Part One
Part Seven
Part Eight
Part Nine
Part Ten
Part Eleven
Part Twelve
Part Thirteen
Part Fouteen
Part Fifteen
Part Sixteen
Part Seventeen
Part Eighteen
Part Nineteen
Part Twenty
Part Twenty-One
Louis Shalako
Speak Softly My Love
Chapter Twenty-Two
All
three of their warrants were to be executed at once. For reasons that were
rather more political than practical, it was anticipated that Gaston e Cie
would cooperate willingly. As it was, their name should be kept out of it as far
as that was possible. Before approaching the firm, some solid information would
be helpful.
Levain
and Tailler had been elected for the house in Paris. Gilles and LeBref were to
search the house in Lyon, while Firmin and Hubert were in Molsheim.
“Are
we ready?” There were six hulking cops on the sidewalk.
Levain
gave Emile a nod.
“Go
for it.”
Tailler
pushed the button beside the street level door labeled Godeffroy.
“Yes,
hello?”
It
sure sounded like Monique; but then how the hell would he know…
“Madame
Godeffroy?”
“Yes,
who is it?”
“This
is Detective Emile Tailler. I have a warrant, duly signed and issued by a
competent authority, to search these premises for evidence related to a
homicide.”
There
was a long pause.
Tailler
looked at Levain and bit his lip. He caught Sergeant Richard’s eye, as he stood
with the axe casually over his shoulder. They had a master key from the
landlord, but there were interior doors and closets as well. It would be
interesting to see how she handled it.
Tailler
was just about to speak when the latch clicked.
“So.
She’s going to be sensible, then.” Levain grabbed the knob, whipped the door
open and then they were all clattering up the stairs.
A
lot could happen in thirty seconds when people were desperate and the jig was
up.
***
They
had been very patient.
With
the chase most definitely on, Gilles as senior member of the unit had taken the
simple precaution, once Didier’s (the real one presumably) location was firmly
nailed down, of dispatching a pair of plain-clothes officers to shadow him.
Once their shadows called in and confirmed that they had him under proper
surveillance, Gilles had given the boys the go-ahead for the operation.
If
Didier ran or went to ground in a major city, they might have one hell of a
time catching up again. In order to avoid arousing his suspicions, they
couldn’t even freeze his bank accounts. In what was very odd, phone taps to all
three households indicated he wasn’t calling them and they weren’t calling or
trying to call him. It might be hard for a wife or spouse to locate him on
impulse. One would think he would call home once in a while, and let them know
where he was, and how he was doing.
Their
monitoring of the lines at Gaston e Cie had recorded several long and involved
business conversations that left little doubt they were dealing with the real
Didier.
That
was an interesting moment.
Days
had passed and the tensions mounted.
Now
it was different.
With
regular updates from their officers calling in from stations on the way, it was
clear that Didier was finally heading home for Paris. He could still branch off
at almost any point along the way, almost up to the last minute. The
wine-producing regions of France were diverse and scattered all over. It was
only when he got up in the morning, left his hotel, took a cab, made his way to
the station and bought a ticket for Paris, that’s when they knew for certain he
was really coming.
More
than anything they wanted Didier to come home. The timing and execution of
their warrants was predicated upon the fact that Didier’s train came in at
approximately ten-forty-two a.m. from points south and west.
Once
he bought that final ticket, his fate was more or less determined. One of their
field officers called in hurriedly. Their quarry had actually boarded and one
of them was on the train with him. As soon as the second shadow hung up, there
would be two of them on the train with Didier…
They
were coming home.
Any
change in plans, even one unexpected move on his part, and his shadows would
grab him and slap the cuffs on him without hesitation. They would grab him and
drag him in by the scruff of the neck if that’s what it took.
Lucinde
let them in without a problem and quickly stood aside as they went to work.
“What
is this all about, gentlemen?” Her dignity
was tragic, her countenance stern, although her lips trembled.
Gilles
looked her in the eye.
