Cezanne's Quarry (11 page)

“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 . . . did 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?”

Arlette told him little he did not already know. Her description of the boy was, as Franc had said, applicable to a hundred street urchins in Aix alone.

“And the message. Did you see it? What did it say?”

“I don’t read.”

“What did she say about the message?” he asked impatiently.

Arlette took a deep breath. “She said it said ‘I love you. Meet me at the quarry.’”

“Was it signed?” And if it was, would she tell him?

“No,” almost in a whisper, “I don’t think so.”

“Then why did she go?”

“At first she didn’t know what to do. Then she thought that maybe he—M. Westerbury—was too humiliated to come back to the apartment. That maybe he had something to show her. Something he wanted her to be the first to see. Some surprise.” Arlette stopped, her face in a grimace. “I think maybe he didn’t want to come back here because of me. I don’t think he likes me. I don’t think he liked it that I was here when they quarreled.” She could no longer hold back the tears.

“Why did she go alone?” Martin insisted.

Arlette wailed, “I don’t know. I don’t know. I asked if she wanted me to go with her. She told me, ‘I have to do this. I have to do this alone. It’s a place where we were happy together.’” By now, Arlette LaFarge’s sobbing was so deep that it came out as a series of groans.

Why, Martin thought, why did Solange Vernet go? Did she really love and trust Westerbury that much? Even after their quarrel?

When Arlette finally quieted down, he asked her if she knew where the note was. The maid’s eyes widened with fear as she shook her head. He was almost positive that she was lying.

“Did Westerbury ask you to find it for him?”

“No, sir, no. Truly. They tried to search me already. Don’t—”

“If you know where it is, and you are not telling me—” Too late, Martin realized that he had been shaking his finger at her. He needed to be get control of himself.

“Don’t, don’t,” she repeated as he withdrew his hand.

Don’t what? Brutalize her? Bully her? Even if he wanted to, what good would it do? She had had a lifetime of facing up to men far more brutal than he. Perhaps it would be better, and certainly more just, if he got the information out of the real scoundrel, Professor Charles Westerbury.

Martin rose and slipped his notebook into his pocket. He stood, considering Arlette for a moment before he delivered his last admonition. “If you do find the note or the letter, you will bring them to me immediately. Or you will be in serious trouble.”

Arlette nodded without meeting his eyes. Then she murmured, “She didn’t have on her gloves.”

“What?” he could barely hear her.

Arlette stared at the floor as she spoke. “You said you wanted me to help, to think of anything that was not right. When I went to the basement in the prison to fold her things, they didn’t have her gloves.” She was talking more to herself than to him. “That wasn’t like her, not to wear her gloves. Mme Solange was a lady. I’m sure she didn’t go out without her gloves.”

Arlette’s cataleptic declaration didn’t strike Martin as particularly relevant, but it did catch him off guard, evoking unbidden images—the white-gloved finger pointing at Darwin’s book, the gray swollen hands curled in anguished protest, the face distorted into a silent scream. It was good to remember these things, to remember that this case was more than a contest between him and Westerbury—or anyone else. No matter who Solange Vernet had been, she did not deserve what had happened to her.

Chastened for the moment, Martin found his own hat and headed down the stairs back to the Cours, leaving Arlette LaFarge in her chair to contemplate what she had and had not revealed.

W
ESTERBURY WAS IN THE QUARRY,
trying to lay his hands on anything that could be used against him. He knew all too well how easy it would be to convict a foreigner and cut off his head in one fell swoop. If he was the great geologist who could pick up a rock and within minutes describe its million-year-old history, he thought as he frantically searched through the rubble, why in God’s name, when it was a matter of life and death, could he not find anything now? His gaze fixed on the dark red stain beneath the quarried archway. His Solange. His lady of secret sorrows. And secret sins. How he longed for a drink! But he knew that the only way to survive was to remain sober. Logical. That’s what it had come to. No flights of fancy. No acts of genius. Think and see. What pieces of himself had he left behind here? Were there any more traces of Cézanne?