pain.
A silence fell between them. Westerbury was the first to recover. “May I have the letter back?”
“It is evidence.”
“Do you need to tell anyone?”
“Yes.” There was no reason to lie. “I need to use it in my interrogation of Cézanne. I assume that you will tell no one else about its existence for your own reasons, and for the good of the investigation.”
“Of course,” Westerbury murmured, “of course.” He knew he had no right to ask for the letter. Not any more.
“Do you have anything more to say?” Martin asked him. “Anything else that can help me?”
Westerbury shook his head.
“Then,” Martin picked up his pen again, “you may go. M. Gilbert will be waiting outside with your things.”
Westerbury got up from his seat and looked around, almost in disbelief. “I’m free to—”
“Yes. As long as you stay in the city limits and cause no trouble. This is very important. Otherwise, I will have no choice—”
“I understand.” Westerbury stood, straightened himself up, and by habit looked for the hat that wasn’t there. He was flustered only for a second. He retreated with a parting nod to Martin that was almost a salute. Or even a gentleman’s valediction, as if the secrets they shared had created a bond between them.
“Sir?”
Lost in his contemplation of the very beautiful, very dead Solange Vernet, Martin had almost forgotten about his clerk.
“I gave M. Westerbury all of his things,” Joseph said as he timidly reentered the office.
“Good.” Martin forced himself out of his trance.
“Do you need me any more today, sir?”
“No, no. Let’s all go home and rest. But I want you in by nine tomorrow because I will be interrogating Cézanne again.”
Martin watched as the old man began to put away his things. He had no idea whether his clerk had a home. He knew that he did not, not a real one in any case. And that, not having eaten all day, he was starving. And that it was too early to expect anyone to be serving dinner. Unless. Martin wiped off his pen as he thought it through. Unless . . . the early hour could work to his advantage. If he put in an appearance at Chez l’Arlésienne well before dinner, he’d be sure to avoid Franc. And he might even have a chance to talk to a girl who, like Solange Vernet, was “willing to go against the tide.”
24
WESTERBURY COULD NOT HAVE IMAGINED HOW happy he would be to see her. Arlette greeted him with tears of joy and threw herself into his arms. Before he knew it, he was holding the pitiful little creature tight to his chest, patting her head and comforting her.
“Now, now,” he said as he held her away from him, “they let me go. The judge believes I am innocent. It is going to be better.”
“Did they find the murderer?” Her eyes glistened with anticipation and hope.
“No, my dear. Not yet. Although you and I both know—”
“Oh, my God.” She backed away from him. “I wish they would find him! Poor Solange.” She covered her face with her hands and began to sob in earnest.
The tears were contagious. Westerbury led her into the salon and sat her down. “Arlette, we are alone, you and I. She is gone. I know. That is the worse part. Our Solange is gone. But,” he tried to compose himself, “we must go on. We must do the best we can. She would want that, you know.”
“I’m so glad you are back, sir.” Arlette reached for Westerbury’s arm. “I’ve been so afraid.”
“No reason to worry. They’ll catch him. And you’re not letting anyone in, are you?”
Arlette shook her head vehemently.
“Well, then, nothing to fear.”<
br />
“What will we do?” Her expression was so childish and trusting. And stupid.
“We will survive,” he said, emphatically. “And,” he got up, “the first thing I need to survive is—”
“Oh, M. Westerbury. I forgot all about you.” Arlette jumped to her feet. “Are you hungry? What do you need?”
Westerbury smiled, feeling the old gallantry coming back. “It is I who have forgotten about you, my dear. I embraced you smelling worse than a fishmonger.”
“Oh,” she smiled, “don’t worry about that. When Jacques worked at the tannery he was much worse.”
Manners were wasted on a woman who did not hesitate to compare you to a drunkard who had spent his days in the blood and detritus of dead animals. Yet Westerbury had to be kind to her. At this point, she was all he had.
“The first order of business is a bath, then if there is any food—”
“Oh, yes, sir, I’ve gone to the bakery every day, hoping you would return. And I have put up cheeses and hams and tea and—”
“All right, all right.” He gave her a gracious smile. “I can see you have taken care of everything.”
“I’ll get the water right away.” Eager to serve, Arlette set off for the kitchen, where she dragged out the iron tub and four big buckets. She laid out a little table of bread, cheese, and wine, then went down to the Cours to fetch water from the one of the fountains. After she heated it on the stove, she began pouring it over Westerbury. He lay back, hands on the sides of the tub, feeling each delicious bucketful bringing more relief than the last. When the water was all gone, Arlette stood up, with her hands behind her hips, stretching her back. Fringes of black hair were sticking to her forehead and cheeks. Arlette had been toting a heavy load, but she did not complain. Instead, she smiled at him, before leaving to fetch his clothes.
For once he sympathized with the maid. When he was a boy, one of his duties had been to heat and carry the water for Reverend Westerbury’s weekly bath. The kindly old parson had been much too modest to let Charles’s mother near him when he was bathing. He had even been too modest to take off his underclothes in front of his godson. So every Saturday night, until his death, Reverend Westerbury had dipped into the tub half-clothed and sighed with pleasure as Charles scrubbed his back through his undershirt. When the parson retired for the night, it had been Charles’s turn to wash in the cold, gray water before putting away the tub. How innocent his godfather had been. How English.
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