“I
may have a few questions for you. In the meantime, please sit down on the end
of the couch and don’t move, Madame.”
Her
face white with suppressed emotions, the lady had turned and did exactly what
she was told. The redoubtable Jeannine stood there, arms crossed, keeping an
eye on her.
***
In
Molsheim, Detective Etienne Hubert stood looking around the room. They were
accompanied by a detective and a sergeant from the local detachment. They would
of course receive all due credit in any subsequent news conferences. Inspector
Descamps hadn’t stinted them a bit of manpower. The thought that their
detachment would share in any glory probably didn’t enter into it—not too much,
anyways.
The
air in Zoe’s flat was stale but relatively odorless. Her houseplants were
definitely getting dry when he pulled off a glove and stuck a finger into the
soil. It was very quiet and all the windows were tightly shut. There were no
pets. She had a little milk in the fridge. When Hubert smelled it, it was sour.
There were perishable items, looking pretty limp by now, and the potatoes when
he found them were spotted and beginning to smell.
He
wandered the place in his cotton gloves as the technical guys, local people,
went about dusting for prints.
He
raised his voice.
“Look
for anything masculine. Anyplace where a guest, especially male, might have
touched.”
He
thought about it. Fingerprints were the most damning evidence. The bathroom,
the bedroom…which side would the woman sleep on?
She
would shove further in from the side they got in on, and that would put the
male beside the bedside table and the telephone.
“Check
the alarm clock and the telephone.”
The
fridge, maybe. Not the stove. She had a little bar alcove at one end of the
salon, mostly for show thought Hubert.
Someone
knocked at the door and the men inside Zoe’s apartment froze for a second as if
stricken by the most abject guilt. With a look at Firmin, Hubert went to the door.
It
was Ada Bellerose.
“Can
I help you?”
Her
face was flaming.
“You!
You bastards. What’s going on in there?”
Hubert
shrugged.
A
uniformed sergeant appeared at his shoulder.
“There
is no need for alarm. Other than that, you can read about it in the papers,
Mademoiselle.”
Gently,
ever so gently, Hubert shut the door in the young lady’s face.
“Sir?”
A
little thrill ran through Detective Hubert.
“Yes?”
“I
think we’ve got something.”
Following
the voice, he went into the bathroom, a small but attractive little room up
under the back eaves.
“What
have you got for me?”
“It
looks like a man’s shaving kit.”
Hubert
grinned.
He
gave the sergeant a look.
“Okay,
men. We’re looking for fingerprints, strands of hair, dead whiskers in the
brush, and fibres from the man’s coat. Mud from his shoes. Male personal
hygiene items, cigarettes, pipes, a gross of condoms, you name it. Leave no
stone unturned.”
“What
about the rug?” The grinning young gendarme, crowding in for a look, had a
point, thought Hubert.
“Pull
it up when we’re done and look for money—stuff like that. Right?” He gave the
sergeant a quick look.
The
grizzled veteran nodded.
“You
heard the man.”
Firmin
gave Sergeant Paquet a wink, receiving a blank look in return. Hubert was so
wound up, it was like the poor guy just couldn’t stand still.
***
Didier
Godeffroy, every inch the picture of the perfect businessman, la parfait négociant, stepped
off the train into the shrill babble of the platform crowd, and was immediately
confronted.
A perfect cliff of a man in big shoes, grey
trousers and a long black raincoat stepped directly in front of him. A
wide-brimmed fedora shadowed his eyes from the hot glare above. A sturdy woman
with a face like a potato was at his side. Her hair was in a tight bun and her
cap hung half sideways, pinned on a precarious angle. Their eyes bored into his
as others crowded him from behind.
“Didier Godeffroy?”
“Yes?”
The woman held up a shiny official badge while the
man-ape stood there watching his reaction carefully, arms held loosely at his
sides.
“There’s
not going to be any trouble here, is there sir?” The deep rumbling voice
matched the man.
“No,
no, of course not.” Didier stared in apparent confusion at the badge. “Who are
you people? What is this about, please?”
The
lady officer spoke.
“If
you would come with us, sir, we would just like to ask you a few questions.”
People
eddied and swirled around the three, Didier with his baggage at his feet and
the other two oblivious to all around them. Their focus was entirely on him.
His
eyes flickered left and right. He became aware that he was under scrutiny from
certain other rather cold-looking ladies and gentlemen. They stood off to each
side, cold in the sense of being watchful, motionless and emotionless, rather
than from the temperature. He tore his eyes away.
“Where
are we going?”
“Leave
the bags, sir. Please, sir, just turn around and put your hands on your head.”
Didier’s
jaws dropped as the big officer spoke and the female stepped slightly off to
one side, pulling her coat back and it was obvious that she had her hand on the
butt of a weapon.
“Whoa.”
He gulped. “Okay, okay—no problem.”
He
raised his hands, nice and slow and then he was quickly spun around by the
clamp of a hand on his collar bone area. An iron grip took hold of his right
wrist as the emotions ran through him. For a moment there it looked like, it
sure felt like, he would bolt. The steel
ring snapped on his wrist.
He
sagged at the knees and then fought for composure, his posture straightening in
spite of all odds. He took a long, hard breath, his darting, shocked eyes
seeking something above the level of
their heads.
“Ah…”
“Keep
that left hand up there.” The lady was the total professional.
There
was the momentary gleam of a wedding ring.
He
gave her the look of a frightened rabbit confronted by the fox. His eyes were
everywhere, the heart-rate shooting skywards and the adrenalin making his knees
knock.
His
body gave one massive twitch, but he remained in some semblance of control over
himself.
The
opportunity passed, and he never would have made it anyway.
There
was nowhere to run. There were trains before and behind his narrow platform.
All avenues were blocked by officers in bulky shoes, ill-fitting trousers, and
shapeless jackets and coats. The cuff was on his right wrist. His left wrist
was seized and brought down.
His
hand was yanked into position and then he was secured.
“Who
do you people think you are—”
“Look
on the bright side, Monsieur Godeffroy. You won’t have to carry your own bags.
You won’t even have to tip us.”
The
lady gendarme waved off a porter as he came along, recognizing Monsieur
Godeffroy perhaps and not seeing that there was some action here he might not
want to be involved in.
It
all clicked in and he sought their hard eyes in confirmation—he knew cops when
he saw them. The old fellow, all dressed in blue and with the regulation cap,
stood there gaping, hands clasping the handle of the cart. Another impatient
traveler plucked at his elbow and dragged him rather unwillingly off. Clouds of
steam and gaggles of tired travelers straggled past in the light breeze.
“I
want to speak to my lawyer.”
“You’ll
have all the time in the world, sir.”
The
big male gendarme leaned across in front of the prisoner, turned his head and
gave Jeannine a quick and admiring glance.
The
arresting officers, taking an elbow each, his arms cuffed behind him,
frog-marched an ashen-faced Didier Godeffroy down the platform, through the
concourse and out into the bright, marvelous autumn day.
It
really was perfect weather for September.
With
one prisoner in custody, the woman calling herself Monique and the one calling herself
Lucinde had been ordered not to leave town. They were under non-stop
surveillance by teams of officers working in shifts.
On
their own, Hubert and Tailler never would have been able to pull it off, but
with Maintenon and Inspectors Delorme and David pulling for them, they had
gotten all the resources they needed.
Monsieur
Godeffroy had been allowed to call his lawyer. He had been booked and processed
and was sitting in a holding cell.
Their
teams in Lyon and Molsheim had, essentially, twenty-four hours to get the goods
and return to Paris, although the public prosecutor was good for one
twenty-four hour extension.
After that, they would have to go to the judge and
show cause for holding Monsieur Godeffroy any longer.
The
team from Molsheim having returned triumphant, Maintenon had pulled more
strings.
They
had taken over the biggest conference room they could find, luckily on their
own floor this time. All the desks and tables had been pushed together in two
lines, tables in one, all about the same height, and the desks in the other
line. Each subject and each aspect of the case got their own big table as
detectives wandered up and down, organizing everything they had. Tailler had a
big blackboard with a time-line on it, and references to railway schedules,
salient events, eye-witness reports and ticket stubs seized so far…it was all
coming together beautifully.
They
had their exhibits lined up, neatly tagged, bagged, labeled and identified.
When the team from Lyon came bounding down the hallway with their boxes and
materials, they were rapidly redirected by Firmin to the appropriate room.
Tailler
had taken to calling it a think tank.
Gilles
and Levain were off on a case of their own, but after a noisy greeting, the
small group settled down. There were just Hubert, Firmin, and Tailler. The
gendarmes had been sent back, with some effusive thanks, to whatever duties
they had originally been pulled from.
Now
it was just a case of making sense of what they had.
Tailler
stood awed for a moment as Firmin and Hubert hunched over the phone, and
mumbled away at their one and only clear desk in the corner.
With
fingerprints, hairs, shaving kits, bloodstains, bodies, time-tables, railroad
and the killer’s as well, it had become fairly overwhelming.
“Oh,
boy.”
This
was going to take some doing—he knew what must have happened, what could have
happened, what might have happened. Now they just needed to prove it.
First
things first.
Fingerprints.
***
It
was time for les enfants terrible to
spell it out.
“Are
you ready to tell me what happened yet, Emile?”
“Yes,
Inspector.”
Hubert
nodded firmly.
Sure. Why not.
Hubert
began.
“Well,
sir. We have Didier Godeffroy’s fingerprints all over, all three domiciles. We have
hairs from his head, most likely, according to preliminary analysis. It’s
difficult to see where else they might have come from. We’ve asked around and
there are no other interesting males in any of the women’s lives. We have
Didier’s whiskers from the razors. What’s interesting, is that with the
decedent from the river, the look-alike, we can’t find his prints anywhere in
any of the premises.”
Reports
stated the unidentified victim’s whiskers, were in general thicker and perhaps
a bit darker than the real Didier’s. This part did sort of throw doubt on all
other evidence regarding whiskers, as it was simply not possible to be
conclusive. All their experts agreed on that.
“I
see.”
“Okay.
This is where it gets fun, Inspector. I have to admit, it took me a while to
figure it out.”
Hubert
raised his hand like a schoolboy.
“I
give Emile full credit for that—this is all his idea, Inspector.”
Gilles
snorted gently, as Levain grinned and Firmin gave Hubert a blank stare. The
young detective coloured slightly and shut up.
Tailler
looked shy for a moment, but then plunged on.
“Okay.
The lady in the Rive Gauche—her prints are all over the Paris residence of
Didier Godeffroy. And the hotel room—and nowhere else. Yet they were on the ticket stub, although the
ladies of a certain class still favour gloves, and the weather was cool that
day. They were on the letter.” He cleared his throat. “So—she had gloves with
her. She came in wearing a spring and fall jacket. I noticed it at the time.
The stations are cold inside, and she would have bought the ticket and stuck
the stub in her purse. She might have been wearing gloves—or, more usually
people just toss them.”
Train
stations and the sidewalks around them were littered with just such cancelled
stubs.
Gilles
pursed his lips and even Firmin looked impressed.
“Go
on, my dear boy. Go on.”
Tailler
stammered and cleared his throat.
“What’s
interesting is that the prints from the body in the Rive Gauche don’t match any
of the prints in the Zoe passport. But all the passports are a mess of mostly
unidentifiable smudges. When we look further, we can match up prints from Zoe’s
house, to fragmentary prints on the Zoe passport. Did I get that right?”
He
was pretty sure he had. He glanced through his notes, but that was what it
said. He tried again.
“Now,
eliminating the maid and the cook and one or two prints that clearly don’t
belong to anybody—I’m a bit unsure there, but surely Monique, and even Lucinde,
couldn’t have been that isolated. The most perfect servant will miss the odd
print when cleaning, waxing and dusty. But they can linger for quite a while—”
Gilles
coughed and he broke off.
“…getting
right to the point, sir, is that the prints of the lady calling herself Monique
appear in the Paris household and the Lyons household.” His eyes went far away.
“What’s interesting is that the servants haven’t been seen in a while. The
theory is that they’ve been let go and any documents are missing somehow…”
With
none of them talking under advice of cousel, it would take some time to find them.
Levain
nodded, a quick little jerk of the head.
“And
the fingerprints of the lady calling herself Lucinde are found in the house in Lyon as well as the house in
Molsheim. It’s a regular fucking shell game going on here, sir.”
Gilles
exhaled in a kind of admiration.
“The
body in the park really did get up and walk away. In the absence of other
leads, other reports, it’s the only sensible explanation. Following Didier’s
movements, and we have hotel confirmations going back quite a ways, there are a
couple of big gaps. There are two big, beautiful windows of opportunity, one
for the Rive Gauche killing. Also. He was out of the house for the body you
found, Inspector. The time frame is perfect. We have officers interviewing
station attendants all up and down the line, and we expect to get their
reports. It would be nice to know exactly when he left town. So far we’ve
turned up nothing. Part of the problem is that he was actually fairly
well-known. He ditched most of his own ticket stubs—a sensible precaution.
Honestly, he would have had a handful, and that’s just from his regular job.
People are saying that they saw him come and go—can’t remember when, but he was
a regular customer. Maybe we’ll get lucky there.”
Tailler
tailed off. The truth was, he still had questions.
“So.”
“So,
ah, sir. The theory is that the look-alike gentleman was blackmailing Didier.”
He cleared his throat. “That’s probably where the idea originally came from—he
remarked upon the resemblance. Obviously, he had a real thing for blonde women
of a certain height and build.”
Hubert
spoke.
“The
blackmailer may have actually contacted the wife—Monique. That would
precipitate events. He didn’t have to tell her anything, in fact he probably
didn’t. But she took the call. The guy
got pushy and called there—and she picked up. It’s all she had to do. It would
put a hell of a lot of pressure on Didier. It would show that the blackmailer
meant business—or else.”
“Very
well.”
Maintenon
looked at Hubert.
“And
that’s our motive?”
“Oh,
yes, sir. Ah…the guy is demanding money. He might have phoned the house. It’s a
big threat. Didier arranges to go and have a drink with him. That’s what he
tells Monique—the real one. It’s just a
guy from work, Honey. He’s changed clothes, he’s all set to do his gambit
in the park—that shows real inspiration, Gilles. He’s got some crazy old
stiletto—none of them are going to tell us that, are they? That’s because he
had it, a souvenir or something, and of course Monique is dead. It was from the
house in Paris. She can’t tell us anything now. So. Someone reports a body in
the park. Off he goes. The suit is dark enough, he can go into a bar if needs
be, but I think he met the victim near the river. The guy’s waiting for a
payoff. One quick stab in the guts and in he goes. Didier dumps the body off
the bridge. He could never carry a body there. We might look for car rentals,
certainly no taxi would have taken him. Not with a dead body, and remained
silent. We could ask around, but dead drunk passengers, ah…maybe. But he could walk to the Pont Tolbiac, or get there
by cab fairly quickly. Keep his appointment.”
“I
see. So he arranged to meet the blackmailer near the point of disposal. What
then?”
“Well,
sir, he did have a railway locker key in his possession upon his arrest. The
locker was empty—he probably had a fresh suit in there. He changed in the rest
room, and either ditched the black suit he was wearing, or took it with him on
the train for disposal somewhere more suitable.” A dark suit wouldn’t show the
blood.
It
was night and the light in train stations often pretty garish. He could change
in the restroom and sling it out the window, once on the train and out in the
countryside between stations.
“That
explains why our dead man was wearing a different colour of suit—according to
Monique.” There were bloodstains on it, but mostly washed out by the cold
water. “If the guy showed up in a blue suit, it wouldn’t make much difference
to Didier.”
“Ah,
yes, Monique.” They were doing well. “Tell me more about her.”
“Okay.
She’s the dead one at the Rive Gauche—”
Firmin’s
left eyebrow, unseen by Tailler and Hubert but definitely in Maintenon’s field
of vision, was climbing higher and higher.
“Ah.”
“Yes,
sir. It has to be her. One thing we noticed, but didn’t properly remark upon,
was how drawn she was the second time we saw her. But by this time it wasn’t
her at all—it was Lucinde.”
Firmin
laughed. He shook his head, and picked up a few papers, still listening though.
Emile
shrugged, face reddening.
“Yeah,
but think. Every time we turn around, we’re being presented with another
beautiful blonde—we’re so busy staring at their tits and their asses, we can’t
see the forest for the trees kind of thing. No wonder we missed it.”
“Keep
going, gentlemen.”
“And
here’s another thing. Didier was just praying that body never surfaced. It’s
his bad luck that it did, or his plan
might have worked fairly well.”
It
was true enough, that bodies went into the river and were never seen again.
Maintenon
had to admit, it was ingenious. And they were right—the blanks could be filled
in with some intensive investigation, now that they knew exactly what they were
looking for.
“Okay,
sir. Interestingly, because we took the case over from Delorme, those boys
never had the chance to show Didier’s picture around the hotel. They’ve never
even seen it, although I’m sure they got the bulletin. It’s just one of those
things. It would appear completely unrelated to them. Nothing but another pain
in the ass missing-person report. And we were so excited, so busy, I guess, we
never even thought of it.”
There
was a long silence. Gilles closed his eyes, he appeared to be thinking deeply.
“So
who is our mystery man?”
“I’m
thinking someone connected to Lucinde. That whole set-up in Lyon stinks to high
heaven. Since she is so obviously not his wife, and the other one wasn’t
claiming to be, I have to wonder if we’ll ever know her real name. She had the
newspaper clipping. I’ll bet that’s Monique in the picture—and she knows it,
too. Zoe, on the other hand, good question. But think about it. This bozo, our
mysterious victim, goes out of the country for a while. Maybe he’s in jail or
something. He and Lucinde—I don’t know what else to call her, they’re
estranged. But they’ve never really gotten divorced. Years later, he comes
back, and he’d dead broke. Goes back to the old home town, you know. He
probably wonders about the ex-wife. He’s hungry, he’s hurting. He makes
inquiries. He sees them around. He learns they’re living as husband and
wife…and he knows that just can’t be.”
“He
was killed in Paris.”
“True—but
that just shows he knows who Didier was.
It shows that Didier was a good target for blackmail—Didier was a successful man
with a good reputation. A guy with a piss-pot full of money. Life must have
seemed very unfair to our blackmailer. Didier had a lot to lose, Inspector.”
Gilles
looked at Tailler and Hubert.
“And
how would you gentlemen like to proceed?”
Tailler
looked at Hubert, who sat up straight and glanced down at his briefing notes.
“Let’s
bring the ladies in on charges and see if we can shake anything loose.
Hopefully, if they’re innocent, and yet know something, anything, they’ll talk.
If they’re any kind of accessory, we’ll have them in custody. Let them feel the
pressure for a while. They’ll talk.”
Levain
piped up for the first time.
“Here’s
what gets me. The ladies. How do you figure that part worked?”
Hubert
nodded.
“He’s
got all that figured out.”
Tailler
glowed a little.
It
shone out of him.
“Ah,
yes, Andre. Monsieur Godeffroy could have told the one in Lyon that he and
Monique were getting a divorce—he would say that she had gone to live with her
mother or something like that. The wife went nuts. I stuck her in the asylum.
My uncle Albert left me some money, but he’s strict Catholic, and if he hears
I’m divorced, he’ll cut me off. Whatever.
He would have told them whatever they needed to hear. He is nothing if not
subtle. He would have ideas, this
man. He might have suggested that he had to sell the place in Lyon to pay the
ex-wife off. A lady living in Lyon might have been happy to move to Paris. A
man like that would have thought of something convincing. She already knew she
had a false passport, she was already in that so-called marriage, one she knew
to be bogus. He would have been able to pull it off.”
“And
the one known as Zoe, and now, as you say, claiming to be Lucinde?”
“Pretty
much the same deal, Inspector. He would tell her, ah, that his wife had left
him and why not come to Lyon? He would give her another big story. See,
Inspector, she, she thinks he lives
in Lyon. The guy lies like a rug. Seriously. Her employer says she just stopped
coming to work one day. This was before, a few days before all of this started
to happen. How much she knows, is anybody’s guess. The neat thing, Inspector,
is that neither one of them really had to know anything.” He went on.
“Psychologically, they were sort of screwed, sir. They knew what they were
doing was somehow not quite right, in the social sense. It was not so much
criminal in their eyes, it was merely unconventional, something of a potential
embarrassment. This would leave them, especially women of a certain class, a
certain mindset, a kind of mental
hostage to Didier. I suspect a very controlling influence. As soon as we
started sniffing around, they knew something was up. But they had no choice but
to keep playing their parts. Soon as they saw the body in the morgue, they must
have been shitting bricks and wondering what the hell was going on.”
“The
fact that they are lying about their names suggests something, otherwise. You still haven’t tied up all the threads
yet, gentlemen. Although I admit you’re doing well.”
“So.
We figure Didier had the germ of an idea. When the crunch came, he initiated a
plan that was so crazy, so absurd,
that it might have actually worked. More than anything, I think he just decided
to kill the guy. And then make it work,
somehow. Once Monique—the real Monique, saw the papers, she must have wondered.
She must have seen the papers. She never let on to us, which was what killed
her. At that point, she became a
threat. There are two separate bodies, and we have two separate motives. Didier
was just making it up as he went along, sir. Psychologically, there may be a
term for it. Whatever it was, he must have had it real bad.”
Tailler
stared at Gilles, who grinned slightly under the gaze.
“What
was the clincher for me, sir. Didier nipped back to Molsheim, did some
business—all confirmed by Gaston e Cie. He bought a shit-load of product, and
in a very short time, apparently. He bought a ticket to Paris, and with a bit
of quick thinking, called ahead and got Monique to meet him downtown for a
romantic getaway. We’ve got the day, the time, the ticket-clerk, and the
conductor. He had to get her out of the way first, then get the other ladies to move on short notice.”
They
were convinced the ladies knew something.
“Well?”
Hubert was on pins and needles.
“Well.
Well, what?”
“Can
we bring them in, sir?”
Maintenon
tipped his head on an angle and gave Levain and Firmin a look. There was a kind
of unspoken consensus visible in their faces. Firmin shrugged and then shrugged
again. Levain chewed on that blasted pencil…
He
caught Gilles’ eye on him and stopped.
“Sure.
Why not.” Maybe they could get to the bottom of this thing after all. “Let’s
see what they have to say for themselves.”
A
coffin only needed so many nails. As for the guillotine, that only took one
little trip of the lever, and the sometimes surprisingly cheerful acquiescence
of a jury of one’s peers.
“Hopefully
you gentlemen can connect a few more of the dots.”
“Yes,
sir.” Hubert grabbed the phone.
His
first call would be Lyon. He and Tailler would pick up so-called Lucinde
personally.
Gilles
sat there watching through lidded eyes, hand clasped across his belly, which
was beginning to rumble.
Both
of them were very highly-talented detectives. They had a lot of potential.
Talent was no substitute for hard work, observing proper procedures and that
painstaking attention to detail.
Their
case, while coming together, was messy—very messy.
Attention
to detail had saved his own ass more than once.
It
was a lesson that once learned, would
never leave them.
